What was I like in High School, you may ask.

Well, I answer, I’ll tell you.

Apparently I was not afraid of being silly. I was on the School Literary Magazine contributor list, probably a staff member, though I don’t remember the details. I see, looking through those files and boxes of stuff from that period of my life, that I wrote a lot of silly. I offer an example below. I’ve tried to iron out what was obviously a rough draft. I don’t know if it was for printing, or if it was ever included in any finished product or compendium of student stuff.

I cringe when I read it, but I chuckle too, and that’s what I want to share, a kind of bad joke of juvenilia manifested as high school weak science, when they told us the positron was not well understood, all groans aside, seventy years ago. It shows its age.

Through the Atom World
Deep Adventures in Space

(Being an Orderly Account of the Voyage of the Space Cruiser, “Jolly Well Ripping,” H.M.S., of the Inter-Galactic Terran Solar Space Patrol in the Year of Our Lord 5440 or Fight.)

The good ship “Jolly Well Ripping” was cleaving itself through space at a mere few thousand miles per second per second. It was a clean favoured craft and imperially slim. Its nose slipped through the cosmos and all the myriad of stars swayed up and down cleverly to produce the effect of motion. It stood visible against the blackness and against the weird music that was obviously the music of space, adapted, perhaps, from the music of Victor Young.

This was just a routine inspection flight for the “Jolly Well Ripping” and so everyone knew beforehand that a great deal of adventure was in store.

Thus the ship routinely journeyed through space.

Aboard the ship, life was dull and routine. The crew, consisting of two Inter-Galactic Terran Solar Space Patrol Crewmen who had attained this high position by each sending in a box top from “Space Whammies” (recommended for its delectable flavor, vitamins, and because it is the favourite breakfast food of that Great American Hero, Davy Rockett).

The first crew member is powerfully built, lithe, handsome, with a finely chiseled nose, a jaw made of determination, a close fitting gray uniform, and blue eyes. His name is Joe.

The second crew member is powerfully built, lithe, handsome, with a finely chiseled nose, a jaw made of determination, a close fitting gray uniform, and brown eyes. His name is Pete.

Joe and Pete are busily engaged in the routine chores of the ship.

Joe, madly checking instruments, says to Pete, madly engaged in the routine chores of the ship, “What you doin’?”

Pete, madly engaged in the routine chores of the ship, replies, “Nothin’ much.”

And so the conversation goes throughout the flight.

Joe says to Pete, “We’ve been on this flight a year and a half now. Don’t you think we could stop checking instruments? Most of them haven’t moved for the past six months.”

Pete replies, checking the altimeter one last time, “Just a minute…O.K. 1, 2, 3 stop.”

They stop.

They sit and look out the window. Joe whispering in awe, “Stars.”

Thus they sit as the ship whirls through space.

Suddenly Pete very excited, leaps up, his hair awry his eyes eagerly gleaming, shouting excitedly, “Look! A cosmic ray! And there goes another one!”

Joe murmurs in awe, “Gee!”

***

Back on Earth a group of scientists are earnestly conversing and even discussing.

One learned scientist says, “But we must get them down.”

Everyone murmurs, “Poor Pete! Poor Joe! Yet perhaps we can kill two birds with one stone. Why not send them through a space vacuum?”

“No,” said one scientist, “it hasn’t been invented yet.”

An ignorant civilian standing by said, “Well, if they just ran out of gas, why not parachute them down?”

The scientists turned to him frowningly and a general in the group said, “Impossible! Parachutes cost money.”

The scientists ignored both the general and the civilian and resumed their conjectures.

Said one, “They are stranded between the dark and the daylight on a positronic brain plain suspended in an aqueous solution of alpha ring seal conductors and post hypnotic transluminitory photo-cellular contrapositives.”

“True,” murmured all the other scientists. “The only problem, then, is to neutralize the effects of the anticontra-polarizing agent, with 10 ml. of undiluted angstroms subjected to intense ultraviolet radiation.”

“True,” murmured all the other scientists, and they set to work.

***

Back in space, Joe, staring blankly out the window at all the passing stars, says to Pete, staring blankly out the window, “This sure is a routine trip, huh Pete?”

Pete replies, “Yep, sure is routine.”

Joe says, “Sure wish I had something to eat. Don’t you, Pete?”

Pete replies, “Yep, sure do.”

Joe says, “I think maybe we ought to watch television, don’t you, Pete?”

Pete does not reply.

Joe turns a switch, pulls a lever, pushes a button, operates the control panel for ten minutes. Presently a husky voice says, “Draw!”

Pete and Joe lean forward tensely and stare at the screen, as two brave officers of the law intrepidly face twenty four legions of villains, desperados, and bad guys, who underhandedly are bankrupting the town. The bad guys win, naturally.

Joe looks at Pete who looks at Joe.

Pete says, “What a corny story. It was old when I was young.”

Joe says, “That’s real poetic.”

Pete says, “Yeah.”

***

Back on earth the scientists are busily working.

***

Back in space Pete and Joe begin re-checking instruments again.

***

Back on earth the scientists are gathered about a small box that is resting on a small table. One scientist says reverently, “This is it.”

Another scientist whispers sacredly, “Gee!”

The room is quiet with the hushed reverence of discovery.

“Now all we need to do is to operate it,” said one scientist, and they all immediately set to work.

