literature

13 Tales (2014): The Fourth Tale

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Meanwhile, at the Castle of Dr. Callyco

The kitten in a lab coat was sitting on the floor for the evening as he sat next to a small hole in the wall.

"Apparently, I have mice." Dr. Callyco explained. "Really, I don't mind that much, but I don't approve of free loading. If they're gonna stay here they have to help with the rent." He crouched low on the ground and stuck a paw in the mouse hole reaching around.

"Relax, I'm not going to hurt it." Dr. Callyco rolled his eyes. "I know exactly how those kinds of encounters end. I'm just going to politely explain the socio-economic impact of moving into someone's place without their notice and living off their resources and explaining the need for such an arrangement to involve some form of compensation so the relationship can be symbiotic. What? I'm totes a doctor. I can use big words!" The kitten sighed and removed his hand from the paw.

"I do understand it can be hard to be a mouse, even a normal day of going to work or school at that size can be quite the challenge, and I know all about small challenges." The kitten nodded sagely. "However, digging a hole in my wall is still quite rude." He reached a into the hole again and felt around. "Aha, gotcha." He tugged, on something, and backed away from the mall gripping the tail of something.

It appeared to get stuck on the inside of a wall, but after a few more tugs, Dr. Callyco managed to pull a full sized tyrannosaurus rex out of the wall, taking a good chunk of the wall with oh.

"Oh, well!" Dr. Callyco blinked. "That is a... Certainly a thing! I'm going to need a bigger mouse trap. Well while I deal with this thing, let's have a tale of an actual mouse, their hardships, and show how a single mistake or bad decision can really ruin a day. I bring you the tale..."

The t-rex let loose a roar.

"OI!" The kitten jumped into the air and slapped it on the nose. "Quiet during story time! Now then, I bring you the tale, of Theoretical Alchemy."

Revenge of the Thirteen Tales from Dr. Callyco
The Fourth Tale
Theoretical Alchemy

The thing about being a mouse is regardless of one's career choice it tended to be far more physically demanding than traditional when you were less than three inches tall. There were certain career options available, and small hands certainly helped with construction of small parts. Randy has decided on something he thought would be easy. Alchemy. Like any magical profession it required quite a bit of bookwork, but sitting in an office all day just mixing ingredients around in a bottle seemed pretty easy, even if some of ingredients he had to mix in were as big as him, they still wouldn't be that expensive.

He had been enrolled in an alchemy program for two years. It had seemed somewhat easy, until he had his first encounter with a mortar and pestle. That had been an interesting experience, and instead he had mostly stuck to classes that tended to do a focus more on just throwing things in a bowl and mixing them rather than having to actually process any of the ingredients himself. It was still a work out, he had to climb up the side of the bowl to throw things into it, and stirring it typically involved grasping two hands on a wooden spoon five times his height and running in circles along the outside rim of the bowl to get the thing stirred.

The true problem he was having though wasn't in the physical exercise, it was in the names of different ingredients. Randy could make potions, but he tended to refer to the various ingredients in them as that powdery purple stuff, or those slimy rocs, or that blue thing. While he could tell them apart, his actual exam scores were suffering quite a bit due to being unable to get the name of a single item right. His final exam coming up Randy decided it was time for a desperate ploy.

Not studying though, he wasn't that desperate.

There were certain advantages to being small, such as it being really easy to move around unnoticed. So, one night after the school had closed and the staff had gone home, a small brown mouse boy slipped quietly under the door of the school's alchemy clad. Like most mice he wore less clothing, and more a torn piece of cloth wrapped around his body akin to something like a toga. Unless you were wealthy enough to be able to afford someone clothing custom tailored to your size most mice just wore whatever pieces of fabric they could get their hands on.

The mouse looked around the empty lab, benches lined with various bubbling liquids and powdering substances. Randy looked past them to the far end of the room where the teacher's desk stood at the front. Despite knowing the place was empty he moved with hurried caution afraid to make even the tiniest squeak of a sound for fear of getting caught. He reached the teacher's desk, and quickly scampered up the side of it with ease until he managed to climb on top of it. He moved to the far end, moving past a giant bottle filled with a blue liquid, and then another tall bottle filled with a red one. He climbed over a bowl of purple powder, being careful not to touch any of it himself, and finally reached the far end of the desk facing the teacher's chair. He looked down over the edge of it, and saw the drawer on the inside of the desk.

