Hiccup by D.I. Jolly

Josh made coffee while Johnny stared into his afternoon cereal. They hadn’t been awake long and Josh was enjoying the few moments of comfortable silence before being fully awake. Suddenly Johnny looked up with a curious expression and said.

“Where do hiccups come from?”

Josh turned, slightly confused and a bit bewildered.

“What?”

“I mean, like, they’re just this sound and feeling that appear in people, but like, where do they come from?”

Josh blinked, trying desperately to find the thread of a joke, or hint of a sarcastic tone, but all he was offered was an inquisitive stare.

“They… they don’t come from anywhere, it’s a twitch in your diaphragm, the thing under your lungs.”

Johnny’s face scrunched up and he said a little sadly.

“It is? That’s disappointing.”

Josh stared at him even harder still searching for some hope.

“What did you think it was?”

Johnny turned his attention back to his cereal.

“Oh, I don’t know, not that though. I thought that maybe it was some quantum physics thing. Space particles that spontaneously blink out of existence in the reality they’re in and appear inside of people making them hiccup. Or that maybe it was like whenever you hiccup it’s the last pop of a dying star in some other end of the multi-vers. Not just some twitching dia-thingy. I’m really disappointed actually.”

Josh sat down with his coffee and looked at nothing.

“I think it’s safe to say that we’re all a little disappointed right now.”

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