since professor dawn summers had gone back to freelance work after she retired from university, most o’ the work solicited from her were basic cases solved with household chemistry, which she politely referred to her better former students, which was fine, since she didn’t need the money; but finally, 1 october afternoon, she found the juiciest o’ cases drop into her lap.
this patient was known as a celibria, & appeared to dawn’s admittedly rather weak eyes to be a tiny sun & moon — the size o’ footballs, each — attached to each other by some mysterious green bar. when they floated into her livingroom — & what an beautifully absurd sight ’twas, seeing this alien creature floating ’bove her counselor’s couch — she couldn’t stop herself from holding a hand out toward the sun & feeling the warmth o’ its heat, which was, thankfully, might less than what the real sun gave out, but was ’stead felt like what came out o’ a heater.
e’en mo’ absurd was their problem, a problem they said they’d had their whole life, & were desperate to finally solve: they each wanted to grow mighty as their real counterparts so they could rise into space & join their brethren; but they found that as 1 grew, the other shrunk; & ’cause they loved each other so much, neither had the nerve to try growing so big that the other shrunk into nothing.
dawn, touched by their unique problem, tried her best to study them & find a cure to their affliction, but, alas, e’en after a full decade could find no solution…