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Just a little tweak... I step back from the petri dish, admiring my work. Grabbing a seat, I slump back and sigh. I have finally finished my 6-month old project ,and the results are looking good. I comb slender fingers through my hair for the hundredth time today and fish in my pockets for my mobile. I hurriedly dial in a number I've been looking forward to calling for sometime now and find it hard to rein in my excitement when I hear the other end of the line pick up. "Hello? Yes sir, Professor Boateng here..."
After parking my car in the widest driveway I have ever seen, I take a deep breath and turn off the ignition. I rest my head against the steering wheel and repeat the silent prayer I've  said many times before. Lord, please see me through, and save my bum.Amen. Letting out another sigh, I climb out of my jeep and round the car to fetch the cooler sitting in the passenger seat. I look around nervously and release a shaky breath when I identify someone I know. "Hello again, Sir." I stutter, walking up to my host. He spins on his heel toward me and grins. "Chimera!" Chiamara. "Better this time? Are you ready?
"Yes, Sir."
"Amazing! Right this way,please."
Mr. Zimmerman's attitude fit his colossal, jolly figure, but I truly hate the way he is this happy at such a crucial point in my life. Maybe I'm too much on edge today?
3 floors down and even more hallways later, I'm done chasing my dream. Because it's been caught, tied up and handed to me on a silver platter. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. My last stop. I try to maintain a calm exterior and surprise myself by succeeding. I clutch the cooler with sweaty palms as Mr. Zimmerman leads me to a gargantuan conference hall. I clench my jaw to stop it from dropping as I peak through the glass walls. I go in after Mr. Zimmerman and pull out a million-dollar smile as I stand in front of the high and elite of the world of technology. Mr. Zimmerman taps on a chair to give me the starting signal. "Good evening, my venerated panel of judges. I go by the name Chiamara Abena Boateng." A lady at the head of the table leans in and asks," So you are the new applicant?"
"Yes, ma'am, and I am about to show you why I should be put on the Committee on Chemistry and Industry."
"Go ahead,then."
"Thank you. Now," I begin, flipping open the cooler's lid and pulling out 2 Thermos flasks. "These bottles contain common muddy water and 500 grams of genetically modified Rhodospirillaceae I extracted from the mud." I uncap the Thermos containing the muddy water and reach into the cooler for a beaker. I transfer some of the gloop into the beaker and do same to the pink liquid in the other flask. I watch as the bacteria settled over the muddy water begin to multiply, the contents of the beaker turning more of a sulfuric pink than of earth brown. After a few minutes, the mud is completely gone. "What happened just now was the complete breakdown of mud by bacteria through oxgenic photosynthesis. It usually takes more time than this, but genetic modification, you know?" At this, I saw the lady I'd spoken to earlier crack a smile, and I suppressed a grin of my own. "This presentation, however, is based on a mistake. You see, the rate at which genetically modified Rhodospirillaceae multiply and photosynthesize is so fast, they skip the entire energy conversion process and end up with glucose and oxygen instead, like a normal plant." Heads nod, impressed, and the lady, which I presume to be heading the panel, wore a small smile. I open my mouth, about to continue, when a suited male in the panel beats me to it. "Is this safe for human consumption? How would this knowledge help humanity?"
"I was just getting to that, Professor Hart." I reply, reading off his name tag. "This is only a demonstration, but the finished product is edible. Mr. Hart, so many people are suffering at the hands of diabetes. Would it not ease their suffering as well as the brunt of free healthcare on government?" Once again a wave of nodding spreads. That's when I knew I'd hooked them. Next phase.
" In fact, why don't you all have a taste? I'd want second opinions, so..." The Lady at The Head gives a nod of approval. I look into my cooler one more time and retrieve a dropper. I  put its tip in my sweetener and squeeze the little ball at the top. Walking up to a random judge, I squeeze the ball again and drops of liquid  fall into a mug of coffee. The judge gets the idea, but hesitates before putting the cup to his lips. Instantly, his eyes light up. "Just like regular sugar!" He exclaims, surprised, and ears perk up. Grinning, I repeat my steps with every member of the 12-person team, only excluding the Lady. She dismissed me with a wave of her hand. A chatter explodes among the judges, but is quickly replaced by loud groans of pain. One by one, faces turn bright pink and fingers claw at their throats. Slowly, their skins turn a dull ash and eventually, all that is left are fast decaying masses of flesh and fat. I lock eyes with the Lady, and the smile hasn't left her face. It turns proud instead. I grin back at her, then feel a tingling sensation in the back of my head.
Good one there, Mara.
Was a pleasure, Mrs. Obeng.
Oh, darling, don't be like that...
Mommy, then.
The poor people wouldn't be getting to their families anytime soon. On the bright side, they died happy.
"Many quite literally scratched their eyeballs out, Mom."
I watch as she rolls her eyes dramatically, then rise to hug me. "I knew you could do it, me dɔ ba. You lied through your teeth so convincinly, even I was tempted to taste at a point!" I chuckled. "Well, I didn't exactly lie."
I said the substance was edible;I gave no specifics. I never said humans could digest it. It's kind of the other way round.

