Timewaster's Guide Archive

Prompt: Brandon's Dialogue Exercise

This is my first attempt at writing, although I've been itching to try for a while now. I know it's short, but it amuses me, and I felt it was about to fall apart. Comments welcome.

Oops! or, Trouble on the Night Shift
by Brad Moore

“Oops…”

“Oops? Really?”

“I didn’t think that would happen.”

“Did you think at all before you started?”

“Obviously I thought about the consequences, just not this consequence.”

“You can’t be serious; you’re calling this a consequence.”

“Well…, yes…, a big consequence, but still just a consequence.”

“So who’s going to explain this consequence?”

“I was hoping you would, since I’ll probably be busy trying to figure out how to fix this.”

“Fix it? How can you possibly fix it?”

“I don’t know yet, that’s why I’m going to be busy, trying to come up with a solution without a consequence like this one had.”

“I can’t believe you’re sticking with consequence. Aside from that, do you have any idea what went wrong?”

“Sort of…”

“Care to elaborate?”

“I didn’t really understand what this did, or how violent the outcome might be.”

“You mean that aside from pushing a button you were curious about you didn’t consider asking anyone else what it might do?”

“There wasn’t anyone else to ask, and besides, I’m an experimentalist.”

“An experimentalist, in a nuclear facility? Are you insane? Do you have any idea what you could have done?”

“I believe so; better now of course, after the, um, consequence of that last experiment.”

“Do you have any more experiments planned, or can I leave you alone for a few minutes to report this?”

“I don’t have any planned, but this one wasn’t really scheduled either.”

“Before I go, let me ask you a question, how did you even get hired for this project?”

“I have a unique skill set that is in extremely high demand.”

“A unique skill set, and yet you haven’t learned to never push a giant red button that is plainly marked ‘In Case of Emergency Only’ without understanding what it did beforehand, incredible.”

“In my defense, it was dark in here when I pushed it.”

“How does that change anything?”

“Well, if you don’t want someone to press the big red button, why is right beside the light switch anyway?”

“It’s beside the light switch so you can hit it while running away from the building.”

“Oh..., well..., that makes sense I guess.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“I’ve been thinking about the consequence..”

“great…”

“..and it seems that the best thing to do is try to get the alarms shut off and fix the...”

“Consequence?”

“Yes; before anyone else gets here.”

“That would make sense, if this weren’t a nuclear facility! Shut the alarms off…fix the..., where did they find you?”

“I’ve done some work for the CIA.”

“The CIA, what in the world would the Agency need a physicist for?”

“Physicist? I’m not a physicist.”

“Well, what are you then?”

“I’m the night janitor.”

“You have got to be kidding!”

“No sir, I just started tonight.”

“You don’t say…”

“Do you think there might be ramifications?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised…”