Inlay

Last to be posted but the first I submitted. Seems fitting. The prompt: Write a flash of no more than 100 words that starts and ends with the same sentence. The opening and closing sentence should feel different in meaning by the time we return to it. Thanks @natflashfictionday.bsky.social

That was it! Science is 90% monotony, 10% luck, and this was my lucky day. The answer was staring up from beneath the microscope. It was obvious now, in the sketches, the equations. All alone in the lab, I could keep it quiet until I published. I didn’t know the committee existed until I was summoned to defend myself. A hearing of the Rosalind Franklin Integrity Committee was asking me about the process leading to the discovery. I didn’t say “I found a notebook beside a microscope and had an epiphany.” But they knew anyway. That was it.