The Fabulous Spec-Fic Smack Down Anthology

When I Get Older, Losing My Hair

Used the first line from When I'm Sixty-Four by the Beatles: When I get older losing my hair

*****

He thought he had it. He'd been so sure.

But an explosion was generally a bad sign, and as the smoke cleared, all that remained of his latest experiment was an empty blacktop lab bench and soot on his face.

Pipaluk's shoulders slumped in defeat. Back to the drawing board.

The little man slid down from the barstool to the concrete floor, trudging across the basement toward the various easels, chalkboards, and whiteboards arranged around his desk. He dropped into his chair with a heavy sigh. The assortment of numbers, letters, glyphs, and stick figures made no sense anymore. He frowned, tapping a finger to his chin. Where did those smudges come from?

Oh, of course.

He removed his goggles and dropped them onto the rough wooden surface of his desk, scorched and gouged by countless experiments over the years. The patch of clean white skin around his eyes made his thick, round glasses pop out even more than usual. His pink irises trailed back and forth, reading each line of apparently incomprehensible calculations once, twice, three times. Where had he gone wrong? He'd reduced the quantity of fairy dust, and his new heat cubes provided plenty of power to speed up the process...

A raucous crowing broke the silence. His head whipped toward the source, an old-fashioned weathervane spinning rapidly atop its shelf next to the one small window above ground level.

"Blizzard!" the black metal rooster screeched. "Blizzard! Winds nearing speeds of—"

"Oh, shut it!" snapped the little wood canary peeking out of the grandfather clock. "Do you know what time it is? I'm trying to sleep before the next hour chimes!"

Within seconds, the basement was a mass of angry voices from assorted furniture and tchotchkes. Pipaluk removed his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. This wasn't helping him think. But if there was a blizzard in the middle of summer, that meant his neighbor, Lily the snow witch, was having another tantrum, and it was all the more important for him to get this right.

The soothing sound of ocean waves and soft piano music rose above the cacophony. Gradually, Pipaluk's past experiments fell silent. Most of them were accidents, but the sleep machine was intentional. He mentally congratulated himself for adding it to his collection of sentient objects.

"All right, that's enough," he called out.

"It's getting late," the sleep machine cooed. "Shouldn't you be getting ready for bed?"

"Another word, and I'll unplug you," he warned.

The ocean waves and piano music stopped.

He replaced his glasses and leaned back in his chair, this time studying the ceiling. It was remarkably clean for a basement, but then again, the feather duster had obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

"How bad is the storm?" he asked. "In a quiet voice, please."

"Zero visibility," the rooster clucked. "One foot of snow already fallen. Hail damaging trees and cars. Storm expected to lose strength after twenty-four hours."

"Oh, that's an improvement, then," Pipaluk said brightly, straightening in his chair. His eyes scanned the lines of equations again. "Maybe I can dig my way out before Lily recovers on her own this time. How is our supply of ice seeds?"

"The poor dears aren't doing so well," a watering can answered in a motherly tone. "They do hate summer so. It's very difficult to persuade the mature plants to reproduce out of season. But I'm sure this weather will perk them right up."