Fluorescent fucking lights flickered loudly in a dull building—the HeavenTower, Shawnee’s tallest structure other than the big ass hill behind it. Chris stood at the water cooler with Jimmy and shit-shootin took precedence over their chores, except for those damn Prozac Chris was popping into his mouth.
“Tatum’s not gonna win MVP,” said Chris. “They’re not even gonna win the series.”
“Whatever dude,” disagreed Jimmy. “Boston’s got this.”
“All I’m saying is that it’s a long series and Luka’s gonna go off.” Chris paused and pondered and shot a sly little grin. “Everybody acts tough when they’re up.”
The conversation dissipated and Chris quietly returned to his cubicle—a lone island in a sea of swordfish. His eyelids called LifeAlert—a new call popped up on his screen and a fucking weirdo was on the other side, he was sure. Chris hovered his mouse to the green phone icon and clicked it. Show time.
“Holy Hills Medical Center, this is Chris.”
“Yeah uh,” replied the woman on the line. “I’m with Paul Revere and we’ve got a situation.”
“Okay dear,” said Chris. “What’s up?”
“Y—uh we’ve got an employee who appears to be having a psychotic break.”
Chris leaned forward and opened his notepad. He started typing symptoms left and right: paranoia, delusions, grandiosity, slurred speech, and the whole nine yards. He clicked hold and watched a basketball highlight video and took the call off hold and said “The best I can do is April 6.”
“A—April?” replied the woman.
“Yeah,” replied Chris. “We’re pretty booked up.”
The call ended and he opened his chatbot and typed something in and he sat idly for a while before those social cues that always escaped him came calling.
Jimmy glanced across the room at Chris. He felt chipper after his multi-mile run that morning. He felt more powerful after drinking his protein shakes and pumping his gym weights and eating his eggs and bacon that morning. A childless bachelor at thirty-one, Jimmy charmed his way through any room. His study of seduction and charismatic nature was a perfect storm of downpouring douchebag. He hid his insecurities like a married man hides his mistress, but he saw the good in people.
He was ready to strike.
“Hey Chris.”
Chris looked up and rolled his eyes as they connected with Jimmy’s and he reluctantly walked over to the laidback jokester along with some other coworkers. They all knew Jimmy had a loaded wordweapon.
“I got fired from my job at the keyboard factory,” said Jimmy with a devious grin. “They told me I wasn’t putting in enough shifts.”
A laser beam of laughter cheneyed from the silence and echoed throughout the ominous god damn ass office. Chris cracked a timid smile and headed back to his cubicle thinking I can’t succumb to Jimmy’s aura. He surveyed the room and sat down to code a couple of lines while the decibels rose higher than a red-eye flight.
The laughter became contagious and infected the proles like a pandemic virus—a parasite with no end in sight. Breathing became a luxury for the growing group of jesters, including Jill, a young coder fresh out of college. A real looker with a brighter mind, and Jimmy had his sights set on her. In between bouts of laughter, Jill said “That’s a good one, Jimmy.”
Jill hunched over with her guttural guffaw and grabbed her stomach tightly, tears streaming down her aesthetically arresting face. Her smile was wide like a white polar bear on the salmon trail. She panicked and peeked around the corner while her coworkers continued to crack up. She looked Chris directly in the eye, and for a moment, they shared an embrace as Chris pulled out his phone and called his wife. Jill gasped for air and her face turned blue and she fell to the ground and shook something fierce.
Her peers chortled, despite their worried words, and their chilling fates became untimely deaths. The lungs of the wheezing workers stopped one by one, and twenty-one people died from laughter on that menacing morning… except for Chris, of course, because why else would we write about him?
Chris calmed his way through the carnage and called the emergency services. They cleaned up the scene and Chris went home and walked through the door with his shoulders hunched and his head down.
“Honey, I’m home,” yelled Chris as he dropped his backpack on the ground and untucked his blue-and-green-checkered shirt. No response. “Honey?”
He walked down his home’s hallway adorned with pictures of family and friends and his stomach churned. Chris turned the corner to enter their bedroom, and his wife stared at him in silence, her grin widening and her eyes piercing his soul. She wailed and then laughed maniacally. She fell over, grabbing her stomach and rolling on the floor, and a seizure snapped her neck and killed her instantly. Chris sat on the bed and spoke to himself.
“Laughter is the best medicine.”
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