_Adoma Osei-Mensah

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The faithful night that my right leg took initiative to give up on me due to an injury in my spine was a night that I promised to never forget.

Dealing with the inability to walk with only one leg due to the other being amputated was a struggle. I had been -for 6 years- walking with crutches and had countless difficulties here and there but I paid more attention to other people who had gone through the same challenge with me, before me and after me.

Some of the skills I obtained while studying biomedical engineering at Addis Ababa University of Science came in handy during the process of me transforming my vision into a reality. Prosthetics. That was what I was going to do. I was going to usher a smile back onto the faces of the people who had gone through the same as me. I was going to renew hope for people. I was going to change lives and make futures brighter! I could even make life easier for military men who went to battle since they could count on me to replace the limbs that they had lost due to war with another that would serve the same purpose but would be more efficient! I could sense something delightful growing inside me.

Desta and Djimon, my colleagues, supported me and provided me with the tools that I needed to make the foundation of my business. I needed all the help I could get to make this first project a complete triumph.

After 4 successful weeks, we had finally gotten the essentials to make our first model and the first person to try the very first product was going to be me. I carefully measured my residual limb and my complete left leg to make the prosthetic more accurate in size so as to improve the way in which I walked with the prosthetic leg. We then cast my residual limb and used the moulding to create a diagnostic socket. The socket was transparent and allowed the team to easily review the fit and make adjustments where they were needed. The process took place to ensure a perfect fit just for me.  Desta, the technician and Djimon, the practitioner worked carefully together with the tools we had acquired to fabricate the prosthetic leg correctly.

It was ready. The prosthetic leg, that is. My heart continuously flipped in my chest giving me a strange ardour that tingled my tear ducts. 'Aklilu!' Desta whispered, impatiently. ' Sniveling should be set aside for later, okay?' I slowly nodded. I sat on a stiff, short sofa and observed as Djimon knelt down and carefully fit the newly made prosthetic onto my little stump.

It was adjusted and done. 'You can stand up now.' they both suggested, supporting me by my hands, waist and back. Of course, there was a difficulty in walking but I had it in mind that I would later get the hang of it.

I gave a little dance on the inside knowing that, since our first try was a success, we were sure to gain more victory through the next prosthetics we made. I slept soundly that night knowing that from now on, I was in one piece once more and it was my mission, along with my crew to make it also come to pass for others.

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Rats! It didn't work again. Eight good months of my hard work and sleepless night, and I achieved nothing. Except, of course, best failure of the year. Again.
"I don't get it" I murmured "I did everything right, all to produce 'this'.
There was no other way to describe my invention. What was supposed to be the clone of a human being looked more alien than Earth. Sloppy, green, slime-like ooze dripping from each side of that monster-of-a-human. Beside me, my test subject, Abisola, gaped in surprise at what was supposed to be her clone. I've had bad failures, but this takes the cake. Oh well. Better get started on the next eight months.

Looking through my pages, I frantically searched for what I did wrong. But there was nothing; I had followed each and every  step of my plan. Unless... my whole research was wrong altogether. Frustrated just by the mere thought of that, I hung my head and puled; tears streaming down my face. One teardrop in particular caught my eye. It dropped perfectly on a microscope slide, like it wanted to be a specimen to be viewed under a microscope. Then it clicked!

Sample! That's what was missing. I needed a sample of Abisola's DNA before a clone can be created. Or else, it would end up looking like the 'this'. It was a long shot, with more cons than pros. But I've lost enough not to try every possible method. 'Desperate times call for desperate measures' they say. And I was desperate.

There was no time to waste. I grabbed a paper and started on my new method: the SNCT and iPSCs. It was something small, but promising.

Every day and every night for one month, I worked on  these two new concepts hoping to revolutionize history. Now for the tough part: practical. Carefully going through the steps:  I sampled Abisola's DNA and let the pixelmon cloning machine work its magic. I closed my eyes and flipped the switch.

