By the time Ricardo got home that Friday afternoon, the only sounds that could be heard throughout the apartment was the rustling of papers by the ceiling fan.  In the living room, the old coffee table many nicks and scratches were covered by a great mess of books and journals with subjects ranging from American history and government to neuroscience.  There were two large armchairs pulled up close to this mess, both as worn and as weathered as the table around which they were positioned.  Sleeping in one chair, however, was a rather small man who crooked glasses and great mess of hair made him appear to be less a person but more an extension of the unkempt scene that surrounded him.  He snorted, shifted position and muttered something about Mexican food before fading back into uninterrupted sleep.  Ricardo was taller than his friend and kept his hair shorter, but that was where most of their differences seemed to end.  He walked into the living room with heavy steps, and, lifting a large bag at his side, deposited his own share of books into the collective mess that seemed to become increasingly ominous with every moment that passed without cleaning.  With a sigh, Ricardo sank into his designated seat next to the dormant slob, and, picking up thick, torn, journal, began to frantically write with thin pen he drew from his pocket.
 He worked a part-time job in retail, selling mostly electronics of different sorts, and approached his work with an attitude more or less of apathy.  He, like his friend, were students at a small college where he pursued his area of interest, history, with a general degree of success, earning respectable grades and demonstrated his ability to succeed in the world of academia.  However, Ricardo was troubled and the pace of the dictation of his thoughts seemed to show it.  There was nothing overtly complex about the reasons for his unending depression, as a matter of fact it was a question that had plagued mankind for its entire existence:  Life.  Its meaning, our goal, and why human beings routinely commit heinous deeds upon each other with regularity that exceeds even the finest Swiss clockwork mechanisms.  His interest in history and politics were both an escape for Ricardo and his own self-destructive way of lamenting about a past that was most likely to be repeated sometime in the future, again and again.

     ___________

 The shattering of glass reverberated loudly against the walls of the cavernous laboratory.
 "Son of a bitch!" came a frustrated yell.
 Behind her long black hair, Laura didn't bat an eyebrow.  It was Elle.  She probably broke another beaker again.
 "Don't worry, it was the vodka.  The Scotch is fine."
 Oh, I should have figured, thought Laura, growing increasing annoyed by the yells from the adjoining lab.  She didn't understand her friend's affinity for alcohol; Elle never seemed stressed out and seemed to scoff at the notion of ever having a responsibility in the world.  Except for protecting her.
 Laura, quite simply, was a giant.  Well a giantess, to be completely accurate, but the nuances of the English language hardly matter.  Standing, she was twenty-five feet tall but sat comfortably on the floor of the laboratory.  The reasoning behind this is complex, but begins with the poverty that Laura was faced with for most of her life.  After resorting to multiple methods to fund her education while still attempting to preserve an adequate quality of life, Laura reluctantly volunteered as a subject in pharmaceutical testing.  The most notable was a chemical compound meant for treating osteoporosis, that supplemented the bones normal calcium construction with actual iron.  It was quite brilliant, and indeed made the bones much more durable than in their natural state.  However, a problem did arise when it was discovered, on Laura, no less, that the iron compound would anchor itself to the growth plate of her bones in such a way that would inhibit growth and repair.
 This came to the attention of none other than Elle, a low-level researcher at the same company who noticed Laura's tortured and deteriorating state and swiftly came to her rescue, taking her on as her research assistant and supplied housing and an ample paycheck, which quickly reversed Laura's financial issues.  However, her skeletal condition was so poor that permanent damage would soon be caused if it were not somehow reversed.  Elle, in a time of rare, genuine genius, engineered a substance in her laboratory that uninhibited the growth plate, effectively curing Laura who had already become hopeless.  However, the poor girls plights would not end there.
 Elle's substance was very effective.  So, effective, in fact, that it did not only uninhibited the growth her bones, but stimulated the human growth hormone in such a way that it worked in smooth conjunction with the bones themselves, making her grow to immense proportions without deformity of any sort.
 Laura felt better than ever, even in spite of her uncontrollable bone growth, but Elle was wracked with guilt and began to spend all of her time trying to figure out what would inevitably happen to her friend, her fears, sometimes bordering on the insane.  Would her organ and skin growth be able to keep up with her bone growth?  Would she collapse into a black-hole of scientific failure?  Or, the most likely, mathematical answer, wouldn't the surface area of her bones increase at a greater magnitude than their structural volumes, eventually buckling under her weight?  Yes, that had to be it, she thought. When it was revealed that the very iron compound that caused her illness is what supplemented her bones durability and kept her alive and standing, the only consequence for Elle was not immeasurable guilt, but a spontaneous hug that lifted her well off her feat.
 Laura had to be kept and protected in Elle's spacious but sparse laboratory, which was a daunting prospect initially but soon served to be, actually, beneficial.  The quiet, soft-spoken twenty-year-old had never been popular, and, conversely, never even got along that well with people to begin with, so, in all honesty, her position hardly changed much after her transformation.  As a matter of fact, it gave her a tangible excuse not to deal with the tiresome difficulties of society and the outside world.
 Elle, in many ways, stood in stark contrast.  She was a slim woman seven years Laura's elder, about five-seven, with medium-length blond hair.   After the initial chaos concerning Laura's sickness and the research and maelstrom that encircled it, Elle's true nature began to become evident to Laura.  For one, Elle was essentially a rogue researcher, who's only reasons for remaining with large company for which she worked was due to a virus Elle implanted in the payrolls computers during her brief stint computer hacking, making her both a white-collar criminal and the recipient of some very respectable stolen wages.  Elle wasn't truly lazy, but the only person she was willing to produce any degree of effort for was herself.  Her research was, for all intents and purposes, useless from a practical perspective.  After four previous lackluster years of university study, she held a degree biotechnology, which was essentially the most general possible definition of whatever scientific abomination she happened to be interested in that particular week. 
 Elle entered the room.
 "Hey  Elle, what's up?"  Laura asked her friend brightly.
 "YOU!"  Elle screamed, and began to laugh maniacally, as she normally did when she made a joke that usually wasn't funny.
 "But really, you've got to get something better to do than just sit around and think all day.  Theres too much turmoil in this world to sit without distraction for too long."
 Laura sighed. "Its fine, the wars been going on for years, I think were all quite used to it." "The war, has it really been that long?"
 There was a pause.
"Whatever." said Elle.  "Let find something to eat."