***

Back in space Joe and Pete were madly checking instruments. The ship suddenly began to vibrate, glimmer and shimmer, and then became a pulsing, ethereal wave of energy. Joe said to Pete, both of whom were beginning to vibrate in waves, “Don’t you feel kind of funny?”

Pete answered, “Yeah. My nose itches.”

Then everything went black.

***

Back on earth the scientists shouted for joy. “I guess it worked!” They exulted.

***

A pulsing, vibrating wave of energy began to glimmer and shimmer and reform itself into a space ship plus crew. When Joe and Pete came to, they looked upon a galaxy of atoms with planetary electrons whirling around their centers like moons.

“Gee!” said Joe. “Like the windows of night flashin’ fire, huh?”

Pete didn’t say anything.

Suddenly there was a jolt and the ship felt itself being drawn in the direction of a large Uranium atom. A hydrogen atom brushed by on their left and on their right was one of those complicated molecules you hear about in organic chemistry. Directly ahead were ninety-two electrons whirling about a dimly seen dark nucleus. The electrons emitted energy and were very gay.

“Ain’t it pretty?” said Joe.

“Yeah,” said Pete.

As they were being drawn through the shells of flashing electrons, one came flying too close. It was many times the size of the ship and there was danger of total destruction. Joe fired thirty four blasts with his blaster, but the electron kept on coming.

Pete resourcefully held out the negative end of his pocket bar magnet, and the terrified electron veered sharply away. This was not brilliant on Pete’s part, for everyone knows that like charges repel, and this electron was particularly repulsive.

They were saved for the moment, but they were approaching the nucleus with a great speed. They were nearing a proton and would crash, but Pete, again resourcefully, held the positive end of his pocket magnet toward the proton just before they hit and their fall was broken. Pete put the magnet back in his pocket and they landed with a gentle thump.

Pete and Joe got out to look around. They didn’t wear oxygen masks, because there is no oxygen on the surface of a Uranium atom, and so there was no danger of their being oxidized.

Suddenly and without warning a number of savages leaped out of the bushes of the proton and, brandishing weapons, advanced screaming. They were positrons and were stupid. Joe snapped a blast over his shoulder with his blaster and he and Pete climbed into the ship and rapidly took off.

They circled the atom and landed on an innocent-looking neutron on the other side. Just as they stepped out to look around and see if a neutron looked any different from a proton, they saw a group of not-so-savage savages approaching. Joe got out his blaster, but Pete held his arm and said, “Wait.”

They waited.

They looked around the countryside and noticed that neutrons are yellow, while protons are red. (Usually, anyway. This one happened to be green, and the proton was blue. You never can tell.)

Then the party was up to them and the chief addressed them in cultured English. (It really wasn’t very cultured, but it was the best you could expect under the circumstances.) “Greetings to our great white brothers from your green friends. (Remember, this neutron was green.) We have been informed that you have had a war with our blue neighbors, the Positrons. Alas, the positron is not very well understood. For that matter, neither are we neutrons. But come, you must be tired and hungry. Come to our village and rest yourselves. We have an excellent menu. Am I wrong in presuming you are hungry?”

“Well, not exactly,” said Pete. “We haven’t eaten for about six months.”

“You will enjoy your stay at the monastery of Uranium La. You may call me Chang.”

That night at the monastery Pete and Joe conversed in earnest whispers.
“I think we should get out of here,” said Pete.

“Let’s not leave yet” said Joe. “Have you seen that beautiful girl they have here named Atom Blossom?”

“She’s ninety years old,” said Pete.

“How do you know?” said Joe.

“I counted her rings. And I read a book once. It was called “Misplaced Horizons.” Somebody wrote it.”

“Yeah?” said Joe.

***

It was later when Chang came to see them, that he told them of the conditions of their stay there. “We are on rather undiplomatic terms with our neighbors of the Uranium atom two and a half angstroms away. They are threatening to split and shoot neutrons at us. We’re afraid they’ll split anyway – I always thought they were unstable. You are expected to help us, of course, and this will give you something to do, since you cannot leave ever anyway. Isn’t this all very nice?”

Before Joe could completely strangle the honorable Chang, there was a terrific impact and a neutrino ran into the room shouting, “We’ve been hit by a neutron! We’re going to split!”

“We always were 235,” Chang explained before Joe blasted him with his blaster. Pete and Joe ran toward their ship, and just as they reached it and were climbing inside, the mighty atom, deciding whether to digest the neutron or split, chose the latter course. The ship was just taking off when the whole world erupted and a barium nucleus went flying by. Pete had one last glimpse of the rapidly departing krypton nucleus that was all that was left of what had been their home for so many minutes.

A bright light engulfed the ship and there was lots of energy all around.

Then everything went black.

***

Back at the Terran Rocket Base a ship from outer space had just landed and was discharging its crew. A doorman opened the door for them to enter the central control building and said, “Good afternoon, Gentlemen. The gentlemen who sent you through the atom world will see you now. They are very curious as to the experiences you experienced.”

Pete threw a rock at him and Joe blasted him with his blaster.

The scientists were conversing eagerly when two figures appeared in the doorway. The foremost scientist advanced warmly, extending his hand warmly.” Welcome back, Gentlemen! Glad to see you could make it!”

Joe shot him too.