It was the final half hour that everyone watched intently, when the three finalists were announced and then narrowed down to two and then, finally, a single winner—the best thing in the world.
The cameras pushed in as Neil Patrick Harris returned to the stage, wearing a crisp blue suit that sharp viewers recognized as the best of its kind.
“The three finalists for the best thing in the world are: Laughter!”
Applause.
“Love!”
Applause.
“And … Nothing.”
People seemed confused, even Neil Patrick Harris (which everyone knew a host was never supposed to seem—so much for his chances at being nominated next year).
“Uhh … Uh, we’ll be right back after this commercial break.”
When the show returned, Neil Patrick Harris was smiling again. His smile was so reassuring, conveying such a contagious calm, that everyone quickly forgot how he had seemed so unprofessionally off-balance just moments before.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to say good night to one of the three best things in the world. Good night to …”
Neil Patrick Harris opened an envelope with the red number 3 on it.
“Laughter!”
Still, amid the laughter, anxiety had settled in among many viewers and especially those in the live studio audience. What did “nothing” mean? Who had nominated it, and how did it make it all the way to the finals on its first time? When love did inevitably win in the end, what would it mean to have “nothing” in second place? Maybe it would enhance the victory for love by placing more distance between love and everything else: “nothing even comes close to love”? Or would it mean that love was only “better than nothing”?
Some of the minds in the room more practiced in anxious thinking were able to wander even farther. If “nothing” were to somehow win—which it wouldn’t, but if it did—what would that mean, exactly? Could that still be a victory for love? Would it mean that nothing was better than love? Perhaps it would function as a gentle and welcome reminder that of course, on some level, this entire competition was meaningless—because nothing, no one thing, could really be the best thing in the world? And perhaps that would be profound or even inspiring? Or would it mean something darker than that—perhaps it would mean that all the things that had been thought of as the very best things in the world were still, on some deeper level, less than nothing?
Or maybe this was all a game of semantics: maybe everyone knew what love meant, and everyone knew what nothing meant, and it really was that simple, and that’s why everyone was so unsettled?
But it wouldn’t even come to that. Love always won, right?
“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” said Neil Patrick Harris, laughing elegantly as part of his incomparably seamless transition from laughter’s highlight reel to the next award, “now, as we wind down another unforgettable night of miracles big and small, it’s time to say goodbye to the second-best thing in the world. Ladies and gentlemen …”
Everyone watching, even the people secure in their knowledge that love always won; even those who talked themselves into believing that the infinite vagaries of the word “nothing” meant that its win could mean anything they wanted it to—everyone—held their breath in the hope that the next thing they saw would be recognizable, somehow, as nothing.
Neil Patrick Harris smiled and began to unpeel the envelope with a red number 2.
“Everyone having a good time? Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to say good night to the second-best thing in the world. Good night to—”
Screens smashed to pure black, and raw, relieved cheers flew up around the world at the appearance of the highlight reel for nothing—as well as in the television studio, where the lights had short-circuited, and the smart, modern orchestral music subtly omnipresent throughout the broadcast had been replaced with a loud, hollow buzz.
As minute after minute passed, though, collective anxiety started to regroup and return. Why was this taking so long? How long was it going to last? This was already far longer than the other highlight reels, and if it went on much more, the show would be out of time before it was able to play the annually updated highlight reel for love, the much-anticipated traditional ending of the show.
And why, some wondered, had the cut to the highlight reel for nothing been so abrupt? It was a curiously crude transition for a show, and a host, that had never made a misstep like that before.