The Scientist

Monochrome, monochrome, monochrome. Monochrome. That was the scientist’s word of the day.
The word of the century in fact. And the word plastered all over his papers, all over his results like a disgusting leech. That was all he was getting. Every single day. Every single week. Every single eternity. And it was driving him batty.

He looked around in his respectable laboratory, his labyrinth of gray, and couldn’t help but smile. All around him remnants of his exploits, his endeavours, his history, the very core of his existence, scattered. Some on the walls. Some on his racks. Some on his bookshelves, which offered a sense of order to his organised chaos. And some in the forefront of his space of scientific exploration. Shimmering vials glistering with revolutionary fluids that had changed the very evolutionary path of his world. Glass capsules connected to wires, and filled with bubbling liquids and organism after organism after organism, clones and transgenic creatures alike, mere playthings under his hand that had propelled his research to stunning new levels of genius. And a variety of machines and wires and pulsating devices, some of his finest creations and which have allowed him to truly tinker with the laws of physics. Alas, none have prevented him from coming up with nothing but monochrome.

Sighing for a bit, he took in a great intake of breath, and flashed his pearly whites in a menacing and joyous grin. But today was the day where he didn’t just get monochrome. Today was the day where his experiments proved…fruitful. Today was the day that his greatest scientific endeavour would finally be realised. And it made him gleam with an unusual and atypical degree of satisfaction.

He glided through his laboratory, nervous yet eager apprehension oozing off his pale pale skin. He stopped, and took a moment to bask in the brilliance of his now completed and no longer “monochrome” machine. Shaped in the almost infinite brilliance of the seemingly simplistic circle, it seemed as though it could house a wonderful portal. As he gazed at his machine a lonely tear streamed down the fractured skin of his cheek, as he was taken back by the overpowering forces of nostalgia and pride. He sighed a happy sigh, and smiled for the first time in a long time.

For centuries he had explored the very limits of the scientific field, and discovered a multitude of things that not even the brightest individual would have conceived of. Cures for all aliments, even certain elixirs that can grant ever-lasting life, where DNA will never truly unravel. Which proved useful for his exploits. After all, his pursuits needed an extensive quantity of the universal currency that is time, which he previously did not have much of. Then there was inter-dimensional travel. By that stage his world was warming up to him and his potential, and from that day on he would extend his reach to the stars, and usher in a new age of peace and whatever else peeps like his kind liked to usher in. Finally, there was time travel, a field that would have truly have made them gods. But it was already dangerous idea in theory, and after a test run, and after the disappearance of his brother, he shelved it away, and deemed it too perilous for industrial use, let alone mere pleasure and passion rides. Despite the harsh outcry of the others. And his eventual ostracisation…

But as he stood before his newest creation,  he smirked. All of that was then, and while all his previous accomplishments were great, nothing could come quite close to his latest endeavour.  His leathery skin glistening with an excitable sweat never thought possible before, he moved in, heaved, and pulled the lever to the ground. Taking a step back, he eyed his machine, now whirring away, and gleamed with pride and grand excitement. Finally. Today was the day.

A light began to emanate from the portal-less machine. His vials shimmered before shattering into little pieces. His walls shook and trembled, as books began flying off the bookshelves by the second, before landing on the ground below with a series bookish bangs. It seemed as though his entire laboratory was falling apart at the sudden presence of such an unusual dimension of glimmer. Perhaps the very fabric of his little piece of space-time would follow suit, thought the man. …Such a thought added a few more beads of sweat to his large glinting forehead. But none of that would deter the scientist. His fists trembled, as his face contorted into a grimace of a calm, yet manic persuasion. He had worked far too hard on this project, for far too long.

He was in way too deep to stop now.

As the small world around him began glitching and contorting into non-sensical pieces of nonsense, the overpowering light began solidifying, the plasma twisting and bending, as it gained a new degree of dimension. The plasma warped and bent, and solidified more and more, until a portal of unimaginable depth reared its distorted head. The portal pulsated and pulsated, its beckoning light adding to the chaotic glitching of the scientist’s laboratory. Pieces of the laboratory began to rip themselves from their spacial-temporal positions, some disappearing into the portal, some disappearing altogether. The portal continued to pulsate and grow, now creating billowing winds that sent more pieces of the laboratory scattering into the realm of nothingness, leaving behind pox marks of emptiness, nothingness, and gray gray oblivion.

But the scientist was ignorant to the literal disintegration of his fine laboratory, or at the very least choose to ignore the reality. He was focused intently on the formation of his scintillating portal, eyes bulging as they fixated on the tragic majesty of his abomination of a creation.

More and more of the laboratory was lost. More and more the scientist positioned his gaze towards his machine. And more and more did he guffaw and laugh, as he took in his experiment, no longer monochrome but flashing with all the colours of the light spectrum ever imaginable, visible or not. And it pleased him beyond belief. Despite the consequences.

But as the laboratory was about to become a nesting hole for the realm of oblivion, the machine momentarily stopped whirring, and the portal momentarily stopped flickering, becoming a thick sheen of plasma brilliance. Almost as if it had stopped breathing. …Or had taken a great inhale of breath, and was about to unleash its final, absolute exhale. That would change everything. The scientist, with tears of jubilation and almighty triumph in his eyes, could only look on with soundless awe. It was ready. It was finally ready.

His eyes unable to bulge anymore, the scientist took a long hard moment of reverent silence. Then, as the machine was about to continue its grim activities, and achieve the finality of its purpose, he grimaced some more, and began to howl with manic laughter in the way of the terrible success of his experiment. Finally he was doing it. He was about to finally do what no scientist had ever achieved before.

He was about to break the fourth wall.