Astrophysicist, Dr. Spé C. Hedd, paused. She nervously tapped her report on the podium. She looked at us, the science council, and we looked back. She cleared her throat as if to conclude her grave answer. Instead, she repeated herself. “Long ago, our instruments showed us that our solar system is only an atom in a greater universe! Our sun and its circling planets are to some larger cosmos merely the nucleus and electrons of a single atom.”*

There was a long silence. Hedd’s eyes rested on me, Thurly Murg, acting leader of the council. It was up to me to break through this uncomfortable stillness. In fear of an irrational implosion, I stood and spoke. I swallowed the stale gum in my mouth, and annunciated with painstaking clarity. “Yeah, what she said.”

The chaotic eruption of violent pandemonium that ensued convinced me that I should have said anything else.

*Paraphrased from Strange Adventures #67.