Honey I Shrunk Myself (To Fit Inside of A Cell)

this is a short story i did for Mr. Heme's biology class a while back. it was just a first draft I copied/pasted from the moodle entry. i got a 33/40.

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HONEY I SHRUNK MYSELF TO FIT IN A CELL!

A short story by: Quinn Dougherty

Inspired by Mr. Heme’s Biology class

"...and all you care about is your stupid science projects!"
"yeah honey"
"don't yeah honey me, you usually listen better"
"yeah honey"
she was right, i've never been the type to put work this far in front of family, but i'm on fire at the moment.
"on our anniversary, no less!"
"yeah honey
"do you even know the date"
"yeah honey"
"what is it, then, hm?"
"yeah honey"
"july 18th, 1992"
i actually do know that date, and i really do feel bad, but i'm on fire right now, i have to hang in my little groove. like i said, i'm on fire. oh and, now i'm literally on fire.
"honey, i'm on fire"
"good, why don't you ignore me and make progress while you just hang in there in your little groove, i don't have needs."
"no i mean i'm on fire" but she was already gone. i put out the fire and take off the remaining half of my labcoat. put on my all my gear. that includes my ultrapurple-radiation protection vest, scuba gear, and various cutting and specimin-collecting-stuff. also i brought an electric screw driver with a hole drilling bit in it and an electric jigsaw. the setting of my shrinkinator-ultrapuple-megaray porototype #2 says 'one trillionth' next to a symbol of an average heighted man about 1/4th the size of a standard human cell. i take a review of my lab journal just before i hit the big red button.

June 23, 1989. 1324 hours.
shrinkinator-ultrapurple-megaray prototype #1 finished.. set to "one billionth" symbol; a picture of a standard human cell standing next to a picture of an average heighted man, both the same height. double checked remote control is in my pocket so i can come back to full size once i've collected my specimens. lab door is locked. protection and survival gear on. if all goes as planned anything i am wearing will get shrunk with me. after i finish this journal entry i will immediately press the big red button. so if i don't return, let this be my time to tell my wife and kids i love them very much.

june 24, 1989. 336 hours
trip went perfectly. i collected the sample with ease in the first 7 hours. 'with ease' refers to crossing a desert with a blazing horrible sun(forgot to turn the light dimmer) and climbing up the side of a flat smooth plastic petri dish(forgot to plant a ladder). it was actually, not with very much ease at all, and i'm kinda tired... anyway i then decided to explore some more while i was down there. mice are NOT cute.
when i came back up, battered, bruised, tired, and sore i immediately set a thousand mouse traps along the walls and in the corners of my lab. after that i carefully removed the specimen, a living human cell from a petri dish that i planted before i left from my own fingernail clippings. as big as i am, we will now be able to learn everything we could ever want to know about cells! this is an ultimate breakthrough in so many ways. this i thought, at the time, but i was wrong. the outer membrane was kinda gooey and pliable, yet tough to cut. i had to sneak downstairs to the kitchen, not wake up my wife because she is sleeping, and get a really sharp knife. when i tried this, painstakingly, it didn't work, still would not cut. i then sneaked out to my garage, careful to not wake up my wife, and got my chainsaw. i was really tired and really excited so i wasn't thinking straight. the chainsaw cut the membrane with ease. and boy did it cut that membrane. 'with ease' refers to getting inside so fast i didn't have time to turn it off and it sliced the Cell into a hundred bazillion pieces, no, 2 hundred bazillion pieces. the 2 hundred bazillion pieces of dead cell matter flew all over myself and my lab. in addition, the sound of the chainsaw woke up my wife and she stormed upstairs wondering where i've been and i said 'right here' but she didn't like that answer or the mess everywhere.
not only that, but at least 50 bazillion of the 2 hundred bazillion pieces of dead cell matter got inside the workings of the shrinkinator-ultrapurple-megaray prototype (i was too anxious about the expedition to finish the protective plating) and it was destroyed. it will take me 3 years to fix.
overall, project failure.