Being very careful not to lose his grip, Randy slowly lowered himself down till he was standing on the top edge of the drawer where it bulged out slightly. Then he pressed his back and arms against the side of the desk and his feet against the drawer itself attempting to open it. He felt it move ever so slightly, but nothing happened. With a since of sudden dread he realized it was locked. Was it all for nothing?

No, he wasn't going to give up. He very slowly lowered himself on the front of the drawer until he came level with the stock, and grabbed one hand inside of it to steady himself. He reached around for another hold with his spare hand, eventually finding a small groove in the desk. Once steady the hand inside the lock hole he started to move around and feel the inside of the actual locking mechanism. It wasn't too hard to figure out. It was just a simple drawer lock, not the lock on the safe. Lifting up inside on a piece of it he managed to get it unlocked. Climbing back up on top he pushed the drawer out with his feet and finally saw the prize inside.

The answer to tomorrow's exam were his!

Except, the sole sheet of paper in the desk drawer was completely blank. THAT FIEND OF A PROFESSOR! Actually, the professor was literally a fiend, some kind of demon, but that wasn't the point! The exam results must have been written in invisible ink! Still, he was an alchemist in training, he could figure this out.
The nice thing about paper, was even though it was big, it was light. Randy crawled underneath the paper and stood up then dragged then pushed the paper on top of the desk before climbing up on top of it himself. He had to get the paper to one of the lab benches so he could work on revealing the answers on the exam. However, getting across the teacher's cluttered desk proved to be a bit harder with the paper in tow, and since he didn't want to risk it he didn't just dare recklessly run across and drag it behind.

He tried to wedge it between glasses and bend it when necessary, only to bump into a bottle, and then stare in horror as it fell off the side of the desk with a loud crash. Magenta smoke came from where the potion had landed on the floor and Randy froze completely terrified sure someone would come in to investigate the noise.

No one game.

Apparently, schools didn't have night security.

With a sigh of relief, Randy reached the end of the desk, then grabbing two corners of the paper jumped off, and used the paper to glide down to the floor safely. Climbing up one of the lab benches with the paper though was a bit more challenging. With some reluctance, Randy nibbled a small hole in the top of the paper, and then ran his own tail through it. Bending his tail around he gripped it in his own mouth to let the paper hang off his tail while he climbed the side of the bench. Climbing was strange, it was hard to keep balanced with his tail like that, and took him much longer to scramble to the top of the lab bench, and once there stumbled into another glass bottle. This one tipped into a second bottle, which tipped into a third, and then a fourth, and as Randy looked on he saw it ran the full line of the lab bench as one after another was tipped over. Their contents poured out onto the desk as they fell over making several multi colored puddles that Randy couldn't identify. He tried to move away, and managed to avoid stepping in any himself, but the paper he was hanging on his tail was another matter.  It was soaked in a green liquid and immediately burst into green flames.

It was at this point that Randy panicked. Worried he was going to lose his tail he opened his mouth and let his tail go straight to try to run and let the paper fall off. However, it stuck to him as he ran, and even when catching on other bottles didn't come off and Randy managed to knock down even more. A blue powder was dumped onto the floor and mixed with a white liquid and resorted in a chair becoming a winged pig that flew out the window. A fine gold dust got mixed with a blue bit of slime and then grass and flowers sprung up on the table all around it. An un-hatched caterpillar egg rapidly aged into a full grown butterfly and flew off which due to disturbances of the winds from its wing flaps started a chain of events that eventually led to a volcano being erupting and producing apple juice instead of lava.

