Through The Microscope

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(Underground bunker somewhere in Area 51, year 2024)

"It's ready!" Eloise says excitedly, her bleached white coat stiff as she rubs her hands together.

We had been working on a new microscope using some alien tech we recently recovered from a crash site nearby. This would allow us to magnify a sample by two trillion times. The machine took up a whole three-meter squared room and had taken just over a year to construct. This was the third attempt and hopefully the final, as the budget had been depleted.

"Let's do this!" I say, my voice hitting a high note I was not aware I was even capable of. I suppose breaking a record will have that effect on one.

We enter the large room, our nods toward the people in the observation room above are met with large smiles and nods in return. We each take a seat in front of the microscope, Eloise's hands shaking as much as my own as nervousness seeps in. A large screen will project the microscope's image, which is also being transmitted live to the president.

We had been given free rein to choose what the first sample to be placed under the microscope would be, so we decided to use a hair follicle. We wanted to test something that had come from a living being. The gloves we pull on make a slapping sound that echoes around the quiet room, no one wanting to break the reverence of the moment.

Grabbing a tweezer, I look over at Eloise, her nervous and excited smile eliciting a smile of my own. I pull a small red hair from her head, careful not to damage the follicle. I hold it carefully in place before taking small scissors and snipping the follicle off the end as it drops onto a small glass slide. I gently place the cover slide over it before pushing it into the slot created to hold the slide.

The microscope automatically adjusts, as my voice command tells it to zoom in, ten million increments at a time and then bigger increments as we proceed. The screen on the machine just above gives me and Eloise a clear view of the progression while the large screen above gives the observers the same view.

The incremental shift from one view to another is magnificent, the follicle magnification at these levels looking alien. As we get to one trillion, the view on the screen seems to replicate that which many of our NASA cameras have taken photos of. A galaxy. With many bright dots lighting up the blackness as if we are looking at our night sky in the desert. As we zoom in further, a round object comes into view, the outside remarkably similar to what you would see looking at the view of Earth from outer space. There are spots of blue and green and what appears to be cloud cover.

I look over at Eloise, who looks back at me. Her brows furrowed as she quietly whispers, "Is it just me, or does that look like Earth?"

"No, it's not just you," I say, my gaze returning to the screen as the magnification increases.

We hear gasps above us as the next slide magnifies, putting us closer to the small round object, clouds now clearly in view. There is no mistaking that what we are seeing are clouds. They are whispy and white and fluffy. As we zoom closer in, we start to see a land mass in the same shape and size as Africa.

Zooming in, a town comes into view, with streets and houses appearing. It is nighttime, and the lights are on in the streets and homes. There are no people outside.

Eloise's breath hitches beside me as we hear more gasps and whispers from above. What we saw couldn't be possible, and what it meant almost seemed incomprehensible.

The next magnification sees us zooming in to a house, a family looking grief-stricken, sitting on a couch as they watch a large flat-screen TV. We could not hear anything, but what was written on the screen was discernable. An emergency announcement by the government.

"Severe and unusual changes in the climate will have catastrophic impacts on Earth. With the Earth no longer in the sun's orbit, the planet has been thrown into darkness. Scientists are working on projections of what will happen, but the outcome looks bleak."

I push my chair back, the sound causing Eloise to jump.

People in the observation room have started getting up, some on their phones while others are talking to each other, their expressions a mixture of astonishment, sadness, and confusion.

My mind is trying to wrap itself around the concept of what we have just observed.

Galaxies residing in the innermost parts of a strand of hair. Questions and more questions run through my mind, many of them verbalized as Eloise's voice cuts through the silence, her eyes glued to the floor in thought.

"Did we just cause the destruction of that planet by pulling that strand of hair out? Are there similar galaxies existing on every person in each follicle of hair? Are they also existing in each follicle of hair in the beings in the zoomed-in image we have just seen?" she asks, her hand pointing to the screen as she voices her questions.

"Are we just a planet residing in a galaxy contained in a human's follicle, waiting to be picked or to fall out?" Eloise's eyes meet mine as she speaks, the look in them dazed. She is voicing the questions we are all thinking, the observation room silent as they look at Eloise.

If the answers to her questions were true, then there are literally an infinite amount of galaxies with everyone and everything connected.

Before we can answer, the emergency siren goes off, myself and Eloise jumping to our feet as we exit the room. We head quickly to the designated emergency gathering point in a room close to the exit of the building.

Eloise and I hold hands, trying not to get separated in the throng of people gathered. Things are being said, but we cannot hear in the confusion. We make our way to our colleagues in their similarly bleached lab coats.

"What's happening, Dexter?" I ask as we approach the group.

"I'm not really sure," he says, his usually monotone voice high-pitched in fear. "There are reports that the planet is in darkness. Something about the Earth moving out of the suns orbit?"

My eyes dart to Eloise's as the same thoughts cross our minds. Our time has come. Our hair has been pulled.

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