When Physics Became Chemistry

When he first laid eyes on her he knew they had an undeniable attraction. If only he knew the destruction that they would cause together…

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It was an average day for him. Nothing particularly special, although he did think he saw a strange quark but when he blinked his eyes it turned into an up quark. Weird. But the electron continued, finding his place with the rest of the leptons, trying his best to avoid the attraction of the hadrons (they were so needy, some of them just always wanted him but he was too high energy for them and flitted away).

Suddenly he found himself on the other side of the universe. Unexpected? Yes. Impossible? No, quantum tunneling caused this to happen to him a few times before, it didn’t phase him, he simply sped up and struggled to find his way home.

That’s when it happened, that’s when he saw her. Something about her reminded her of himself, the magnitude of his instant attraction to her was incredible but yet he could tell they were so different. Where did she come from? How could this happen? Where did she go? He had to find out.

He accelerated to follow her; he needed to know more. But he was stopped by a cation in need. They were always needy, picking him up without even asking. “Please, Sodium Ion, you don’t understand I just saw this girl…” he started when Sodium responded, “Alright fine, as soon as you find enough energy you’re out.” Electron didn’t have time for this, he willed for the atom he was now bound to speed up, make up for the lost time. He needed to find his girl.

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Three minutes had passed and he was still stuck to the desolate Sodium atom. He was losing hope, 180 entire seconds, she could have flown to Mars and back in this insane amount of time.

Just when he thought all was lost he received a message from the core of the sun. Gamma rays! The solar flare came as a blessing, turning the sodium atom into mush as they collapsed into a mess of leptons and hadrons; the hadrons engaging in some nasty activity with each other as well. And then he caught a glimpse of her again. His heart was broken when he saw her accompanied with another electron. Somebody else had gotten there first.

“How could I have let this happen? I knew I should have steered clear of hadron territory.” He said to himself as he got caught up in a drift. Just what he needed, to be caught in between a potential difference.

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He lost track of how far he had travelled, and honestly wanted to kill the cell for the potential difference, and wondered where it even came from. Just when he was liberated from the sodium atom he found himself bound within a copper wire. Day in day out whizzing around, providing light to the International Space Station. His sense of importance grew, “I’m the reason this place works, well me and all of my fellow comrades,” he thought to himself, “maybe I have a chance with her, that other Electron never met me, that other electron hasn’t done nearly as much as me, I have to get out!”

Fate was on his side. He felt his surroundings grow hotter, a sudden burst of energy caused him to sporadically move against the current, he could feel the shape of his surroundings bending, twisting and turning until he realized he could use this to escape. He zoomed out of the remains of the burning ISS, determined to find his love.

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He traversed the universe to find her. Nothing would stop him from a glimpse of that charm, the spin in her step would complement his perfectly. He wanted nothing more than to have her in his arms, by his side forever. Neither time nor space was of any limit for him. He just wanted her.

Finally after god knows how long (literally, he enlisted a Higgs to keep track of how long it would take to find his one true love), he caught a glimpse of her. Curiously he saw a neutron emerge as well, and this time she was accompanied by a neutrino. Jealousy ran through him and he felt himself accelerate greatly to meet her, he reached levels of kinetic energy he never had before, anything to match hers, anything to be with her.

He caught up, she saw him, they stared. Into each other eyes like they had never seen anything else before. No other piece of matter was as beautiful as her, or anything else, nothing compared to her, her grace, her beauty. Her charge and her spin were so alluring, he felt a pull towards her, so alike and yet so different.

“Wh-who are you?” He stuttered, “I’ve never seen anybody as beautiful as you before, I’m just – wow, I’m at a loss for words!”

“Hi.” She said with a flip of her body, “I’m positron, I’m not from around here, its nice to be out and about in open space for once, and you are?”.
He crept closer to her, so close he could feel her spin, he could feel her charge. “I’m electron” he said as he saw her race away.
“NO!” She screamed. “I can’t be with you, I’m so sorry, I’ve never seen anybody like you but we can’t be together, its too dangerous, don’t touch me!”

Determined to have his love he chased after her and pulled her into a close embrace. With a white flash they ceased to exist.

Annihilated.

Ka-boom.