Today's #flashfiction #TheElectronsDilemma

“Animals are people too.”

Captain Ahab* #quote

          Today I went to my costuming club as it's started up again. One thing we're discussing a lot now is the convention the club is running in March. Convention in the same vein as Comicon. This will be the second year. Last year attendance was one thousand people. How many people will show up? I bet even more. Being held at a university with lots of ground and no entry fee is one of the best parts of it. And it's going to have lots of things. (Many businesses are coming with booths, unlike for profit conventions we're not charging them a fee to open a booth.) It's a convention with many advantages over a normal one for people wanting to open booths and people wanting to come alike. (And being non-profit and for a school gives it other good aspects too) I'm glad to be a part of making it this year. Anyway onto the flash fiction!

The Electron's Dilemma

          I've been going fast. So, so fast. I've never gone this fast before. And in circles. So many circles. And I can't touch anything. I can't bond with anything. How's that possible? I've been flying around in these circles for several days now. At least, that's what it feels like. There are other electrons all over the place. They're flying with me in these circles. That means I'm not alone.

          There are no complete atoms though. Not a single nucleus I can make my home. No protons or their neutron buddies to bond with. Other electrons fly by me for some reason. I don't know why. We just keep going in this loop. Where am I?

           Last I remember before this loop is being part of a water molecule. Then in some bizarre reaction or something I became part of this loop. It was a reaction I was unfamiliar with so I can't remember it well. Or maybe it was a familiar reaction that got me here. It could just be this loop. This circular flight I've been tossed through. Maybe it's made me forget that reaction by tossing me around for so long. I don't know. This is so confusing. What put me from the water into here?

         I just want to be part of a molecule again. That wonderful feeling of completeness and balance. Your charge equalizing not only with a proton for yourself but many other electrons doing the same. You make a greater whole. When you're part of a molecule you feel like you actually have real mass. We electrons have so little mass but when part of a molecule we become giants.

          With all this though I'd settle for a solitary atom. Just some sort of safety in a whole. Even if the proton doesn't have a single neutron to make us more of a giant in the world I would just like some company and some stability in being. Some sort of bond.

         But where are they? All I see are electrons! How is this possible? This can't be real. But I don't dream so it has to be. So it is real. But it's not natural. If it's not natural then there's only one option. It has to be them. It's humans. This is how it's happening.

I'm in one of their machines.

          One of their particle accelerators. Me and all of these electrons are in here. But why? Humans have reasons for putting us in these machines. Why did they put me in this machine? Why have they sent me flying around and around?

          And then an electron near me vanished. Not just going between probabilities or something. Gone. Then I remembered something in my weak memory. The one that had been bent and twisted through the experiment. That electrons had been vanishing through the experiment. Something impossible. Electrons couldn't just vanish forever.

         A unique, sudden and thorough terror filled me as I realized an explanation. I started looking around for things besides electrons, protons and neutrons. Something I hadn't done since I was in space. I saw positrons. Something also called the anti-electron. I saw one collide with an electron and it was annihilated. Now that I looked for them I saw all the byproducts of electron destruction. That's what the humans were studying. I now saw all the positrons flying by me. And how lucky I was. How many times during this loop had I been lucky? Probably too many. I found out how much more lucky  I was until one finally hit me and I vanished myself.