48 Hour Short Story Contest

Liz Barclay had no way of knowing that by the end of her lunch break, the world would explode and send thousands of pieces of Earth-shrapnel hurtling into space, knocking planets off their orbits, triggering collisions that sent thousands of little green men to kingdom come or wherever aliens go when they die, and ultimately causing the entire universe to fold up into a small purple dot roughly the size of a toaster oven, except without the slots and no thingie to push the toast down, which wouldn‘t matter since there was no bread to toast anyway, and even if there was, there would be nobody to eat it.

She had a turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes, and mayonnaise, and a medium sized glass of unsweetened iced tea. It was lovely. This was a good thing, because when the universe is about to implode, nobody wants their last meal to be something horrid such as a liverwurst pie topped with olives and ketchup. (You may argue that such a thing doesn’t exist, but you would be wrong, because if it wasn’t real, how could it be someone’s last meal? You really ought to think these things through better, you know.)

Since matter cannot be completely destroyed, all the exploding things have to go somewhere. By an extraordinary turn of luck, Liz was folded into the purple toaster-dot, along with a tree, a banana, a beat-up pickup truck, a small chipmunk who had lived in a potted plant next to a bar (and, due to the usual less-than-lucid state of the patrons, frequently had various kinds of alcoholic drinks poured over his furry body, which, even for chipmunks, is not conducive to sobriety), and a couple of other random items that were elsewhere in the dot.

In order for all of these things to fit into such a small space, they must be slightly compacted. This is not to say squished or something unpleasant of that sort, but rather like being placed into a blender and mixed together. Except if that was really what had happened and not just a handy example, the inhabitants of the dot would have been pureed, and hardly in a better condition than the ill-fated individuals who ended up in a different and far worse place than the purple speck.

That was all a roundabout way to say that everything in the dot was very small.
When Liz Barclay woke up, the first thought in her head was not, “Why am I in a small purple dot with a banana and an inebriated chipmunk?” Nor was it, “Oh, gee, looks like the universe has imploded! Oh, well, I suppose it had to happen eventually!” It was actually, “I swear, I didn’t throw my husband off the roof! Would you like some lipstick?” which was extremely odd considering Liz had never been married and didn’t wear any makeup. Normally, one would be curious as to why this thought was in her head, but in this case it’s probably better not to know.

Her second thought was, “Why is there a squirrel on my head?” Of course, it wasn’t a squirrel; it was a chipmunk, but from beneath, the furry creatures look quite similar, and Liz was still slightly discombobulated from the experience of having her planet explode for no apparent reason. You can hardly blame her.

The banana chose that moment to spontaneously combust. Liz thought this was extremely rude of it, considering that if she had to live in an odd universe-toaster-dot, she’d vastly prefer it not to be burned up simply because a piece of yellow fruit couldn’t control its tendency to burst into flame.

After the banana had been reduced to a charred mound of…burned banana, the flames spread to…whatever the ground was made of. It appeared to be a sort of mixture of asphalt, grass, leaves, and the wrappers of fast food hamburgers. This last one was hardly surprising, because, after all, garbage was one of the most abundant elements on pre-exploded Earth. It would have taken incredible odds for not even one piece of it to have ended up here.

Although it could have burned all the ground-ish thing, the fire only burned a perfectly symmetrical circle into it, and stayed like that long enough for Humphrey (this was the name of the chipmunk; Liz didn’t know why, but it was, and there was no point in trying to argue) to run around it twenty-seven times, for absolutely no reason other than he was a small, hyper woodland creature, not to mention drunk.

It was at about this time that it began to dawn on Liz that she wasn’t in Kansas any more. She thought it slightly unfair that instead of an adorable little dog for company, all she had was a intoxicated squirrelly thing.

She supposed she would just have to make the best of it. It occurred to her that it might not be an entirely bad thing that had happened. Change was a good thing once in a while. Liz had never been overly fond of people anyway; loud, messy, polluting bunch, they. And so many stupid laws and rules and senseless things of that sort. Spotting a pair of scissors lying next to a tire of the pickup, she decided to assert her newfound independence by breaking one of the most fundamental imperatives: namely, “Don’t run with scissors.”

Cackling evilly, Liz picked up the cutting implement and followed the chipmunk in its frenzied rush around the dying fire. Maybe the little rodent had the right idea, after all! She kicked it up a notch, snipping the blades together while running…and promptly stabbed herself in the leg. Not deep, but enough to make her realize that maybe all mothers told their kids that for a reason. Oh, well. It had still been fun.

After she’d finished nursing her wound, Liz got up and decided to explore a bit. She’d walked about a quarter mile when she realized Humphrey was following her. Weaving from side to side and occasionally stumbling, but definitely following. When she’d woken up this morning, being stalked by a drunken rodent was just about the last thing she’d expected to happen. Well. Could be worse.

Oh, yes, it could be. A cow appeared from behind the tree. It just so happened that Liz was deathly afraid of cows. They were so…so…cow-ish. She screamed at it, “Get away from me, you horrible cow!”

The cow’s brow (she had never noticed before that cows had brows) wrinkled in confusion. “What’s a cow?” it asked.

“Well, err…a bovine creature native to Earth.” Liz explained.

“Oh,” the cow said. “Well. Let me assure you, dear girl, I’m not one of whatever they are.”

“Sorry.” Liz apologized. “You looked like a cow.”

“It’s perfectly all right.” the thing-that-was-not-a-cow told her. “Common mistake. Or, at least, it would be if I met about a hundred more people from your planet.”