         _____________

 Ricardo had been writing well over an hour when his friend woke up with a grunt and an asthmatic cough.
 "I had the strangest dream, I can't remember what it was about exactly, but, it was epic - life changing."
 "That's pretty bizarre Eric.  Hey, at least I was able to get some work done while you were comatose."
 "I hope you realize that the suicidal ravings of a misanthropic pacifist hardly count as work.  I swear, that journal of yours is so dreary I think we should buy a kitten."
 "No, this wasn't my journal, it was the book I was working on.  I always start to think I'm making major strides before realizing I'm unhappy with it, and I start again.  Its a vicious cycle."
 "Oh okay, my apologies.  How was school for you?"
 "Ah, it was alright.  Todays lecture was about Cold-War era politics and McCarthyism, though I knew most of it.  It gave me some valuable time to get some thinking done.  How was class for you today?"
 "Very good.  Those neurochemicals practically commit themselves to memory.  Well not really, but this class is giving me some very valuable insight to my areas of interest."
 Eric was a biology student that attended the same college that Ricardo did.  He was a decent enough student, though prone to moments of idiocy on a semi-regular basis.  Like, Ricardo, Eric had an obsession with unraveling the world around him, though he approached the problem from a different perspective.  Standing in stark contrast to Ricardo's complex writings about history, politics, and human morality, Eric was a sort of scientific dilettante, spending varying amounts of time in his œlaboratory, which was, more accurately, a large table piled with books and a microscope at the back of the apartment.  The apartment, however, was actually a small warehouse that the two rented jointly for the added space, dividing it into rooms with mobile partitions.  This proved to be very useful, as neither of them liked to straighten up very often, and this gave them the room to be slobs without interfering with their quality of life.
 Ricardo opened his mouth to say something, when Eric gasped and stood up abruptly.
 "That's it, I remembered my dream."
 Ricardo looked at him in awe, expecting, in the following moments, to undergo some spiritual awakening after listening to what must have been a truly revolutionary nocturnal breakthrough.  Eric took a deep breath.
 "It was a burrito"
 Ricardos face dropped.  "Oh I should have goddamned known."
" No, you don't understand, its not your average garden-variety burrito, this is life changing."
 Ricardo rolled his eyes, though Eric spoke again with the same devotion to his cause.
 "Imagine - pepper jack, cheddar"
 Ricardo interrupted.  "I'm going to stop you right there.  Remember what your doctor said?  You've practically ballooned since-"
 "Oh be quiet.  You're always so melancholy.  I'm making this bastard burrito, and if you're not with me, you're against me."
 "Against me?  What does that mean?"
 "It means you have to clean up the mess."
 "Fine, but one thing."
 "Yes?"
 "Add pepperoni."

