I woke up, and something seemed different. It was likely the fact that I had fallen asleep the previous night upside down in the closet, having argued excessively with a Mr. Barr that the laws of physics COULD be rearranged until he crammed me into said closet. I grunted, reached for the handle, and managed to fall into my room. I pondered why the alarm hadn’t woken me up – or at least woken someone up, forcing them to find me in the closet. The face of the digital annoyance was blank. I tried the light - it didn’t work. A power outage, conveniently occurring at the least convenient time. I still had to finish writing an essay for physics; otherwise the teacher was going to "Pelt me with gummers". It would be no use trying the desktop computer; I’d have to use the laptop. I turned the switch on, and there was nothing. This was ridiculous, I KNEW I’d charged the battery last night! I looked at my watch to figure out how much time I had left. Nothing. Blank like the clock, the computer, and the stereo system I thought I’d left on. Something was amiss.

I attempted to dart down the stairs, and ended up falling, landing painfully on my hip at the bottom of the flight. Now would be a good time to mention that I live in the penthouse of a 30-story apartment building. The elevator didn’t work. It isn’t slave run, y’know. I grabbed my bicycle, noting with a certain amount of pleasure that all the cars had stopped dead where they were. I could finally get to school without being nearly run down. I passed a fallen cyclist, and with some interest realized it was Mr. Olenick, somewhat delayed because of the end of the power. I always knew he was an android. Further cycling revealed in fact ALL of the teachers disabled along the roadside, most of them in cars. I figured that at the very least this would make an interesting physics essay. I thought of what I’d been able to learn in the brief moments I’d been awake in the physics class during the electricity unit - either all the power in the world was just gone, or…someone had broken the circuit.

I got to school when the sun was 1/10^th of the way past the big tree (I’d gotten desperate for measurements). I hurried towards the physics room, hoping I wasn’t too late for class – only to find a smoldering ruin of the room, some early arrivers were charred beyond recognition, and fused to the walls. I noted with some cynicism that there was also a student on the wall across the hall…a coffee cup still clutched in her smoking hand. Clearly, a rocket had been launched…there was a rocket-sized hole in the roof.

I made my way to the mech room, where all the teacher’s massive machines of destruction were (I knew it was there after having fallen through the floor one day) I hoped they’d use some form of energy other than electricity…I found Olenick’s (I knew I could use it), and learned that it operated on a steady stream of concise thought patterns normally only found in insane lunatics and English teachers. I powered it up with various thoughts of words few people have any right to know, and took off in pursuit of the rogue physics teacher.

A massive galactic chase ensued, so breath-takingly stunning that it can’t possibly be described here, even though I’m already over the word limit. I finally found the teacher in the exact centre of the universe. There I saw a large box – the supply to all the power in the universe, with billions of thin wires running from it in every direction. The Physics Machine was cutting through them with a saw, while I heard muttered ramblings of calculations of work done by the machine versus the energy wasted. I’d found my target. Luckily, I also had my weapon. Before leaving, I’d located the Matts, and loaded their thought patterns into the Logic Disrupter Ray. I fired it at the power-killing machine, and received a muffled "aargh!" through the short wave before it shuttered to a halt.

After a moment the teacher emerged, trembling with a combination of rage and shock of being hit with massive amounts of Mattian logic. "Darned you!" He shouted, shaking his fist in a somewhat comical manner. "I was gonna retire the universe! Someone’s gotta do it!"

"Not today, Mr. McKay," I replied, aiming the Long-winded Thoughts Transferance Beam directly at his head. "Today, you’re reading an essay."

This lengthy and not horribly electronics-related physics essay was conceived, written and corrected in the total sum of one hour by Michael Martin

I’m just doing my job.