Editing City Series:Volume7 Layer 7 (section)

===Record 40: How Far Has It Spread?===
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'''11/03/1997

'''15:18

The Professor unexpectedly asked me to go see him during the school festival.

I was to meet him in front of the science clubroom. I was pretty sure the 1st years would be doing something at this time, but once I got there, I found the Professor and Sensei past the crowd. They stood in front of the empty clubroom’s entrance which had “keep out” tape across it. I raised a hand in greeting.

“Hi, Sensei. This looks like trouble, so can I leave?”

“Try making sense next time? I will admit this is a pain, but…you know?”

What am I supposed to know? Anyway, I ignored the helpless teacher and looked to the Professor. I could see his hand on the clubroom’s doorknob. I had a very bad feeling about that, so I punched him.

“Ow, ow, ow. That might be the worst greeting I’ve ever received. And you might be the biggest problem child I’ve ever met.”

“Then allow me to introduce you to yourself. Besides, I was warranted in punching you there. So what did you do this time?”

“Well, I converted the clubroom into a null space as a public experiment. Now, to explain this with the simplest, plainest, and most elegant phrasing possible and with some beautiful prose sprinkled in to ensure even an idiot like you can-”

It was very simple and plain to me that nothing about that was simple and plain, so I punched him.

“Try that again, Professor. If you don’t do better, we might just have to hold a public execution during the school festival.”

“I have to agree with him,” said Sensei.

“Excuse me. Then to make it as unnecessarily complicated as possible, I filled the clubroom with cement for the public experiment. Once the entire space is full of cement and entirely closed off, it becomes a secret world of dreams. Thus, it is no different from a null space. And if we open the door…”

He opened it to reveal a black space with a few star-like points of light.

“Do you see now? A null space has collapsed into our space and made a mess of things.”

The world started to collapse into the room, so he quickly shut the door.

The space around us had been warped to the point that the door and the light were bending toward the inside of the clubroom. My fist had also warped the Professor’s face.

“And what did you think I could do about this?” I asked, still warped.

“Would you punch me if I said I just wanted to see how you would react?”

“Of course I would. So please, for the good of the future, please say that was your reason.”

“Heh heh heh. Unfortunately for the future, I never answer questions when everyone already knows the answer.”

“Which is why you cause so much bizarre trouble, dumbass.”

“Me? A dumbass? Then relatively speaking, you must be a super-duper dumbass. Now, my suggestion for you is to punch this space to de-warp it. You see, things got a little out of hand and the other club members are all inside there.”

“Was it an accident?”

“Yes, I hit the switch for the cement without warning them and they didn’t have time to escape.”

“That’s not an accident! That’s you being a walking disaster!!”

“Ow ow ow ow. Why are you so impatient? Hear me out before you act. If that space continues to spread, the world could be at risk. And what will you do once that happens?”

“Could I start by patiently punching you?”

“How unscientific of you. What would that do for you?”

I went ahead and punched him and it made me feel a lot better.

Still, I had to do something about this, so I looked to Sensei and saw she was the only person not warped.

“Why are you fine?”

“I think my stooped back was already a little warped. A non-warped spine is a lifelong treasure.”

That told me who would be on the one-woman rescue squad. I opened the door and shoved her inside.

'''Author Comment:

What was Sensei even doing there?

It doesn’t really matter, but when I’m writing null stories like this, it reminds me of the graphic null character you could get when you pressed the GRPH key on a computer I once owned.

It also reminds me how they wrote a title using that. Although you would need to be familiar with Mycom BASIC Magazine to know what I’m talking about there.