     ___________

 "Okay, Elle, so what are you in the mood for?  Want to order out?"
 Elle touched her chin thoughtfully as if about to come out with some valuable piece of advice.
 "Perhaps no, no, its too risky."
 Laura was intrigued.  "What is it?"
 "Oh nothing dear, you're too young to know?"
 "Oh dear god, just tell me."
 "Okay, okay, perhaps its so crazy, it just might work."
       "Well, what is it?"
 Elle smiled.  "The Holy Grail." And then began to explain, in depth, her idea to Laura.
 "A burrito?  Thats it?"
 Elle slapped her forehead.  "No, its a burrito to the ignorant layperson.  To a brilliant scholar like myself, it's a culmination of a life's effort.  You see, I have a history with this culinary enigma."
 Laura sighed and prepared herself for what was sure to be a thoroughly pointless and incoherent lecture.
 "so then it was just me, the burrito, and the microwave.  Two minutes, one minute, the time ticked down, and then-"
 "And then what?" asked Laura, slightly curious in spite of herself.
 Elle gave her a world-weary look. 
 "Well, I was young, I was cocky, and I thought I could do anything.  I wasn't prepared to deal with the true extent of how unforgiving this world could be, and the cruelties fate could inflict upon a young persons spirit.
 "Oh just get on with it."
  Elle's face contorted slightly, holding back tears, "It imploded."
  "Imploded?  How would it do that?"
 "I don't know.  I multitude of cheeses, Italian meats, a splash of tequila, when combined with the particular frequency of the micro-waves, caused a sort of rift.  My best guess is that it time-traveled, but maybe I'm just partial to the image of Columbus being knocked from the helm by an trans-dimensional burrito."
 Laura sighed in defeat. "Fine, lets make the damn thing."
 Elle looked distant and triumphant. 
 "God speed, my friend, god speed."

     ___________

"There.  I think its ready.  By the way, nice call on the pepperoni."
"Thanks Eric.  How long do you think we should microwave it?  Two minutes?"
"That seems about right."
And with that, Ricardo pressed the start button, and the microwave began to hum with mechanical confidence.  A minute ticked away, and they were down to one.

     ___________

 Elle bit her lip and crossed her fingers.  They were down to seventeen seconds.
 And then, without warning, her fears were confirmed, and the cheesy monstrosity collapsed upon itself.

     ___________

 Eric and Ricardo gasped in unison as the timer hit seventeen seconds.  The burrito underwent a compression that reminded them vividly of a documentary episode they saw about collapsing stars. 
 "Something big is happening," began Ricardo. "Something very big."
 And then, in the space where their microwave was a millisecond previously, was none other than a worm-hole, its mouth occupying the entire space in front of the wall.

     ____________

 An identical event was happening in Elle and Lauras laboratory.
 "Just keep way from it," yelled Elle.  "It can only sustain itself for a matter of seconds."
 Laura closed her eyes and tried not to imagine the spinning vortex sucking her in and spitting her out as a cloud of atoms. 
 "Really?  So we'll be okay?"
 "Probably not."
 There came a knock at the door.
 "Who the hell is it?"  Screamed Elle.
 "Jehovah's Witness."  Returned the voice.  "Have you found salvation?"
 "No, but I'm working on it."  Replied Elle.
 And all of the sudden, Laura opened her eyes to watch Elle disappearing into the swirling abyss.
 "No!  What are you doing?"  She said in horror.
 Elle shrugged.  "Lesser of two evils."
 And unable to abandon her friend, Laura followed her into vortex, which, in accordance to Elle's shaky grasp of physics, promptly disappeared, leaving no evidence it had ever existed.
 The Jehovah's Witness left a pamphlet.

