Friday, May 09, 2008

GONE FISSION: A 100-WORD TALE

Theodoric was in trouble. Deep trouble.

As an up-and-coming young alchemist at the Magisterium, he had boasted openly of his ability to turn base metal into gold. Too openly...

...for when the Regent’s men overheard him, they were swift to pass word to their master.

Now he shared a fetid cell with a heap of leaden ingots. Transmute or die, they had told him.

Sweating, trembling, he closed his eyes, tonelessly reciting the incantation.

An ill-timed stutter on the last word added fifteen protons and twenty-seven neutrons too many, whereupon the Magisterium, along with the surrounding countryside, ceased to exist.

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