The Punchline Comedy Club was electric. It was a packed house, filled with people who’d come to witness the peculiar genius of Jade Mortenson—a stand-up comedian with a rare gift. Jade had always had a knack for making people laugh, effortlessly. A few years ago, she’d begun telling jokes at open mics, just to see if she could make strangers laugh as hard as her friends. And tonight, it was clear she’d succeeded—she had the crowd in the palm of her hand, erupting in laughter that shook the walls.
This was Jade’s big night, and she was on fire, working her way through a polished set. The audience was already rolling with laughter as she delivered one expertly crafted punchline after another. She could feel the energy of the room building to a crescendo. But in the back of her mind, something glimmered—an impromptu joke she’d never thought of before, one she hadn’t planned, hadn’t rehearsed, a quip that surfaced from some unknown part of her. It was bold, audacious, with a mischievousness that made her hesitate.
But only for half a second.
“Alright,” she said with the most evil grin. “Here’s one I just thought of. You won’t forget this one…”
Jade told the joke. It was short and simple, but the effect was immediate. The crowd fell silent for a heartbeat before exploding in laughter that tore through the club like an earthquake. Jade watched as people’s heads tilted back, their bodies doubled over, their faces contorted with a hilarity so intense it bordered on pain. A woman in the front row clutched her stomach, tears streaming down her face. A man at the bar spat out his drink all over, and dropped his glass, shattering it to pieces. Her best friend, Alan—a seasoned comedian who could shrug off the best of jokes—was gasping, barely able to hold himself up. Even Missy, Jake’s longtime friend and the club manager, was reduced to helpless cackling, barely able to stand.
And then Jade noticed something strange. They weren’t stopping. The laughter wasn’t ebbing; it was growing, deepening into a frenzy that held everyone in a tightening grip. People tried to take breaths, to regain control, but the laughter kept coming relentlessly. Some were on the floor now, pounding the ground, gasping between bouts of laughter that left their faces red and desperate. She tried to shout, to tell them to stop, but her own laughter took her hostage. She felt her lungs strain, her face grow hot, her ribs ache. And still, the laughter grew, now a sinister force echoing through the club.
She had told the joke—the one perfect joke, the kind that can only emerge after thousands of years, one so funny that the mind can’t process it without short-circuiting. A primal reaction took hold of everyone in that room, laughter boiling into hysteria, laughter until the body could no longer take it anymore.
In the chaos, some managed to crawl outside, still wracked by gasping laughter. In desperation, they sought out friends, neighbors, anyone who could share in the insanity. They dialed phones, posted online, and as they laughed, the joke slipped from their lips, their need to share it stronger than any fear.
It spread like wildfire, faster than anything humankind had known before. Soon, the city was consumed, and it didn’t stop there. The joke traveled from city to city, broadcast on radio, spoken of on television. In living rooms, cafés, boardrooms, and schools, people fell into laughter that ate away their breath, left them breathless and helpless. Entire families, towns, countries became echoes of that first comedy club, choked with an unending, merciless hilarity. Within days, civilization itself buckled, collapsing under the force of the unstoppable joke.
In the chaos, Jade stumbled backstage, desperate for clarity. She could barely keep her hand steady as she grabbed a scrap of paper from the green room. She scribbled down the joke, driven by something deeper than logic. It wasn’t guilt—it was self-preservation. If she didn’t write it down, the joke might vanish, swallowed by the tide of delirium. But if it survived… someone, someday, might figure out why it had done what it did. A warning, maybe. A puzzle for the future.
Clutching the paper, Jade’s gaze darted around the room until she saw the club’s microphone stand—a sturdy base with a hollowed-out, removable center for storing cables. She unscrewed the stand, rolled up the note, and slid it inside before sealing it shut again. Her lungs burned as laughter racked her body, her vision blurring as she gasped for air. The room was a cacophony of wheezing, choking hilarity, but Jade managed to prop the microphone stand back upright, its deadly secret hidden in plain sight.
And then, at last, her laughter subsided—along with her breath.
Centuries Later
In a world returned to wild forests and broken concrete, few remembered the world that had been. Buildings lay in ruins, their skeletons jutting up through trees that had long since claimed the land. New tribes and wandering souls made their lives among these remnants, hunting for relics, half-forgotten tales of the “Time Before.”
Bran was one of those wanderers. He’d grown up on stories of the mysterious end of civilization, of a “Laughing Plague” that had left the world empty. His elders told stories of the Last Laugh—a fable of a joke so deadly it had brought humanity to its knees. No one believed it, really; it was a tale shared by fireside, a myth.
One day, while scavenging in the ruins of an ancient city, Bran found himself at the remains of what had once been a theater. He kicked away dust and rubble, searching for anything worth trading. As he stepped onto the cracked stage, his eyes fell on a rusted microphone stand. The way it stood upright amid the debris made it seem almost purposeful, untouched by time. Curious, Bran fiddled with it until he unscrewed its base. Inside was a tightly rolled, brittle scrap of paper.
His hands shook as he unrolled the note. The words were faded, scrawled in an uneven hand, but as he read them, their meaning unfurled in his mind.
The joke hit him like a ton of bricks. Bran chuckled, then doubled over as the laughter overtook him. It was like a fever in his blood, every word echoing in his mind, each line sharpening his need to laugh. And despite his struggle for breath, Bran felt an overwhelming urge. I have to tell someone, he thought, delirious with laughter. I have to share it.
Gasping, he staggered out of the theater ruins, eyes alight with the joke that burned in his mind. He thought of his friends, his family, his tribe. They needed to hear this, to feel what he was feeling.
Through the empty ruins, Bran ran, the sound of his laughter rippling through the wasteland. The Last Laugh would echo again. And this time, no one could bury it.