Ephemeral Anomalies
A dense, icy fog swirled around and slow-motion waves of minuscule, frozen molecules of H2O fell from the massive, stainless steel pipes as they began to freeze that wintry, arctic “day” on the tundra. One could only speculate as to what these wonders of welding might be transporting to who knows where—his personal consensus was liquid nitrogen or liquid hydrogen or liquid whatever but, no matter, it was probably toxic.
He had no time left to be speculating about such frivolous ephemera; he ran out of time because he wasted what he’d had in the first place.
He knew he had a choice to make as he glanced at the full moon tracking across the cloudless sky and leaped, therefore, into action. He performed his world-famous cartwheel technique and rolled toward warmer weather.
He regretted having departed the frozen landscape without a single souvenir, specimen or artifact to back his claim that we are really on Mars, that Earth is but a clever illusion; in the Freudian sense, of course—a rare mutation of a rare neurological self-defense mechanism triggered by a rare ephemeral anomaly.
