When my partner moved to the Moon, we figured the act could go on. We’d just do the show over a live feed. Simple plan. Three seconds killed it.

The Moon is far. Sound takes exactly three seconds to get there.

“Hi everyone, we’re Matsuken!”

I say my line, and three seconds later, Matsu bows on the screen.

”…-ken!”

Already out of sync.

Manzai lives and dies on timing. The funny man sets it up, the straight man shoots it down—instantly. On the Moon, there’s no “instantly.” Matsu delivers the joke, I wait three seconds to hear it, I fire back, and my comeback takes another three seconds to reach him. The audience just sits there. It’s not that the joke bombs. Time itself piles up in the silence.

“What if I just go first?”

That’s what I figured out on day two. Matsu’s jokes always come straight out of the script we rehearsed. So why not throw the comeback before I even hear the setup?

I stopped waiting for Matsu to open his mouth. I fired my line three seconds early.

“You idiot!”

Three seconds later, right beside Matsu on the Moon, my voice landed square on the tail of his joke. The lunar crowd roared.

It worked. On the Moon, we were a flawless duo.

Back on Earth, though, it fell apart. There I was, yelling “You idiot!” at a Matsu who hadn’t said a word yet. The Earth crowd just stared, blank. Sync up with one side, and you lose the other. Distance steals time, and there’s no getting it back.

Still, somehow, we became the most popular weird double act on the Moon.

“Got an offer from the big theater on Mars. Double the pay.”

Matsu was into it. I ran the numbers. Sound takes ten minutes to reach Mars. Ten minutes. Which means I’d have to throw my comeback a full ten minutes before Matsu even thought up the joke.

Impossible. This whole act only works across exactly three seconds—the gap between Earth and the Moon. Too close, and there’s no gap to fill. Too far, and there’s nothing left to time against.

I typed out a short reply on the feed and sent it.

“Mars is too far, man.”

Three seconds passed. Turns out, right about then, Matsu was digging up one of our old bits. His voice came through from the far side of the screen.

“—And get this, now Mars wants us too!”

My line—too far, man—landed square on the tail of his joke. Matsu cracked up. He slapped his knee, laughing so hard. Three seconds late, and it was the best comeback I ever threw.