Petri made a major discovery when he sneezed into his dish of jellied onion. He yelled for his wife, who came dashing in from their squash court, fearful that she were to be accused of some imagined wrong.
"Marta! Come see!"
She dug her fingernails into her palms, perhaps to counter the verbal onslaught Petri was about to launch. As she approached his workbench, she suddenly registered his smile and lack of consternation. She relaxed and trotted to his side.
The first thing she noticed was the fluorescent streaks on his obviously forgotten lunch. Immediately apprehensive, Marta couldn't reconcile her husband's pleased countenance with the knowledge that, somehow, she had served him spoiled food--again. Timidly, she asked what she was seeing.
"The trip to the future worked! My lungs are clear of the plague that I'd brought back last month!"
Marta gasped. "How dare you! I asked you to never use the HyperDrive after that. I told you I was close to a cure. I just needed the approval of the County doctor to purchase streptomycin."
Petri hung his head in shame. Then, just as suddenly, he whipped it up in suspicion. "You liar. There is no way you could postulate a cure from a substance that wasn't discovered until 60 years from now!"
Marta sighed. There it was.
Copyright © 2016 by Mitchell Allen
Originally appeared on CreativeCopyChallenge #457.