     __________

 In the warehouse, all was quiet.  Ricardo and Eric were unharmed, but shaken and dazed, unsure of what had actually transpired.  The microwave was missing, but aside from that, the place looked exactly the way it had before the rift had transpired.  They got to their feet shakily.
 "You okay Ricardo?"
 "Yeah I'm fine.  You?"
 "Ah, I'm good.  A little hungry, but I think I'm in decent shape."
 "And then, turning their attention away from each other, they were faced with the most pivotal moment of their lives."
 Laura looked at the two figures cowering below her in this unfamiliar environment.  Both appeared to have seen better days, and the smaller one was downright scruffy.
 The silence was broken by a hysterical Elle.
 "Run!  They're accountants! They're from payroll to cut our funding!  Laura, if they make a move, kill!"
 I" don't do that, and I don't think they're"
 "Guys, I swear, the spa membership was tax deductible!  Tax deductible!  You'll never catch me alive!"
 "Thats funny," said Eric with an uncharacteristic hold on himself.  "Usually after I eat four pounds of cheese that I hallucinate."
 Ricardo, though, was fixated on Laura, who he was confident was not a product of his troubled imagination, but in fact, very real.
 "Who, who are you?  Where are you from?"
 In a moment of spontaneity, Laura picked the now diminutive Ricardo off his feet.
 "Where are we?"  She asked him, ignoring his initial question.
 "Uh, our warehouse-slash-pseudo-apartment."
 "It doesn't look that bad from up here."
 Eric was visibly confused and irritated. "And we appreciate that, but - hello?  Giant?"
 Laura was understandable. Of course. Well, that's a long story. And Laura began to explain, in depth, her mind-blowing situation to the two people in front of her, who listened intently, mouth agape.  Elle, meanwhile, slinked away feeling thoroughly unpopular, and rooted through Eric and Ricardo's wallets, checking their identification to insure that they were not, in fact, with the accounting department.
 It was Ricardo who was the first to address their situation. "Okay, we've got two interlopers from what is probably an alternate universe, and one is twenty-five feet tall.   Anything else we should worry about?"
 "Don't forget the burrito." said Elle nonchalantly. "That baby's going to win me a Nobel."
 "Excuse me," began Eric. "The Nobel shall be mine.  I invented it in a dream.  It's called the Hawking Burrito."
 Elle glared at him. "Like hell it is, I created that little bastard years back, only to-"
 They were interrupted by Ricardo, whos mind was on much bigger things. 
 "Hey idiots - parallel universes?  Remember?"
 The two were then silent.
 "So, what is so alternate about this Universe?"  asked Elle.
 Ricardo said nothing but walked to the neighboring table, and produced a cluster of newspaper articles.
 "Take your pick."
 Elle looked at them, curious at first, but then becoming frantic, scouring the pages obsessively. 
 "Russia, its"
 "In a period of economic trouble, I know."
 "No, you don't understand.  The Cold War, when did it end?"
 "Ninety-one, why?"
 Elle laughed; briefly, nervously.
 "You guys got off easy.  But for uswe took a different path."
 Later that night, after Eric and Elle had, in spite of copious amounts of caffeine, fallen fast asleep, Ricardo was still wide awake, and had spent the last several hours talking to Laura.  She crouched beside him, listening intently and taking turns asking questions of her own.
 For Ricardo, however, it was becoming increasing evident that Laura was quite an extraordinary person, even without taking her size into consideration.  Throughout his life, Ricardo had trouble understanding people in general; they collectively seemed shallow, combative, and perpetually bickering.  In terms of perspective, Laura was his opposite.  She was optimistic, and, while he had met optimistic people before, she was different.  She was genuine, and in her presence, he began to adopt a sense of balance that he never remembered feeling.  Resist. Stay cynical.  He thought to himself.  Stay cynical.  Stay cynical.  Stay cynical. 
 But he no longer was.  And after they had talked for a little while more, Ricardo thought of his life from beyond this moment.  The uncertainty of how the following days would play out was immense, but one thing for certain is that there was a bond between himself and this giantess, and that comforted him enough to allow him to close his eyes.
 After the hardships of that turbulent day, he drifted off into a dreamless sleep, and rested for the days to come, thankful that this had not been yet another gray Friday.