vicissitude
[vi-sis-i-tood, -tyood]
1. a change or variation occurring in the course of something.
2. interchange or alternation, as of states or things.
3. vicissitudes, successive, alternating, or changing phases or conditions, as of life or fortune; ups and downs:
They remained friends through the vicissitudes of 40 years.
4. regular change or succession of one state or thing to another.
5. change; mutation; mutability.
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“So, what’d you bring us down here to see?” Mike asked as the three of them walked down
the stairs.
“Something
weird fell near me.” Ivan replied as he led his two friends down to see his
discovery.
“Something
fell on you? Are you okay?” Todd asked.
“Not on
me, you idiot, near me. I was outside
doing stuff in the back yard—“
“That
means he was trying to look at the girls next door sunbathing.” Mike chimed in. Ivan would have hit him, but
since he was in front of the other two, it was too awkward to reach behind him
to do so.
“—I was
outside in the yard,” Ivan continued
instead, “When this thing falls. It left
a pretty big crater to. So I get a jar
and put it in, and then I called you two.”
“So,
what is it?” Todd asked.
“I don’t
really know.”
“What’d
everyone else around do?” Mike asked.
“Most
people that live around here weren’t around when it fell. Those that were kind of panicked and ran
around and screamed and stuff.”
“Ah.”
“Anyway,
here it is.” Ivan said.
They
had reached a small table set up in Ivan’s basement. On it was a tightly sealed jar with a
perfectly round greenish-brown object inside of it.
“So,
that’s it? An ugly ball?” Mike asked.
Todd approached the table and leaned over the jar.
“Weird. It doesn’t look like a rock or anything.” He said.
“As far
as I can tell, it’s not.” Ivan
said. He pushed his way passed Todd and
slowly picked up the jar. “But it does
some weird stuff. Check this out.”
Ivan
slowly and carefully shook the jar. At
first, nothing seemed to happen other than the object clinking against the
walls of the jar. Then it started to
melt. Whatever material it was made of
pooled in the jar and swirled around as it shook.
Ivan
let the now mass of putrid greenish-brown liquid settle a bit, mostly to show
his friends what had happened. Then he
started shaking it much harder. Like
before, the liquid started out doing nothing but slosh around. In a few seconds
though, the jar was filled with a fine mist the color of the round object and
its liquid form.
“Whoa.” Todd said.
“That is freaky.”
“Just
wait. It’s not over yet.” Ivan said as he put the jar back on the
table.
As Mike
and Todd watched, the gas stopped moving around and was soon back in its liquid
state. When that stopped moving, it
bunched up and reformed the original spherical object.
“Huh.” Mike said, unsure of what else to say.
“So,
what do you guys think?” Ivan asked.
“How do
you think it works?” Todd asked.
“If I
knew that, I’d be able to make a fortune with this stuff.” Ivan replied.
“How?” Mike replied.
“You can’t do anything with it.
Any time it moves, it changes states, so it’s useless for just about
anything.”
“I’d think
of something. I’m sure the scientific
community would pay a ton of money to find out.”
“I
guess so.”
“So,
are you gonna sell it or what?” Todd
asked.
“Haven’t
decided yet, but probably not. I want to
really test out everything it can do. I bet if I shook it hard enough, it’d go
full on plasma.”
“You
know what we should do?” Todd said,
apparently getting an idea.
“What?” Ivan asked.
“We
should hook it up to something and find out.”
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Remember, if you find a potentially dangerous alien substance, don't play with it. It might not turn out very well.
Ready for the next installment.
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