“Last Laugh” (Startling Stories, November 1941)

Bloch, Robert. “Last Laugh.” Startling Stories, November 1941, pp. 91-96.
archive.org/details/Startling_Stories_v06n03_1941-11_ufikus-DPP/page/n89/mode/2up

Angus Breen is controller of the Cosmic Research Division of Interplanetary Colonies, Inc. He wakes happy thinking that his plot will be fulfilled that day, that he will come into full ownership of the valuable properties of Martin Vail, the man he sent to a certain death in space weeks before. Instead, with a loud crash, Vail’s spaceship returns to the landing area just outside of Breen’s home. Breen arms himself and investigates knowing he might have to finish off Vail if it comes to it. Inside the ship, all seems normal until he spots Vail’s cat, now headless and yet still alive, sauntering around the ship. He then finds Vail, himself, although only partly. Vail’s head is affixed to the command chair, kept alive by science far beyond Breen’s understanding. Vail tells his story, how he arrived at the mystery planet to find it inhabited by a species of beings far beyond humans in every way. Their only interest was in humor, and, after hearing Vail’s reason for traveling so far into space, decided that Vail’s revenge on Breen would make for a great joke. Vail admits that they sent him back for one purpose: to kill Breen. Breen scoffs at what is left of Vail, saying there is no way an unmoving head can hurt me. 

Vail reminds Breen of what he saw in the cat and the fact that an immobile head could not pilot the ship through space. Emerging from the shadows, Breen sees Vail’s headless body come toward him. Vail laughs at the situation, telling Breen that his only request was that he be able to shake Breen’s hand. The hulking, mindless body grabs Breen by the throat with one hand and his right hand with the other. Breen’s hand is shaken while the life is choked out of him.
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Decapitation is a plot device in this story, the fourth of Bloch’s stories (by my count) so far to feature this. That a body can be kept alive through advanced interplanetary technology is a similar idea to what Bloch used in “The Body and the Brain” (1939), although in that story the technology was all human. Cats make an appearance here, as well, and for the first time in a non-historical, non-myth setting. One interesting rabbit hole I fell into while trying to find something to write about this story. There was a silent film out of Germany titled “The Last Laugh” (1924) that really has little to do with this story beyond the shared title. It is an example of Kammerspiele, a brief phase of German silent film that offered slice-of-life windows into ordinary people, most of them poor. In this film, a proud doorman at a ritzy hotel is demoted to washroom attendant for being too old. His family rejects him after the lowering of his status, and, with nowhere else to go, he sleeps in the washroom where the night watchman takes pity on him. A characteristic of Kammerspiele is that there are few to no intertitle cards that might disrupt the flow of the narrative. In this film, there is only one. As the old man settles into the oblivion of loneliness and poverty, the intertitle reads: “Here our story should really end, for in actual life, the forlorn old man would have little to look forward to but death. The author took pity on him, however, and provided quite an improbable epilogue” (“Last Laugh”). The doorman inherits a vast sum of money that he lavishes on the workers at the hotel and on poor people outside, as well. The plot seems pretty thin, but it is generally considered an excellent film. Fun!