A flurry of white whipped around the room, which was one of the most curious sort. Various contraptions, polished and pristine, stood neatly ordered in endless rows on shelves upon shelves upon shelves. Some featured lenses of several sizes, had glass tubes protruding from them, or sported coloured levers and buttons, each with a different label. A single piece of apparatus caught the eye: it was nothing particularly interesting, appearing to be an average microscope, but it stood, singled out, in the centre of the room, where several men in lab coats were gathered.
The chaos in the laboratory only grew as the scientists became increasingly frenzied, you being one of them. There was so much to do, and so little time before the testing. Shouts of “Evans, ensure the iris diaphragm is in place!” and “Walden, is the dioptre calibrated correctly?” filled the room, originally a low hum that had crescendoed into a cacophony of squalling voices. An older man with round glasses perched on his nose twisted a knob with a pair of tweezers, while a sandy-haired woman disinfected its lenses. You bustled through the crowd, flustered, consulting your peers and noting adjustments with surprising efficiency, given your harried state. It was not something you were not used to; working in scientific development had its own demands, but this project was a futuristic breakthrough.
Within a few hours – that may have been four, or eight, or an infinity – the commotion lessened and a hush fell over the room. Muted, they observed their newest creation in a mixture of awe, admiration, and exasperation. It still seemed nothing out of the ordinary, seeming as a simple microscope- but looks were often deceiving.
After an eternal moment of silence, one of your colleagues stepped forward. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he spoke with a tired yet triumphant voice. “Here we have, to our knowledge, the most powerful microscope ever created!”
Cheering erupted from the crowd, resonating off the harsh white walls and echoing through the room long after the clapping had died down.
“It has taken us over twenty-six months of hard work,” he continued. “And the perseverance you all have shown is incredible. I would like to personally thank you, as the leader of this project, for the dedication and engagement you have shown.”
The crowd exploded in cheers once more and Andrews continued his speech of thanks.
“However, there is one of us that has shown extreme determination, whose commitment to this design is unmatched, and for this, I would like them to be the first to test our invention… Hastings, would you come forward?”
Voices reverberated around you as you strode across the glossy, tiled floor to the centre of the room. Your head was foggy from all the noise and you were unable to register the words being spoken to you. Vision slightly blurred, you took a deep breath, recalling the last two years of effort and placed your eyes to the eyepiece.
The slide was hazy at first, and you adjusted the coarse and fine focus knobs deftly, with the precision of an expert in the field. Carefully, you adjusted the dioptres, zooming in, past cellular level, into the very molecules of the sample…
And you gasped.
You recoiled from the eyepiece, stunned, and shaking your head in slight shock.
“What is it, Hastings?”
You recognised Andrews’ voice but you were unable to describe what you had seen.
Confused, he leaned in, his eyes accommodating to the magnification of the slide. He too, let out a gasp much similar to your own, not registering what he had seen either. Slowly, he raised his eyes to meet yours, wide and uncomprehending. A murmur drifted through the mob, as people shuffled forward, unsure of what to do. You turned to them, mouth slightly dry, incapable of forming coherent sentences.
What had you seen under the microscope?
Past the cells, past the molecules, past the atoms and bonds and electrons and past the very fibres of being, past all the matter that made up the universe were small, tiny, minuscule galaxies.
