The Spooniverse

"The Spooniverse is a parallel galaxy not too far from our own and it mirrors similar parameters" said Professor Dunn

The students were laughing - the daft old man was making it up as he went along. The professor kept talking, oblivious.

"You see spoons come in all different colours and sized. Most are white - stainless steel. Some come in brown copper,some are very white like the silver ones. The older ones tend to be orange as they're ceramics.

The students kept watching, curious to see where the usually serious Prof. Dunn was going.

"These spoons all have different sizes too. Some are big ladel-like structure. Some are baby sized and are used for stirring tea."

"When you watch the Spooniverse for a while you will notice many emergent properties. Different spoons are suited better for different tasks."

"Some are very good in hot water. Some disintegrate under pressure. Some will bend under the force. Some will break. Some will clean easily. Some will be tarnished forever."

"The key to navigating the spooniverse, is knowing that most spoons are remarkably versatile and durable. They can cope with freezing, boiling, pressurised and depressurised environments - the latter of which is most common in the Spooniverse as gravity is at one twentieth of Earth's levels and there's a different gaseous mix to our atmosphere."

"Meanwhile in our universe the spoons appear to be disappearing." He raised and eyebrow and stared at the students with suspicion.

"Yes. The canteen staff have noticed that we're out of spoons and some people appear to be taking them to their dormitories to collect and not return."

The students laughed nervously. They gradually owned up and vowed to return them.

"Now that's enough of this lecture. I'm fed up of spending time with my fuddy duddy colleagues and these crusty old colleges. Let's go to Wetherspoons, you spry young things"

The Financial Year was ending tomorrow and the budget had to spent to not risk cuts. So he bought his class a round of drinks and sat them down in the corner.

"You spring chickens, tell me about your encounters with spoons."

"My dad visited every Wetherspoons in the country." said one student.

"Is that so..." said the Professor stroking his beard, working on some distant theory.

"Yeah, he had a pint and a burger in each one."

"Anyone else?"

Nobody else had anything to say and they wondered where the professor was going to lead them. He broke the silence.

"You might think I'm just an old silly spoon with false teeth - but the Spooniverse I described to you earlier is quite real."

"May I remind you that due to quantum psychics and the bending of the space-time continuum, everything you can imagine is real. It may not materialise on this 3D plane because we're constrained by our human beliefs of what's posible. But it is indeed quite real. More real than us in many ways..."

He took a sip of his pint.

"Sometimes I wake in the night and I am spinning through the Spooniverse. I am a Welsh love spoon. I was lovingly crafted by a man called Gareth Jones who used to be an accountant but gave it up to turn his hands to spoon carving in the Welsh valleys."

"I spin and I dance with the other spoons and we have so much fun! People stir soups with me and my friends. They also eat big tubs of Ben and Jerry's with me. They love me."

"I wish I could find a Mrs Spoon in my dreams but then I come back to my bed and have to teach you lot, mark your trivial assignments and read some research proving things I already knew."

"One day you'll all find your Spooniverse and everything will make sense" He downed his pint and left the students to laugh at him.