The end result of all this running around though was Randy tripping over a pestle on the bench and flying off the side and landing on his head. Luckily, another advantage of being a mouse was you weighed very little, and other than being a bit dazed was completely unharmed from the fall. He shook his head and looked around realizing the paper had come off his tail and sat just about half a foot in front of him. The last of the green flames on it slowly died away, showing a paper that though slightly singed now had elaborate gold writing on it and explaining the contents of the next test.

SUCCESS! Randy threw up his arms in triumph.

It was at this point the bottles on the bench falling like a chain of dominos reached their end, as the very last bottle was tipped over. With no other bottle to bump in tipped onto its side with the open end tilting off the bench and dumped its entire contents of clear liquid right on top of Randy.

Randy gave an annoyed sigh. Now he was wet. At least it didn't seem to be anything dangerous, he started to walk towards the exam paper to pick it up, only to get annoyed as he had to pull up his cloth which was starting to slip off. Being soaked through must have weighed it down. However, no sooner had he pulled it up and tight around him than he felt it loosen again, and it was starting to feel heavy.
Sure fabric weighed more when it was wet, but it was starting to feel really heavy, but it wasn't an issue for long as the fabric fell to the ground leaving the mouse in just his bare fur. Previously, it had barely been enough to cover his chest and down to his knees. Now the fabric looked to be twice his size. Some kind of cloth enlarging potion perhaps? Except as Randy looked around, to his dismay he realized that wasn't it. Everything else was getting bigger too, the exam paper was getting further away! He was already a tiny mouse, but now he was probably no bigger than an insect, and getting smaller still he realized!

Part of that might be because he was still standing in a puddle of the potion. He started to run for the edge of the puddle to get out of the shrinking potion. The puddle was only a few inches wide, and probably a tenth of an inch deep. However, it become harder to move as the puddle slowly started to come up to his ankles, and then his knees. Randy tried to run but tripped and fell, landing on all fours of it, and getting a nasty bit of it inside his mouth. He tried not to swallow and spit it out, but as he stood back up the puddle was now up to his waist. It was now like trying to wade across a river than step out of a puddle, and as he moved as fast, soon it was coming up to his chest, and then to his shoulders. After about thirty seconds he was swimming in the potion no longer able to reach the floor with his feet. He had to be less than a twentieth of an inch, and was still stuck in the potion.

He tried to swim for what now looked like a shoreline, but the distance was getting further away instead of closer. Soon, he wasn't even able to see the edge of it, and it was as if the potion was an endless ocean. With more of his body expose to the ocean of shrinking potion he was going down in size at a faster and faster rate. He was already down to a hundredth of an inch, then a thousandth, then smaller. The potion at this point was starting to feel solid, and seemed to be made up of several squishy rocks instead of being a pure liquid. Grateful for some land, Randy managed to crawl up and balance himself on top of the 'rock.' The squishy rocks were getting bigger, and more solid by the moment, and Randy realized he was looking at individual molecules. He was not only around one hundred thousandth of an inch, smaller than a micron, smaller than individual molecules. He no longer felt even slightly wet, and realized he was completely dry due to being smaller than even the smallest droplet of liquid.

However, touching the molecule seemed to be bad enough, as the molecules continue to grow and swell around him, until the tiny rocks just big enough for him to sit on were mountains. He was smaller than a millionth of an inch, and soon suddenly found the solid molecule he was sitting on to be comprised of empty space that he fell between. There were large fast moving objects flying around in the space, each one about as big volley ball. He managed to get his hand onto one of them, and was dragged with it but at least he was no longer falling. The ball seemed to be getting larger, and larger and soon Randy was able to climb his way on top of it and sit on a tiny round island just big enough for him.

Except it wasn't just a tiny ball, it was made of bits and pieces of its own, and as it got bigger Randy noticed more glowing balls floating around the one he was sitting on. He was sitting on an atom! A single atom all by himself! Less than a billionth of an inch tall Randy was now small enough to sit comfortably on an atom. He wondered why it was he was still shrinking away, he couldn't interact with the individual molecule now, but he supposed the atom was still in the effect area of the actual potion.

