Tag Archive for: only when i laugh

Relieving Laughter

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by Andreas Flögel

Smoking gun in hand, Jack stood in the children’s room.

The sight of his shot-down sons was horrifying. Knowing this had been the only way to spare them further suffering offered no comfort.

The ‘laughing virus’ (no one could remember the scientific name) was deadly and extremely contagious. Those infected died from hours of painful, convulsive spasms of uncontrollable laughter.

A thought came up: Laughter from the children’s room – had Jack overreacted?

This idea made him giggle, then laugh out loud.

Relief washed over him, despite the cramps that made it hard to lift the weapon to his temple.

Andreas Flögel

Andreas Flögel thinks laughter is not always deadly. But if you want to play it safe, a subtle smile is your best bet.

Website: dr-dings.de

 

 

Falling on Deaf Ears

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by Laurence Croft

Tom used to play a cruel joke on me: he would put his hand in front of his mouth, preventing me from lipreading, then say stuff that made his mates laugh. I’ll never know what he said, but their mockery made me so miserable that I ended up on sertraline.

So, one evening, I got my own back. I spiked Tom’s drink, then tied him to a chair in the basement.

“What’s the difference,” I said, when he came to, “between Tom and tears?”

I cackled gleefully, relishing my own wit. Then I brandished the knife.

“Tom has no ears.”

Laurence Croft

Laurence Croft is a writer from London who now lives in Heidelberg, Germany, where he works as a tour guide. His fiction has appeared in the Dark Lane Anthology, Creepy Podcast, The Satirist, and Sci-Fi Shorts.

 

 

Cracker Jokes

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by Corinne Pollard

Cracker jokes aren’t funny. Yet when it flutters out from my paper hat, I feel obliged to read it out loud.

“What do you call an elderly snowman?” I pause. “A puddle.”

Most groan, some roll their eyes, but Aunt Iris, who’d been at the sherry, laughs.

I smile at her silliness, watching as her cheeks grow redder, until…BANG!

She vanishes, and my vision darkens. I wipe her blood off my face and realise the table is swimming in it.

I spot her eyeball floating in the gravy boat and her ear in my champagne glass.

Cracker jokes aren’t funny.

Corinne Pollard

Corinne is a UK disabled horror writer who loves to dabble with drabbles. Follow her online: @CorinnePWriter

Getting the Last Laugh

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by Jeff Currier

For Max, it began as a low rumbling chuckle. For Helen, a delicate tittering giggle. Inevitably though, it slowly swelled, gleeful chortling burgeoning into gut-clenching rambunctious hilarity.

Like all laughter, it was contagious. It spread unchecked, a convulsing wave of mirth, drowning the entire world in uproarious pandemonium.

They tried regaining control. But through their rising trepidation, their desperate howling tears, the unbridled raucous cachinnation only grew. Mutated. Into hysterical cackling terror.

Abruptly Max collapsed, a broken empty harlequin, his prefrontal cortex cerebral tissue all consumed. Helen, and everyone else, soon followed. The brain parasites had finally gorged themselves silly.

Jeff Currier

Jeff writes little stories. Find more @jffcurrier on X or Jeff Currier Writes on Facebook.