84% Compatible

Sci-Fi Flash Fiction

84% Compatible

[By Jarod K. Anderson - Originally published in Daily Science Fiction]

The gap between Ted’s front teeth opened onto a solar system buzzing with civilizations of light and power. Every once in a while it would glint and draw the eye of Becky Cooley, the shy paralegal with the 84% compatibility rating from the dating website.

Ted found that trying to laugh behind his hand was awkward. Trying to tilt his head down while he spoke was awkward. He’d lost dates to awkwardness and to the bushy mustache he had used to curtain his upper teeth for a few weeks in June.

So, Ted tried to talk with Becky head-on and her inevitable questions followed, questions about the twinkle between his teeth, the sense of life and hope and industry in it. Ted felt his cheeks and ears get hot, but he did his best not to sound embarrassed.

He answered Becky’s questions. He even did his best to answer the questions she would think of later.

“It’s a solar system. It’s been there ever since my adult teeth came in. I don’t know if it’s just a doorway or if the whole system is actually there in my mouth.”

“I don’t know if it will live on after I die. I’m not sure if the people there know about me or have ever tried to communicate. Yes, the government knows all about it.”

Becky went still and Ted worried that it might have been rude of him to anticipate her future questions. The specter of awkwardness grew like an afternoon shadow.

Becky didn’t quite smile as she pushed her long brown hair behind her left ear and tilted her head.

There, above her little gold earring, nestled in the folds of her ear, Ted could just see a bluish glow. And in that glow was somehow the force of gravity held in balance amongst the waltz of stars and planets and the countless souls that spun along with them.

When Ted smiled, he smiled with the light of three hundred billion stars. Becky smiled back.

[You can listen to an audio version here or as the “hidden lore” segment on Episode 10 of The CryptoNaturalist Podcast.]