Superheroes

Hoodwink

by Joyce Melton

The Comet Prometheus
In 1933 a re-examination of photographic plates taken at the Lowell Observatory in the 20s and early 30s revealed the existence of a large, fast-moving object in the outer Solar System. Moving too fast and in the wrong part of the sky to be a planet, it was considered a comet.

After calculating its sun-grazing orbit, a scientific committee suggested the name Prometheus which is the name that stuck in the public mind when the object began to make the news.

It's still called Comet Prometheus today when its nature is better understood though much disputed. And CP is the symbol used for Prometheus in astronomical references.

Morning had broken.

Saw her standing there.

"What's it like outside?" she asked.

"Total bright sun -- something like a desert."

"Oh yeah."

"You know," she said, struggling with the granola bar wrapper, "if they made things easier to open, I know a lot of people who would be very happy"

She stood on the balcony, the light blazing over her left shoulder to warn off ships with captains still too stubborn to update to modern equipment. Her hair kept annoyingly blowing into her mouth as the wind whipped it around her head -- not at all like you see in the movies where the wind is always in your face and hair billows out behind your head in a cloud that never tangles.

It was then that she realized just how badly she needed to use the bathroom. That's all she needed, was for the rescue workers to find her in a pile of her own...