So. You’re walking down the long street of your university. The one where the local traffic has to suffer hoards of college students crossing at inopportune times, laughing and dodging cars like shrieking hyenas—or in places when Winter is brutal, hurrying across the dark pathway, heads down, buried in their scarves, very much like morose…anteaters, or something. So. You’re walking down this street right. You are sleep deprived and you are on your way to your second two hour lecture today, when, as you slouch up the stairs to the building, you notice a small silver ring. Abnormally bright, you notice it wink briefly before you step on it: you stop, paralyzed, in your tracks. It’s not an uncomfortable paralysis, in fact, for the first time in weeks, you feel a clear serenity pervade your body, rippling from the tip of your foot. People stare. The world stares. In fact, the world has stopped entirely. An observer smiles. It strides across the pale sky and moves the planet into a small translucent container and places it on the galatic shelf. It reaches into the abyss and produces another world, nearly identical in size and shape, and places it where your world used to be.
So. You’re walking down the long street of your university. The one where the local traffic has to suffer hoards of shrimp flopping around at inopportune times, flailing and getting run over by cars like shrimping shrimp—or in places when Winter is brutal, attempting to roll across the dark pathway, whiskers down, buried in each other’s shells, very much like morose…shrimp, or something. So. You’re flopping down this street right. You are sleep deprived and you are on your way to your second two hour lecture today, when, as you flop up the stairs to the building, you land on a small silver ring. Abnormally bright, you notice it not at all as you roll over it, because you’re a shrimp: you stop, paralyzed, in your tracks. It’s not an uncomfortable paralysis, in fact, you’re dead. Shrimp flop. The world flops. In fact, the world has flopped entirely.
An observer smiles.
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