The fervent sun blares its unrelenting beams of intense heat all across the area. Through the fogged face-shield of his hazard suit, the human named Yonim lugs a bucket of viscous red liquid with gelatin-like substances floating on top like icebergs in a blood ocean. In contrast, the other beings saunter past either whistling, gleefully chatting, or smiling a big fat one. Unlike Yonim, each of the other being rushing past is rod-shaped. Yonim wretches a little when a whiff of the atmosphere leaked into his suit, singeing his nose hairs with the sour odor mixed with the burnt air. Groaning, he trudges ahead with each step slopping up the sludge of the melted ground. Glopping, gunking, gucking. Under his breath, the human curses this planet, Colony Bacillus.

"I can't believe I’m doing this." He whispers.

One of the sausage-shaped being slithers along his flagella to our human. Gleaming and bouncing up and down excitedly, Escherin Collins, the Colony Leader joins the trek with Yonim.

"How gracious of you to aid us in our morning agar-carrying tradition."

Yonim huffs, "It's… no problem. So let's discuss the deal."

"Of course, of course!" Escherin says. "What do you have to propose?"

"I can complete the Colony's biofilm in 80 years in bacteria's time with a 12,000 Dejuc payment. This can extend your planet's life to another 500 years."

In case you are not familiar with the Dejuc currency, 12,000 Dejuc can afford approximately 6 meals. And which will provide food for Yonim for the next 6 days. And in case you are not familiar with Yonim's work, he's what people colloquially call Death Maintainers. Who are planetary maintenance workers whose jobs are to continue the survival of planets through work such as repairment of biospheres, reconstruction of oceans, maintenance of atmospheric gas concentrations. However, most of these workers consists of robots nowadays who embodies skills more precise and complete than the skills of humans. So only poor, severely dying planets will ever hire the cheap human maintenance worker as they cannot afford a robot. So Death Maintainers they call these human workers. Despite the bleak nature of the industry of Death Maintenance, one can learn many lessons on how to live from dying. And our character and fellow Death Maintainer, Yonim Brisel, a pessimistic 33 year old human man marred by his own stories perhaps needs these lessons the most.

"Oh-ho! So you're staying with us for the next 80 years?" Escheria questions. "How delightful!"

"No," Yonim immediately answers. "When I leave your planet, I will use my growth chamber to my original size. Time will move by a lot faster compared to your microscopic world. In an hour of my time, 200 years will have passed in your world. By then, I will shrink myself down and revisit to do the finishing touches."

"I don't really understand." Escherin says. "But I can't wait to see the look on your face when see the marvelous place this'll become when you come back then!"

I'd be surprised if this place would still be here when I get back, Yonim thought. I give it about 10 years until it goes under.

A rush of kids giggling barges between Escherin and Yonim, sprinting through, carrying these buckets like they weighed of feathers.

"You can't beat me, youngins'" Escherin laughs and off he goes, racing the kids.

At least they'll all meet their demise happily. Yonim shrugs

The one blob wraps itself and sort of cradles the other blob before swinging down against the floor. All bacteria's at the rows of tables stop the act of eating to spectate this brawl. The thrown blob, now squished on the ground, recollects herself (and her shape) and glares at her attacker. Wiping away the dribble of cytoplasm dripping from her "nose", she lets out a carnage, gurgley cry and lunges towards the attacker. Yonim looks around at the patrons at the table, curious and intrigued by how they'll handle this disturbance. Both bacteria's trying to out-wrap the other with their malleable membranes, almost engulfing the other until they slither out of each other's grasp to then re-engage. Roars explode from the spectators. Cheers, shouts, and cries!

"Go, go, goo!" The audience yells.

Abruptly, the attacker flips the blob Supplex-style, then coats its membrane around defenseless blob until she is fully engulfed. Grunting, the attacker stands up victorious, double the size as before. The crowd screams and roars in triumph.

