Quarantine

“Feeling the burn?” Dr Elliot’s voice rings out from behind me. I arch my eyebrow, even though I’m facing the wall. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I say. I am a serious adult scientist dealing with a life-threatening emergency and the slightest misstep could ruin lives and careers, yet I am acutely aware that I am now naked in a room with a young woman who is also naked. It’s amazing, the way our brains work. “Are you looking at my butt?” “Yeah.” “Seriously?” “Hurry the hell up.”

To boldly go where no man has gone before

The room, or space, or whatever it is, is big, a polyhedral ball several times my height, and deep magenta, with a light somehow coming from all directions at once. And my clothes have disappeared, I’m naked.