Mabel and Stacie the chromatin threads

Interphase

It was a day just like any other. Mabel and Stacie the chromatin threads were eating ice cream and chatting. "I love ice cream!" Stacie exclaimed.

"Me too! I love the chocolate flavour." Mabel replied. The two have known each other for as long as they could remember. Stacie was a bubbly and happy-go-lucky thread. Whereas Mabel was more calm and chill. Despite their contrasting natures, they never failed to get along.

Along with Mabel and Stacie were 45 other threads, just like them. That's a lot of threads! Only Amy, the nucleolus, was the only one that wasn't a chromatin thread. Enclosing their entire world was Hugo the giant, the warm and kind nuclear membrane that was asleep most of the time. It didn't bother him that the threads and Amy were chatty most of the time as his ears were located outside of their tiny, tiny world.

What did bother him though, was Celia and Cassandra the two pairs of newly duplicated centrioles. They seemed to always be together, every single minute of their meaningless existence. All they did was talk all day long, rarely taking a break. The extensive amount of time they could spend chatting about the most trivial things was certainly worrisome. But not for Hugo.

During his afternoon naps or 20 hour night time slumbers, Celia and Cassandra would always wake him up with their chattering. At first, he would gently ask them to quiet down, to which they would comply. However, an hour later, Hugo would be awoken again to the irritating sound of the centrioles talking about... Well he was usually too tired and grouchy to comprehend whatever they were saying. Probably a conversation about pig's tails or apples. Pig's tails or apples, Hugo didn't care. As easy going the gentle giant was, he couldn't help but think of taking a dagger and stabbing the hell out of the two little shits. But of course he didn't, the obvious reason being the fact that he had no arms. Or limbs for that matter. Since the centrioles never stopped talking despite countless reminders from Hugo, he just gave up on shutting them up. Now, the ever so done Hugo sleeps, wakes up because of the centrioles, and tries to fall asleep again. Repeat. 20 hour slumbers became 19, then 18, then 17. Eventually poor Hugo did not sleep at all. It is not essential for nuclear membranes to get their night's rest. But 'sleep deprivation' for Hugo was like a nightmare he could never wake up from. Filled with panda eyes and so, so many cups of coffee. All of which were futile attempts to keep himself awake.

So Hugo the Giant spends his lonely, meaningless life stoning and thinking about nothing at all. The centrioles sometimes notice his blank expression and ask if he's doing alright. To which he does not answer. Which was fine, all you had to do was look at Hugo the giant and you'd get your answer. But of course the centrioles were too ignorant to realise anything.

Back in the nucleoplasm where Mabel and Stacie were happily enjoying their ice cream, something started to feel amiss. Mabel suddenly felt like vomiting. She could feel her own stomach churning... Wait no, it was twisting? Did Mabel even have a stomach? Whether she had one or not, she could certainly feel something inside her turning. "Hey Stacie do you feel kinda queasy?" Mabel asked.

"Yeah actually I started feeling nauseous just-" Before she could finish her sentence, Stacie looked to her left and her heart dropped. To Mabel's and Stacie's left were an exact replica of them. They were even holding the exact same ice creams, chocolate for Mabel and mint chocolate chip for Stacie. They were so alike to the point the ice creams even had their bite marks, looking back at the friends' startled faces as if to say, "You have no idea what's going on."