The object he was on was revealed to be made of grouping of smaller ones, each one about as tall as Randy now. He realized these were protons and neutrons, meaning the glowing whizzing pieces he saw earlier would have been electrons. At this point, dread had vanished. What was happening was happening, and it was hard to imagine how anything further would be any worse for him, instead it was replaced by a sense of wonder. He wondered if anyone else had ever had an accident and witnessed things on this same level before.

The atom itself was soon larger than a planet to him, and then he could easily sit on a single proton, only for that to grow in size in comparison to him until he was so tiny it was hard to remember that he was on anything subatomic, but just on a strangely barren planet.

Then, he was falling again, he must have become to tiny to even stand on an individual proton and fallen right through it. There was darkness everywhere, except every now and then lights blinking into existence. He picked his brain trying to think of what they were called.

Quarks!

That was it. The flashing lights were all over now, and the lights were getting bigger. So, Randy realized he was still shrinking. He wondered what was smaller than a quark? Him apparently. Smaller and smaller her got till each individual flash might as well been an enormous star that he could almost reach out and touch, but in the end he became even too small to notice even these.

He was probably like a trillionth of a trillionth of an inch now; he didn't know how small that even was. It was impossible for him to try to grasp the difference in size between himself now and when he had been 3 inches tall it was to vast. To think, once he had considered that small.

Something started to come into light, it was a series of perfectly flat ongoing strings. It was strange they were so fine in area it was hard to tell they were there and yet they were. Even when he shrunk as small as they were long it was hard to focus on them, but a little easier. At this point the strings didn't seem to grow any larger; Randy realized he had finally stopped shrinking. He wondered if it had just worn off, it if maybe he had shrunken so small it just wasn't possible to be smaller. That would put him somewhere around a Planck length, and that would explain what the strings are.

Randy managed to grab hold of one of the strings and pull himself to it. At this point he didn't so much as fall as just float, but it still made it easier to have something to grab onto. He thought for a few moments, and wondered if anyone would notice what had happened and find a way to reverse this, and then he thought about how angry the fiend of a professor would be once he found out, and what a demon with a P.H.D in alchemy was capable of. Maybe, it would be better if they couldn't fix it, that thought was terrifying.

Instead, the tiny beyond all reason mouse turned his attention to the string instead, and slowly started to nibble on the end of it. He had to eat something while he was down here.
Meanwhile, at the Castle of Dr. Callyco

The kitten in a lab coat was sitting on the floor for the evening as he sat next to a small hole in the wall.

“Apparently, I have mice.” Dr. Callyco explained. “Really, I don’t mind that much, but I don’t approve of free loading. If they’re gonna stay here they have to help with the rent.” He crouched low on the ground and stuck a paw in the mouse hole reaching around.

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt it.” Dr. Callyco rolled his eyes. “I know exactly how those kinds of encounters end. I’m just going to politely explain the socio-economic impact of moving into someone’s place without their notice and living off their resources and explaining the need for such an arrangement to involve some form of compensation so the relationship can be symbiotic. What? I’m totes a doctor. I can use big words!” The kitten sighed and removed his hand from the paw.

“I do understand it can be hard to be a mouse, even a normal day of going to work or school at that size can be quite the challenge, and I know all about small challenges.” The kitten nodded sagely. “However, digging a hole in my wall is still quite rude.” He reached a into the hole again and felt around. “Aha, gotcha.” He tugged, on something, and backed away from the mall gripping the tail of something.

It appeared to get stuck on the inside of a wall, but after a few more tugs, Dr. Callyco managed to pull a full sized tyrannosaurus rex out of the wall, taking a good chunk of the wall with oh.

“Oh, well!” Dr. Callyco blinked. “That is a… Certainly a thing! I’m going to need a bigger mouse trap. Well while I deal with this thing, let’s have a tale of an actual mouse, their hardships, and show how a single mistake or bad decision can really ruin a day. I bring you the tale…”

The t-rex let loose a roar.

“OI!” The kitten jumped into the air and slapped it on the nose. “Quiet during story time! Now then, I bring you the tale, of Theoretical Alchemy.”

Revenge of the Thirteen Tales from Dr. Callyco
The Fourth Tale
Theoretical Alchemy
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