That was one year ago. Today, the first ever cloning machine is being publicized and put on the market; with the first one selling at a million pounds! It was called the multiplying machine; creating more than two clones with just a single speck of DNA.

I watched in complete satisfaction as people lined up into stores to buy my product. The money was rolling in, but I didn't want that. All I wanted was for my name to be mentioned on the streets as Dr. Kayo- the father of cloning. All I wanted was to attend award shows and receive awards; instead of always clapping. But most of all, all I ever wanted was to see my brain child help mankind. However, things didn't go exactly how I planned it.

YEs, at first, I got all the fans and the praise. But the cloning didn't help humans. One thing humans don't realize is that clones are temporary. The more you clone, the less time each clone has until it vanishes. At least one in every four people had cloned themselves more than twice and this caused excessive cloning. Although cloning is mostly safe, there are very fatal side effects for excessive cloning, one including death.

Now although I wanted to sell the pixelmon, human beings are causing themselves harm.  Guess I have to visit the time traveler to help me solve this problem. Rats!

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It was a cold and chilly Saturday night. My best friend ,John, and his younger brother went for a late night walk when they were held at knifepoint. John shoved his younger brother towards the criminal and managed to escape alive. But the blood and bones on the crime scene said otherwise for his younger brother.

Upon hearing this news, I was deeply distraught; tears in my crimson red eyes; deafening wailing; a terrible headache. I only had plans for one thing and one thing only, revenge. Rage filled my heart as I thought of how much anger and hatred could fill a womans' heart for her to act so treacherously.

Hours after my breakdown and after counselling from the Wonderful counsellor, I decided to do good instead of harm. I decided to prevent a situation like that from ever happening again and I had a plan to achieve it.

In my many years, I'd never thought that I'd be creating a force field, one so powerful it acts against gravity. I had an aim: to prevent threats, prevent fall damage(as in Fortnite) and to prevent stabbings as well as gunshots. I had determination to achieve it.

Months and months after continuous work, I developed my first prototype- 'The Green Lantern 6.9'- and went to my lab to test it. The test dummy suffered more damage than surrounding rocks during the Big Bang. The bullets tore straight through the heart of the dummy and straight through mine as well.

It was safe to say, I failed.

A few days later on test two, I created the first force field to act against gravity and I showed it to John. He thought I was crazy( or as he put it, "You're tripping bro". I wasn't sounding all too crazy after I jumped off a thousand foot skyscaper and survived. It was truly a success and he had a bit of fun with it himself before I made copies and released it to the public.

The year is 055 322 and Ghana has now achieved perfect peace. Ever since my brilliant invention, the nations' crime rate has plummeted and Ghanaians have no reason to ever be worried about safety.

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I always knew my degree in quantum rizzics would come in handy one day. I held my breath as the parts of the massive duplicator thingy clicked and whirred.
We could have just discovered the future of the human race, or for some, the greatest thing since sliced bread.
We had finally done it. By we, I meant Eloni Osei Oware and I, Kofi Boateng Budu. The blood in my veins and arteries bubbled and fizzled with exhilarating excitement as the enzyme endorphin flowed through my body like water.
This all started two years back after I had attained a master's degree in quantum rizzics along with Eloni. Thousands of sleepless nights had all amounted to this. The future of humankind as we knew it. As two students when we were still aiming to attain our master's degrees, we had discovered that yes, in fact, human duplication was possible, contrary to previous beliefs.
'Kofi, I think therapeutic cloning is possible. If we can replicate animals, why not humans?' Eloni would cry every second as if I was a patient of amnesia.'If we never try, how will we know how far this little thing could go.'Eventually, I gave in to his pressures. Soon we were both up to our necks in the derivation of formulas and molar quantities.
As our investigations progressed, we both saw the light and realized that yes in fact as we had first thought, it was possible. We toiled and toiled, occasionally even having to "borrow" equipment from our local high school's science laboratory.
Our first test subjects were a few mice we happened to chance upon, as I rifled through the cupboards in our home/laboratory, looking for something to eat. I might have found nothing to eat, but I found the perfect test subjects. The literal lab rats. However, this test did not go as planned. We ended up boiling a few poor rats.
From when I was a child, I had never understood how someone could just stop whatever they were doing to scream 'Eureka!', until now. For I had my eureka moment. What if instead of the highly unstable placenta in the test tube, only the amniotic fluid was used?
Well, it worked. We gathered some sperm cells from a nearby sperm bank and may I repeat, it worked. As Oware's hero, Neil Armstrong would say,' That's one small step for man, and one giant step for mankind..This discovery will and is already bringing about more possibilities and new research and well, Eloni and I can only say we are excited and ready for what is to come.

