Publish or Perish
Gwyn picked the lock to the fish lab and sneaked in, enveloped by darkness. Grad school was cutthroat. She’d received another rejection email today and her coral-growth funding ended in two months. She needed a win. Especially after her latest failed experiments.
“No finding’s still a finding,” reminded her mentor. Those don’t get published. She needed a first-author publication if she had any hope of a post-doc. And she desperately needed to identify why her corals kept disintegrating.
Meanwhile, everyone else in her cohort was already fielding acceptances. Victor’s fish
interaction study in particular was going just swimmingly. She groaned. He already had an article in the next issue of Nature.
Eyes adjusting to the dark, Gwyn furtively reached into her pocket. She’d been overfeeding Victor’s fish for days. Surely they’d die soon.
A grunt sounded as fluorescent lights blinded her. Victor glared menacingly, her corals crushed in his hand.
Lisa recently placed 8th in the final round of NYC Midnight's 2024 100 word comp and 2nd place in Egg+Frog's 2024 Ispirathlon. She loves writing, and enjoying nature. Oh and she has a M.Sc. in Marine Bio.
This story was shortlisted in the October 24 Monthly Micro Competition.