"That's what she gets for trying to accuse Cereus for cheating in their beer chug-off." Yonim's neighbor at the table whispers to him.

Everyone raises their glass to the brawl and down their beers. In a flurry, all the bacteria's jitter and thrash around as the sugar from the fermented alcohol rushes through their body as a boost of energy. And so continues the Daily Morning Feast celebrated after the daily Agar-Carrying. These shenanigans only boosts Yonim's desire to leave this Colony as soon as possible. Yonim looks over to Escherin and tips his head as though saying:

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Hey remember our deal to talk shop after this.

Escherin raises his glass to that as though saying:

I'm going to be as ambiguous as possible.

Yonim sighs and moves his glass away from him. He had decided the LactoLager to be tasting too much like lactic acid. Instead, he just hopes this chaotic colony survives long enough to pay him.

[]

"Again, you will pay me half now." Yonim manages to get these words out as he is squished among all the bacteria's, moving in a flowing rhythm. Sounds of the drum, or er drum-like contraption with a pale green biofilm, drives the coordination of the dance. Hoots and yells parade the scene. With Yonim right dab in the center of it.

Yonim grunts as a wave of bacteria's from all directions pushed him farther in. He felt like a black hole but instead of infinite mass, it's infinite contempt drawing them in.

"Ibbeebacc- Uf!" He meant to say "I'll be back in 200 years to collect the other half. And again, no I will not be here for 200 years. I will revert back to normal size, which time will past by faster. Due to the faster processes of molecular interactions in a microscopic world compared to the larger world I'm from. My hour will be equivalent to your microscopic world aging 200 years. Ok, I can see I'm losing your attention." Or something like that.

Even if Escherin heard it, he would've replied something like "Oh great! You'll be joining us for the next 200 years then!" Which Yonim would have to re-collect himself and prevent himself from committing a violent act of stranglement. If he could first find where Escherin's neck starts. Do bacteria's really have necks though? Anywho, Escherin continued on to whatever he was doing. Elongating a newform appendage from his cytoplasmic thorax, it met with another outreaching appendage from another bacteria. Once met and locked together, helical genomic data can be seen moving between them.

"Ooo. OOOo!" The other bacteria says.

Yonim felt like vomiting from either from the smell of the burnt agar or what he just witnessed. Everyone around him joins in and begins extending their own appendages through this ritual of DNA sharing. A few of these pilus or appendages slithers around Yonim, which promptly activated his primal instincts of slapping them the hell away from his vicinity.

"Human, how do we conjugate with you?" One of them questions.

"You don't." Yonim responds.

"We must share genomics! It's part of our tradition!" Another one cries. "I do want to experience a human's genomics too."

"This visitor party is for you human. Come on, join us with our Conjugation Ritual."

Yonim grunts.

"Wait! I found an entry on the human!"

Yonim yelps and runs away before any information was transferred.

After a day of festivities (and oddities), Yonim, in a traditional garb of helices, spirals, and tiny mineral deposits with fluorescent paint-like substances, finally sat down with Escherin. More specifically, he found Escherin amidst the crowd of whatever random ceremony of the countless ones they've already been through and physically carried him to a table. A wasteful and unproductive society Yonim had concluded for Colony Bacillus. So much time wasted on useless ceremonies and parties.

"I see." Escherin looks off to a distance. "This is sad really. Perhaps a farewell party can take the sting off your departure?"

"NO." Yonim clears his throat. "Ahem, I… No, I don't think that will be necessary. You have done plenty enough."

Flying through the air, the many flagella curl Yonim and embraces him closer. Tears sprinkle the skies as Escherin blubbers out:

"I might not even be here anymore! 200 years is so longgggg! I'll miss you so much!"

Snarling, Yonim reluctantly pats Escherin on the back. At least this time he understood.

