The Jogging Dead

Ireland has fallen. Less than 10% of the population remain.  We live like rats. Hidden underground in bunkers around the country, watching reruns of ‘The Late Late Show’ on repeat and surviving on stale Tayto’s. How did we get here?Ann Kerin, an original survivor remembers, “I saw my husband get taken,” She shudders as she smokes a cigarette filled with cat hair and rolled with Rte guide pages. “He went to Aldi for some milk and came back with all that…that stuff. Leggings so tight he got testicular torsion. High vis shirts that blinded you. He said it was a ‘special buy’”. Men and Women all across Ireland befell a similar fate as Mrs. Kerins husband. Infected by the amazing deals, an unearned sense of superiority and a fear of their impending midlife crises, they caught the bug. They began to jog. There was no cure.The cities were the first to fall. The joggers moved in hordes, taking up any and all footpaths, forcing other pedestrians onto the road, or simply trampling them to death under the crushing weight of orthopaedic Skechers. Drivers weren’t safe either. The joggers filled streets and motorways like they owned the place, causing pile ups and fatal crashes. Blinding cars with gaudy neon as bright as a dying star they jogged onwards. They chatted amongst themselves, oblivious to the carnage around them.Martin O’Brien, another survivor, remembers the day they killed his wife, “We didn’t even see them coming. One minute we were walking to the bar for an evening drink, next minute…” Tears fill Mr. O’ Brien’s eyes. “They just trampled straight over her when we wouldn’t move. I tried to grab her but there was just too much lycra in the way. I shouted for them to stop but it was like they didn’t even hear me. They just kept making that horrible, horrible sound.” Mr O’ Brien is here referring to the characteristic sound made by those infected with Jogging; a harsh, out of breath rasping as if they have been running a marathon, and a constant low chatter about how fit jogging makes you and how anyone who doesn’t jog is a pleb and, in general, an inferior person.For the people of Ireland that are left, hope still remains, that one day we can leave our bunkers and take back our country from the pricks who jog. That we can show the children who were born down in the bunkers, the sky, and stop them from thinking Ryan Tuburdy is some kind of elephant eared God. But for now, that’s just a dream.