Billy found a red lever sticking up out of the ground behind the old shed. Next to the lever was a sign that read, “WARNING: DO NOT PUSH.” Without hesitation, he pressed the lever. The Earth made an ominous groaning noise. “Uh oh,” he said. A few minutes later, the sun started to look funny. It looked like it was changing shape, or expanding. Then, the sky seemed to be getting dark. A few minutes later, the sky had had faded to purplish-red. Then, purplish blue, like a black eye. Finally, at 2:51 in the afternoon, Billy began to see the stars. Within an hour, a chill crept into the July breeze. That night, it began to snow. Billy began to think that pushing the lever might have been a bad idea. Four thousand years later, the reboot completed and the sun flickered back on.
NOTE: The brief narrative above was brought to you by TZ Books and The Bite-Size Fiction Project, created by Dave Baldwin and Sheila Lee Brown (this particular one is a Dave-story). The results of this project are bite-size story morsels for short attention spans. These tidbits are sometimes fun, sometimes weird…but always short!