A Lucky Break

Photo by: Al Forbes

It wasn’t only the fault of the comet. The object spilled out materials billions of years old as it passed close to Earth. Some of these strange materials, unimagined by scientists, settled upon Lochgilphead, Scotland. Under ordinary circumstances the materials were inert, but Seamus Fitzhugh was no ordinary nine-year old.

Fascinated with his chemistry set, Seamus wasn’t particularly clean about it. If anything got on his hands, he simply wiped it off on the same spot beneath his work table. Dollops of epoxy, drops of turpentine, and smatterings of sodium nitrate among other odd bits were all deposited in the same location. Comet dust soon fell there. Strange reactions bubbled. A field of otherness grew, a connection to elsewhere.

Having held a beaker before a bunson burner’s flame with no result, Seamus gave up. He turned off the burner’s valve, but the flame continued. Puzzled, he shut off the valve at the fuel tank. The flame still burned. Seamus finally noticed the burner’s supply hose passed through the event horizon of the curious and dark, otherness.

***

In neighboring galaxy uxr-2717, General Prppht’s car suddenly stalled. A careful examination revealed a most curious hole in the fuel tank. He cursed his bad luck. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, he couldn’t give the go signal during the mere minutes that the wormhole remained open.

The invasion of galaxy urq-3823, with the Humans of Earth, would have to wait another one thousand years.
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Written for Sunday Photo Fiction.