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Months back, I decided to ameliorate my interest in science, and I, unexpectedly, successfully got into a good university with a research degree in nanoscience. "Imagine having the ability to minimize objects through science!" was my exact motion and motto.

My professor and research partner, a stout one-handed man(the other was robotic) was a model to look up to - determined, hard-working, and all - though the erosion of old age had withered his brawn and resilience; his researching days were on borrowed time. Knowing this, research was nearly unfaltering, and with only 2, efficiency was not the brightest.

Just months later, senescent caught up with my dear Professor Bukayo(no he did not die, he just retired). It was at this moment that I decided to implement and grow the fruits of all the research and notes - the truckload of them.

I had all the various chemicals, compounds, and "potions" needed delivered. The moment had finally come to take on the experiment; Professor Bukayo was there to witness it - and by procedures that have currently escaped my mind, it happened.

The sudden magnification of everything took me by surprise, and though every part of my body seemed one and well, everything else looked way bigger, meaning only one thing; the experiment was a success, but I couldn't feel entirely safe; how long I would experience this phenomenon I did not know, but joyous I still was.

So here I am, partly joyous and contemplating what to do, what to explore, just anything at all. Later realizations consisted of how slowly moving everything seemed to be; the ceiling fan and even Professor Bukayo who was asleep smiling, but periodically shaking his head.

My massive surroundings seemed clearer. It was as if everything just had more fragments. Even the strands of the carpet hairs looked so rich. The sky that showed through the window was the most beautiful of blue, and I soon found myself grinning. The amount of time I had spent in my microscopic form was unnerving but after about three hours in real-time, it ended.

The professor and I made all attempts to spread our news, but only with unfortunate outcomes, in which only a handful believed us, and well, "such crap" was the usual annoyed retort. So, for now, only I have experienced this, but I doubt this will stay public for long.

I am currently furthering my knowledge on nanoscience and hoping to one day convince the world about the discoveries, but until then, I might just keep on "going mini" and even later, find a way to momentarily stop time itself. Who knows?

…

Selorm Dogbe

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The school bell rang and I immediately lifted my head from a now-wet desk. My classmates started to talk and everyone in my row had already left the class, giving the teacher a clear view of me. "Mister Chiumbo, meet me at my desk,... now". I groaned and lazily lifted myself off my seat. I dragged myself to the front of the class and slumped into a chair.

"Mister Chiumbo, your attitude towards work these days is unacceptable, you're always late for class, you never pay attention, and you never show respect to your teachers or classmates."  She went on and on about my behavior and attitude. I was still half asleep, she noticed this. She brought her fingers close to my face and did a loud snap. I was immediately awakened. This gave her even more reason to complain about me.

Frustrated, I mimicked her gesture and her attitude completely changed. She was longer the mean, annoying Miss Esi. She had completely transformed. She was now talking sweetly and seemed so care-free about all the troubles I had caused. She let me go and we both went our own different ways.

This was the reason I was always late to school and could never pay attention

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Write here

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The birds were back again. They flittered in front of my window, and I watched them fly up -probably up to the roof.

It was the most beautiful Saturday morning - never mind that I had a load of work to do around the house. There was a pile of laundry to do, filthy floors to clean, a mountain of papers to grade. It didn't matter; the sun was out, and for the first time in a long time, my house was quiet. A month ago, this scene would have been impossible.

Once Difixa, my colleague from the university, had discovered the Lithos rock in the Henry Warren Lab, it had been a herculean task to dissuade him from his plans to test his hypothesis with magnetic fields in humans. He showed me diagrams he had drawn; products we could sell; diseases - both physical and emotional- we could heal with our discovery.

'Edunako, I need you! You have done the most extensive research on magnetic fields. With your knowlegde and my expertise, we could really be on to something ground-breaking,' he whined daily.

Finally, he wore me down. It was actually exciting, to be honest; finally, I was doing something tangible with my long years of research instead of the continuous theory work required at the university. We kept late hours, stealing bits of the Lithos; drilling and shaping them into tiny gem-like orbs and having the time of our lives arguing over volumes of books.

We finished at last. I still wonder at the tiny dark, ornamental pieces from hell - they had looked so harmless, so full of promise then. We had both agreed, Difixa and I, to test it on ourselves first. It was exhilarating, and we had laughed at each other's suddenly frazzled-looking hair, that seemed to be standing on end. We'd have to visit the barber soon, we noted with silly grins on our faces.

The first week was incredible! Never had I felt so powerful, so alive!

...

Mrs TJ