“Okay then, so what are you?”

“I’m a Wock. My name is Baxter.”

“Nice to meet you,” Liz said politely. “Simply out of curiosity, if you’re not from Earth, which I’m not saying you are, because if I was saying that I would be calling you a liar, which I’m not because of course I believe you because Earth cows can’t talk anyway…” she paused for breath, “why do you have an English accent?”

“Accent?” The Wock’s brow furrowed again. “Not sure. I didn’t even know I could speak this language until my planet exploded and I wound up here.”

“That’s what happened to me, too!” Liz cried. “So maybe you ARE a cow, and just got mixed up with an English person!”

“I’m a WOCK!” Baxter said angrily. “Well, I must be off. Toodle pip!”

“’Toodle pip’?? You are too a cow!” Liz accused him. “An English cow! ‘Wock’ is just ‘cow’ sounded backwards, you made that up just now!!”

“Did not, either.” Baxter acted offended. “I don’t have to take this!” He turned and galloped off into the sunset. Liz had never seen a cow gallop before. Watching him, she had a sudden craving for a hamburger.

A scrunching sound under her feet alerted her to the fact that she had stepped on something. Lifting her foot, she saw a slightly squished plastic water bottle. It looked like there was a piece of paper inside it.

When she removed the paper, she saw that it was a letter, addressed, “To whom it may concern - and even if you’re NOT concerned, read it, darn you!!”

She wasn’t quite sure if she was concerned or not, but she read it anyway.

“OK, so like I think my planet blew up or something and like, now I’m in this freaky place and there’s like an elephant and he’s bloody HUGE, and a pizza parlor too except like there’s nobody in it! Oh and I got mauled by a talking cow named Baxter cuz I called him ugly. Anyway, so if there’s like anyone else in this godforsaken place, like you’re not alone. I’ll be the guy with hoof prints on his face. Chow! (or however you spell that.)

- Sammy”

In high school, Liz had known a couple people who said “like” all the time, but never anyone who wrote it, too. It was annoying, but at least he sounded human, and right now, that was good enough for her.

One problem. She didn’t know where the heck this ‘Sammy’ was. Sighing, she looked up, scanned the landscape…and saw a pizza parlor surrounded by elephant tracks. Then it hit her - the guy had done the message-in-a-bottle strategy…without an ocean to set it afloat in. He’d probably just hurled it as far as he could after he’d written it. Clearly, ‘Sammy’ was hardly the brightest bulb in the box.

She pushed open the door to the deserted pizzeria…and was nearly knocked over by a teenage boy with very messy hair…and hoof prints on his face.

“Sammy?” Liz ventured.

“Cheese!!!!!” he screamed.

“Uh…what?”

“Do you have any cheese???” he shrieked desperately, eyes rolling crazily from side to side.

“Um.” Liz said. “No.”

The boy collapsed, sobbing, on the floor. “No cheese.” he moaned. “Noooooo cheeeeeeeese.”

And it was then that Liz began to want her old universe back. To hell with ‘new experiences’! There must be a way to reverse the effect. And Liz vowed to find it, no matter what it took!!!

After fruitlessly trying to comfort Sammy, Liz gave up and left in search of something she could do. Simply standing around made her feel so…helpless.

The drunken chipmunk tailing her obviously thought it was being discreet; it was ducking and weaving, occasionally hiding behind rocks or mounds of Christmas stockings and socks that didn’t match (Apparently, this was where all ‘the other ones’ went before the universe became a purple dot.) Well. Either that, or this behavior was characteristic of inebriated rodents. Liz wasn’t completely sure.

Not everything Liz passed was familiar to her. In fact, the thought that most frequently passed through her head is “What the heck is "that??” If they were described, that thought would only pass through your head as well, so either use your imagination or embrace the wise proverb, “Ignorance is…whatever I’m feeling right now, because I forgot the rest of it.”

Liz walked onward. Seconds turned into minutes. Minutes turned into hours. The next logical progression would be hours turned into days, but that would be a lie, because if she walked for days she’d be pretty bloody exhausted, don’t you think? So. Sorry. Just hours.

Ahead, in the distance, something suddenly appeared that didn’t look anything like the rest of the scenery. It was big, and red…and round. Intent on discovering what this was, Liz pushed herself on, even though she was already feeling worn-out. It took maybe ten minutes to reach the big red round thing. Close up, it looked like a…well, it still looked like a big red round thing.

There was a sign on both sides of the round thing. Liz bent down to read the one on the left.

“You are reading this because the universe has been compacted into a purple dot the size of a toaster oven. If this development is not to your satisfaction, press this button to return everything to the way it was before.”

The one on the right said, “Out of Order”.

Liz fell to her knees, pounding at the ground and screaming, “Why?? Whyyy???” Unable to control her fury, she stood and ripped the sign out of the ground.

The sign behind that one said, “Just kidding.”

She tore up that one, too, then took a deep breath and pressed the button. The world whirled and spun around her. Liz watched in amazement as the universe reconstructed itself.

“Wow…” she breathed.

Then she was back in the diner, partially eaten turkey sandwich in hand. She finished it. It tasted good.

In the end, Liz wrote a best-selling series of books which she titled: “Life In A Purple Toaster-Sized Universe”, made millions, adopted Humphrey the chipmunk, and knocked back a beer or two with him once in a while to celebrate whatever they happened to feel like celebrating.

Life was good.






Word Count: 2248

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