Don't Joke

‘Do you hear that?’

‘Hear what?’

‘Shhhhh, listen!’

The two men stopped their stroll through the shady neighbourhood and listened to the night air. The fatter of the two, Jim, froze and listened intently to the summer night air. Stan - they call him Stan the Man - nonchalantly flexed his arm, rushing the blood into the mosquito’s body, exploding the poor insect.

‘I don't hear anything,’ Jim said, after only hearing a few crickets chirp and a noise that sounded like a married couple in the nearby house arguing over a piss stain on the husband's underwear.

‘No, no,’ hissed Stan, ’ that other noise!’ and then cupped his ear to listen with sonar-like abilities, hearing something from what seemed to be nothing at all.

‘What other noise-’

‘Holy SHIT! I think they're on to us!’ Stan suddenly whispered very loudly; so loudly that it probably would not be considered whispering to anyone in a sane society.

Stan yelled in a non-whispering manner, ‘RUN! SHIT! RUN! They're following us!’ And he broke into a fast sprint towards the direction of nowhere in particular but probably away from whatever he was running away from. Jim, the blubbery man, glanced about, left and right and up and down with his chin fat flubbing after the direction a moment after, suddenly feared for his life, and tumbled after his slimmer friend.

‘Hey! Wait! Wait, the fuck up!’ huffed Jim as he pursued more than followed Stan in a rapid but soon to be short-lived burst of speed.

‘FASTER JIMBO! FASTER! They’re right behind you! QUICK! Follow me over the fences!’ hollered Stan who was easily lifting himself over the fence, and seemed to be getting farther and harder to hear for Jim.

Jim did not hear anyone chasing them, nor did he decide to look back for fear for his life. He was too frightened and out of breath to even consider the notion. He did not want to look back or else he might see some breathtaking thing chasing him. It was inevitable that he will be breathlessly dead if he looked back.

Stan had cleared the fence and was already urging Jim to hurry suit.

‘Quickly! OH FUCKING SHIT, I SEE HIM RIGHT BEHIND YOU,’ screamed Stan.

Jim was too busy spluttering and sucking in precious air to reply.

Jim, who was scared shitless, attempted to leap over the somewhat tall fence. Since, who knows? Amazing feats have been accomplished under stress, or when, as Jim was undoubtedly, scared shitless.

He leaped.

Time stopped momentarily and relatively for the two men as one of them was in midair.

And then the giant dough man crashed down on the fence.

Stan had a fleeting amused thought; did his friend actually think he could hop over a four-foot fence?

Either way, he quickly helped Jim to his feet, with quite a few levels of difficulty - Stan would add, if ever questioned - and encouraged the gasping Jim to continue the escape.

‘Come on! We almost lost them! Just through the clearing and- SHIT, SHIT, SHIT I can see them!’ panicked Stan loudly and suddenly off he went.

Jim, gasped and gasped and gasped as he picked himself up with great speed for an obese man of his size, and started to run/jog/roll towards the direction of Stan.

So he ran.

He ran harder than ever before.

Harder than that time when, back in grade six, his - possibly pedophile - gym teacher, had made him run for fear of after school - possibly sexual - punishments. Harder than the fence he relentlessly crushed some meters behind, and the fence was pretty hard; the wooden fence was reinforced more wooden planks for some unholy reason. He thought he might have scraped a knee but that hardly mattered since the pursuer sounded like he would do more then simply scrape Jim’s other knee. Like perhaps, scrape him away entirely.

And so he ran and ran as he could feel the safety getting closer and closer. So close, that he gasped one short, victorious - it seemed victorious to him - gasp and leaped through, or more precisely fell and rolled, into the clearing and everything was suddenly clear and safe but there was no air! So he gasped and gasped like a fish out of water.

He laid there gasping and felt his lung exploding and imploding over and over.

‘Hey, Jimbo, I was only joking, there wasn't actually anyone chasing us, haha. I sure got you, oh, I sure did,‘ laughed the slimmer man.

‘Gasp.’

‘Well, while I was waiting for you to get here, I got you a bottle of water, man you totally totalled that fence! Haha, I mean, sure, it was just a scrawny, wood fence but it got annihilated!’ Stan tossed the furiously, gasping sweaty blob on the ground a tightly screwed bottle of water.

‘Gasp, gasp, GASP,’ gasped Jim.

‘Haha, you should have seen the look on your face, man you were... Hey Jimbo? Hey, you alright?’

Jim, who abruptly stopped breathing, was not the least alright.

Not even mildly alright.

He was quite dead from a massive heart attack; the kind of heart attack that doctors would threaten their overweight patients with if they ever decided to brave a strenuous activity.

He was not alright at all.