Oops
A Thursday Prompt story
© 2025 by Walter Reimer

Prompt: accidental (365-word special condition)

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Boris looked up as Nikolai breezed into the office several minutes late, and an exasperated snort emerged from the boar’s snout as the ram sang in a deep bass voice,
“Belaya armiya, chorny baron,
Snova gotovyat nam tsarski tron!”

“Will you stop that, Nikolasha?” Boris snapped. The pig made a sweeping gesture at the ram’s so far vacant desk. “You’re late, and I won’t cover for you again.”

“Hmmph,” Nikolai snorted. “Go ahead, don’t cover for me again. I won’t stop explaining away your ‘long weekends.’” He made air quotes with his fingers, something he’d seen on some social media site a few years ago and had gleefully adopted. “So, peace?”

Boris grumbled at the reference to his occasional vodka consumption. “You win. Who was she?”

“Who?”

“Whoever was making you late to work. There’s only one reason you’d come in late and singing that mucky old song.”

Nikolai chuckled as he sat down and logged into his computer, opening several files as soon as it booted up. “She’s a pleasant little ewe working in the Dynamics Testing lab.”

“So, jet-assisted, eh?” Boris waggled his eyebrows, causing the ram to laugh.

Nikolai’s paws described an hourglass figure. “Streamlined, too,” and he gave a suggestive hip thrust that made both of them laugh. He glanced at his computer screen and his ears perked. “Hello! What the hell is this?”

“What?”

“This equation,” and Nikolai traced the line. “I could have sworn I didn’t plug that value in.”

Boris craned his neck trying to look over his coworker’s shoulder. “What value? Huh,” he said as the ram pointed at the offending set of numbers. “Maybe you were in a hurry to go see your little lady.”

“Yeah, maybe.” The ram checked the file and recoiled. “Shit, I sent it forward.”

“Uh oh,” Boris said. “Maybe nothing will happen.”

“Maybe. Hopefully no one will notice when the computer models are run.”


***


The error was a fortuitous one, enabling the breakthrough that led to the Silver Goose faster-than-light drive and finally enabled the peoples of Earth to reach out to the stars.

Boris and Nikolai were among those honored with the Nobel Prize for Physics, both looking sheepish.

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