[]

Checking up on the final designs of the new colony-wide biofilm he just erected, he tested the tension on the biofilm. Results confirms of proper placement and consistency. He climbed down the ladder and admired his work. All around, the whole colony is covered with this transparent green substances that continues to rapidly grow and expand from wild Staph Epidermidis and Pseudomonas bacteria's Yonim planted. And before you raise your signs and pitchfork for animal or er living being cruelty, Yonim would want you to know that this procedure is completely humane, harmless, and natural to Staph Epidermidis and Pseudomonas. In fact, they're free ranged. So please do not show up on my planet with complaints.

"Yonim! Yonim!" Escherin crawls towards Yonim on the walkway back to his growth chamber. Yonim sighs and turns around.

"Yes?"

"Please before you leave, I want to say one more thing."

"I have to go soon."

"Yes, yes, I know. I will only take a moment." Escherin says, "I may seem like a blubbering idiot to you, and I understand, but I do not want you to carry this judgment to our Colony. Our colony is beautiful, graceful. The greatest place in the universe if I were the judge. I know you humans love to boil down everything to numbers. So yes, we do not have the greatest number for UPM (Universal Prosperity Metric) compared to other planets, but if numbers is what you want, I can tell you. I can tell you how much food everyone donated for our school lunches, how many people volunteer at the gates to keep our colony safe from wildlife and intruders, how many people freely help teach at our schools, how many free housing we have built for those less fortunate, how many warm cooked meals we make for them. These are things your UPM can't measure. Often times overlooked and forgotten because to you, it doesn't matter because you don't measure it. What I'm saying is that don't underestimate us. You can underestimate me. Just don't underestimate what we stand for, our values, and our quality of life because you can't measure it."

Yonim couldn't find the right words to respond. So he nods.

"Thank you for listening Yonim."

"…Thank you for showing me your culture, Escherin."

Escherin hugs Yonim.

"I'll make sure to keep note for the next Colony leader to throw you a returning party."

"Uhh, I'll be fine."

So with a teary farewell, more specifically from Escherin and the rest of the colony, Yonim walks to the Growth Chamber. Yonim looks towards the crowd and hears the muffled roars coming from them. To avoid a possible impromptu goodbye party, Yonim clicks the button and grows to his normal size. If only had Yonim listened to what the crowd was saying. It would've prevented all the upcoming problems for the rest of this story.

Inside the growth chamber, a metallic void of a space with some rigid chairs that look like they'll throw your back out within a minutes of sitting. A sparse, echoey room save for the vacuum tube exit that grows larger as it extends farther away. Through the windows, you can see that the tube links to a more well-furnished room with sofa chairs that towers higher than skyscrapers and computers with screens that could be used for planets. Well at least it seems that way with Yonim's current miniature size.

Immediately, Yonim sets down his duffel bag and goes to the devices and panels made of frightening-appearing blinking lights, color-coded buttons, unlabeled switches, a massive glass-protected button, and random doo-da's. Sweat beads down his forehead as he fidgets around these devices, with each click and press inducing shakes and rumbles all around. A brief mistake could be a disaster. Perhaps his stomach could be enlarged to cause severe malabsorption and diarrhea for life, his heart too small to pump blood all around, and lastly, he's heard this urban myth (which all myths must come from some nugget of truth right?) that a man's most prized organ was shrunk to a size of half a pinkie. Much words to say that a lot is at stake.

Every calculations and measurements must be completely correct. He has to take into consideration of the volume of the enlargements, mass, various densities, and other physical components of every object that hopes to cross the vacuum tube. A clattering of noises from the machines tornadoes into a cacophony a delirious mayhem that almost drowns out the strange noises. Almost. An almost- almost imperceptible giggle rings through the room. It brought an attentive ear to future strange noises. And it happened again. Maybe just a random occurrence. Then again. However, at risk of a bad thing happening, we can start to ignore worse things. And Yonim did not want to deal with the risk of a bad growth. So, he ignored the noise for now. Probably nothing.