Every day at exactly two past noon, Alark Kroning, the chief galactic researcher at Waldin University’s Department of Outer Planet Studies, places an order for a turkey sandwich on rye to be delivered to his desk because he doesn’t leave his office.
For decades, he toiled away in front of screens in search of a planet with optimal conditions for human existence. He was assigned to locate “inhabitable planets within a feasible distance to enable extension of galactic frontiers.”
Most days were the same. Keep zooming into photos taken by satellites until his lunch arrives. Eat the upper triangle of his sandwich, the bottom triangle. Drink it with a glass of soda. Go back to finding planets.
Except on a Tuesday, that Tuesday, not significant in weather or events, Alark got a sandwich sliced in rectangles.
“No, no, no…” he whispers exasperated.
You see, Alark can’t focus the rest of the day unless his sandwich is sliced in triangles. It’s his routine. Disruptions to his routine could throw off his ability to discover another habitable planet. He would phone the restaurant and ask, except that he doesn’t know the phone number. He doesn’t even know the name of the restaurant. He only knows the food delivery man who places and picks up the order.
“This can’t be,” he sighs.
He goes to the kitchen for the first time since he started working at the department. It’s bigger and brighter than he would have thought, with several baskets of fruits and snacks lined along the counter. He searches for utensils, but they are all in use except for a few dirty ones in the dishwasher.
In frustration, he stomps back to his office, and having spent at least a minute in that mood, he accidentally trips over a cord that lands his computer mouse on the floor.
“What’s going on today?” he mutters.
He puts the computer mouse back on the desk, but as he moves it around, realizes that the arrow on the screen isn’t moving in tandem. His shoulders drop.
Alark bends down to unplug and re-plug the cord.
“Please work,” he sighs.
It does and momentarily lifts his spirits until he sees his sandwich from the corner of his eye. His stomach grumbles, and he rolls his eyes. He bites his lip, heaves another sigh, and reaches to eat his unusually sliced half of sandwich.
But his reach is slightly off because he’s still seething, so he elbows the scroll button on the mouse too hard, and his computer screen is flying through a series of images.
“No, no!” he exclaims.
In all the commotion he hadn’t saved the image page he was on, and if you’ve ever looked at images of space, well then, it’s mostly squares of black with some white dots in different sizes until you zoom in to distinguish between meteoroids and stars and possible planets.
As he’s about to yank the cord from the wall, his vision hones in on a speck unlike he’s ever seen. He hunches towards the screen.
Slowly, very slowly, he zooms in.
Slowly, very slowly, so he can write down the image page number.
His eyes widen as he continues to zoom in.
On that Tuesday, an unusual sandwich Tuesday, Alark discovers a new planet.
He immediately reaches for his phone and dials a number.
For portfolio purposes only. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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