"your so negative, 3yearsyoungerself" i think outloud to myself. "it wasn't that bad."
"easy for you to say, its just a vague memory and a journal entry, for me it just happened!" i replied.
"oh 3yearsyoungerself, always the theatrics!"
i double check that i have everything i need. i hope it works out better this time. right before hit the big read button i jot down the date and time, for record keeping purposes, "July 17, 1992. 1706 hours." also i plant a really really tiny ladder next to the petri dish with a fingernail clipping in it and then turn the lights fairly dim. finally, i hit the big red button.

July 18, 1992. 530 hours.
trip a success! in every sense of the word! my mistakes from last time were definately improved. i reached the gigantic fingernail clipping easily, but that was a lot of rungs on the ladder (i stopped counting at 7462) i took the electric jig saw and cut out one squirming cell of millions from the mass of tissue and it fell to the ground and slumped, changing its general shape like a ball of silly putty or possibly a slug. i then got out my handy dandy electric powerdrill and drilled a really deep in the outer membrane. when i pulled my bit out it gelatinously closed up almost immediately. i then fit a wider bit in the drill and applied my scuba gear. i pointed the drill at the membrane again, looked exactly the same from when i came in, and made a deeper wider hole. i moved around the drill bit inside before i pulled it out and set it on the ground near me. i then widened the hole to fit 2 of my fingers in, then 3, 4, soon my hole hand. i got my forearm in then started at my other hand. soon i'm up to my biceps in cell. widening around and constantly moving(the membrane constantly trys to repair itself around me). i think i'm up to my wrists in inner membrane, but i could be wrong. hard to feel in all these gloves. the feeling of the membrane on my fingers reminds me of sticking my fingers in the jello my wife makes me on saturday afternoons after i'm done playing with my kids, Amy and Nick. i widen the hole some more, and stick my face. right in the cell. my scuba gear holding up well, i then worm more of myself in there. at this point my entire torso inside and from the waist down i'm dangling outside a cell. it probably looks hilarious to any pedestrians. its difficult to make progress just squirming now that i can't use my feet on the bottom of the petri dish. at some point, just after my knees, i feel i broke through in my fingers. using my hands now on the other side i can pull myself the rest of the way through that way. i get through the rest fairly easily now. i gather myself up and begin to tread water. i mean cell goo. i check for my gear. scuba, check. cutting and sample gathering materials, check. boots, wait a minute, i only have one. quickly, before it closes up on me, i reach back in a grab a boot, floating mid-membrane. i strap on the boot and look around.

WOAH

the inside of cells are awesome. mostly just shades of purple and blue, theres various bolbous things floating about with what looks like connector wires of sorts here and there. probably protiens, making deliveries and messages all throughout town. in the center, a quite large, reddish, pulsing brainlike thing floats triumphantly. this must be the nucleus. everything somewhat seems to revolve around this, obviously, it is captain of the ship afterall. i note other bulbouslike floating items, noting things on the mitochondria, the golgi apparatus, lysosomes, vacuoles, and more! this is very exciting. like a kid at christmas i walk around inside the cell and note at everything. i just realized i forgot a camera. maybe in the sequel. after about 2 hours of this(time flies when your in a cell) my watch beeps at me. time to go, my wife is expecting me to wake up soon. i take out the remote control and hit RE-ENLARGINATE. i figured the cell would be so small that the 2 hundred bazillion pieces of dead cell tissue would be so small that nothing bad would happen. this was a decision based on laziness, not wanting to cut my way out again, and the fact that i was so tired and excited i could only think it half of the way through. when i hit the button, i found myself in my lab, myself, the walls, and my equipment all covered in 2 hundred bazillion pieces of dead cell tissue, but this time each piece was 4 times bigger. of course, the shrinkinator ultrapurple megaray prototype #2 works on everything i am wearing and i was so enveloped in the cell it brought that back up one trillion times! it would be the size of that toddler in 'honey i blew up the baby' were it not exploded. fantastic
i said 'woah' and sat down to write. and i've been sitting there from then till right this very instant. writing...

"toldyaso" said 3yearsyoungerself
"well" i replied. then paused. "i'm back"