Time Crystal

Dr. Henrich had been working on the prototype for decades. His entire career had been devoted to transferring the three dimensional periodic arrangement of a crystal onto a four dimensional construct.

He had finally succeeded.

His time crystal would allow him to travel to any time he wished. He could walk through the past the same way we normally walk down a busy street.

Unfortunately at his age, he was hobbled by his recent hip replacement and the crystal wasn't large enough to fit his Segway. It would take him hours just to make it back to breakfast this morning.

Banishment

Ralph saw the boat waiting for him and wanted to cry. He was walking away from the only home he had ever known in his life.

The town of Kellenah occupied a small island off the coast of South Carolina. It was the only place in America that practiced democracy in the same style that the ancient Greeks had. That included banishment.

The townspeople had just voted Ralph off the island. He expected that his family at least would have come with him, but they decided to stay. They were unwilling to give up their membership at the country club.

Founding Father

The first documented invasion of Earth occurred prior to the Revolutionary War in the mid-eighteenth century. The aliens had achieved interstellar flight through a complicated series of hydraulics powered by steam. They were an industrious species but their eagerness to rule Earth was not matched by their technology.

The invasion began in less populated parts of North America and mainly affected the natives. The first major settlement they entered was Adamsville, which was completely burned to the ground.

The new world might have been destroyed then and there had it not been for Benjamin Franklin and his invention of electricity.

The Allergy

Last Saturday, I woke up to discover I was allergic to the color green.

I experienced a burning sensation and debilitating pain as I watered my plants, ate a salad for lunch, and finally mowed the lawn in the afternoon. That last one led to a trip to the emergency room.

The allergist was the first to diagnose me. She said it wasn't as unusual as I might think to be allergic to color. She mentioned a friend who had been allergic to yellow his whole life.

The thing is, as Superman, it was bad enough with the kryptonite thing.

The Clock

I was walking down Canal Street when a man threw a clock from the roof of a twenty-story building. It smashed into the car next to me and I was startled from my chocolate-induced haze. I really like chocolate when I can get it.

I caught just a glimpse of the man and he looked like an angel, all blond hair and white clothes. I examined the clock, with its hands pointed to 4:44. I wondered if it indicated the start of the rapture.

Later, I realized the angel had escaped from the asylum at the same time I had.

Gothic Punishments

The idea was to keep piling bricks until you'd walled yourself into a tomb of your own making. It was all very Gothic, something straight out of Poe.

For Walter Rochester, however, the laying of bricks was not strictly a punishment. He found the monotonous labor helped to relieve his mind of thoughts of his unfulfilled existence and he embraced the endeavor. Where others resigned themselves with morbid indifference, Walter used the opportunity to indulge all of his latent fantasies.

His father had forbid him to attend architecture school, so his tomb would be a monument to those abandoned ambitions.

The Science Of Engineering

No one knew what was causing the rumble in subway line Q6, but it had people scared. City council called in the engineers and scientists to determine the source before they had an accident.

The engineers took a survey to measure what environmental factors might be affecting the tunnel and quickly reached a conclusion. Groundwater was leaking into the structure and had compromised the integrity of the entire network. They ordered an immediate closure to the line and made plans for repairs.

The scientists meanwhile blamed the whole thing on climate change. No wonder the Republicans hate science so much.

Ataraxia

He was plagued by a disturbed mental state, in that his mind was almost always perfectly relaxed. There were brief episodes of interruption over the course of the day, when he might eat a bit of sustenance or move an inch here or there. But even in these moments of excitement, his mind was preternaturally tranquil.

We would watch him for hours at a time, recording the slightest movements. On the one hand, we envied his peacefulness, and became more contemplative ourselves, but we still looked at him as something of a freak.

This was the life of a sloth.

Pickled Confectionery

Anyone who's been to the wrong side of West Virginia knows that just about anything can be pickled. The shop windows are lined with jars of pickled vegetables, pickled rattlesnakes, pickled squirrels, pickled acorns. They'll even take candy and Twinkies and preserve them for wintertime.

My grandfather was from West Virginia and he would boast they used to eat the pickled leather of worn-through boots. I'm not sure if he was telling the truth or not, but it makes me feel fortunate that today we have the option of eating at McDonald's. Though I can imagine pickled hamburgers are next.

Granular

Justin and Franklin had been roommates for six months. They disputed everything on a granular level.

If Justin wanted to use the kitchen, Franklin would argue that in the fundamental sense of the word, kitchen is simply a place to cook. Justin could just as easily cook something in his bedroom, say a package of ramen noodles, so it would be correct to say that his bedroom was also a kitchen. Justin would retort that since his name was on the lease, one could consider that the entire apartment technically belonged to him.

Justin and Franklin hated each other immensely.