“One moment, please.”
The visitor looked slightly nonplussed at being spoken to in such a distracted way upon entering the lab. After all, it was his money that was paying for all this equipment. The white-coated boffin, his back turned to the rich, self-important interloper, continued his precise, carefully measured movements, adding distractedly, “I’ll be with you soon.”
The visitor stood still while making his patience obvious. He’d have things to say, memos to send, opinions to broadcast and, ultimately, even an employee to dismiss.
He took the opportunity to cast a critical eye around the laboratory, using that irritatingly fastidious attention to detail one normally associates with financial auditors. Those spiral glass tubes he knew cost a small fortune, and as for the other misshapen bespoke glassware, he could only guess. His mental calculations were interrupted by another curt comment from the white-coated boffin, “Almost ready to begin.”
A white taper, glowing red at one end, moved towards the burner, causing the hissing stream of invisible gas to ignite with a satisfying whoosh.
The bulbous glass directly above the flame appeared dark and dulled with use; this heating action had clearly been performed many times, leaving behind much carbonized evidence. The upper portion of the bulbous jar was sufficiently transparent, however, to allow the gradual growing of a miniature steam cloud to be observed. The visitor’s rudimentary grasp of scientific processes led him to assume that some form of condensation might be taking place soon, and doing so in one of the fantastically shaped pieces of glassware that his far-from-rudimentary grasp of economics led him to believe was costing a great deal of his shareholders’ profits.
“Won’t be long now,” chirruped the white-coated boffin without raising his head, his bespectacled eyes focused on the delicate and complex chemical process happening before him. He followed carefully the motion of liquid through labyrinthine glass tubing. He smiled like a child in a toy shop at Christmas.
The visitor noted the gurgling noises now emanating from other oddly shaped beakers through which the bubbling creation was now flowing. Observing the remaining glassware, he estimated the process would be completed within a minute. His curiosity had now been piqued to the extent that he opened his mouth to ask a question.
However, the white-coated boffin interjected with, “Almost finished now.”
Undiscouraged, the visitor decided to ask the most obvious of questions, “What is it exactly you are making here?”
For the first time that morning the two men fully acknowledge the presence of the other by making eye contact.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No, that’s why I asked.”
“We scientists refer to it as C8H10N4O2.”
“Interesting, but chemistry was never my strong point. Does it have another name?”
The white-coated boffin, carefully masking any derision in his voice, replied, “Yes, it does.”
Before either man could speak further, the terminal piece of glass tubing disgorged the final product into a ceramic receptacle. The boffin passed it to his visitor, “Here, smell.”
“Coffee?”
Recently nominated for Best Small Fictions 2027, Michael Smith’s fiction has already appeared over sixty times in online literary journals such as Fabula Argentea, The Hooghly Review, Witcraft, Literally Stories, Microromance, Heimat Review, Little Old Lady Comedy, and many others. He has self-published a historical fantasy, Dinner Time, two volumes in the Gruseltal series, and three short story collections, Fonts, Songs, and L < M, all available from online bookstores.
Website: https://frucht-schleifen.weebly.com/
Featured photo by Taha Samet Arslan (Pexels)
Michael, as always, great story. You use imagery extraordinarily well to draw the reader into the scientific process and plot. Like “the visitor”, I was puzzling out until the very end what the liquid could be.