By Betty Huang <quiettornado7491@gmail.com>
Rated: G
Submitted: December 2001
Summary: To donut or not to donut, that is the question. Here is a very short story to explain the question, "Why does Clark like caked donuts?"
Author's note: Hi, there. Here is another short story by me. There aren't any real criminal elements or anything of that sort. This is a story to answer a cute little question I have — perhaps in a brainy kind of way.
As usual the characters are not mine, the story is however and, maybe, just one character. (Tuesday, December 18, 2001 at 9:37:55 PM)
Send comments to: quiettornado7491@gmail.com
It was a bright, early Monday morning. Spring was blooming. Dr. Klein was in the park with another women and conversing. He looked at his watch, "Oh Oh, I'm late. I have to run."
"Call me, so we can set up dinner tonight."
"Sure, honey." Dr. Klein kissed her.
***
In the daily planet building a few hours later, Clark had just gotten back from assisting at three rescues, two robberies, a fire, and three auto accidents.
"Clark, " Perry screamed. "You're late."
"Something important came up."
***
All morning Clark and Lois were busy working on their stories and gathering information. By noon, Clark had to rush out again. He was beginning to think that the criminal elements had been busy for this whole week and the previous week also.
Clark didn't get back until close to five o'clock and Lois handed Clark a few papers to show him how she had cover for him while he was gone.
***
Five twenty-five pm at Star Labs, Dr. Klein and Emerson, the new lab tech were at the table examining some of the stuff Emerson had brought with him when he came to earth. Dr. Klein came up to Emerson and introduced himself to the new man.
"Hi, my name is Dr. Klein."
"Hi, I'm Emerson. I'm from Talloan."
"Is that on Earth?"
"No, it's a planet close to where old Krypton used to be. My planet is about 20 billion light years from Old Krypton. Our planet specialized in medicine for other races."
"Oh, how so?"
"Well, we're naturally curious about other cultures of the universe. The only cures for disease that we don't have are human and our own. That's why we travel around the universe, to learn more about other cultures and hopefully find a species very close to our own. But we do have medical knowledge ranging from Kryptonians to BeLights."
"Kryptonians!"
"Wow! It so happens that I've been working with Superman to find a cure for Kryptonite poisoning."
"We've already found it."
As Emerson and Klein talked, Klein stirred some sugar into his tea. But what he didn't see was that some of his sugar had landed on Emerson's slides. They talked a while more until Emerson went back to examining his slides under the microscope. Emerson became shocked when he saw that one of the items on the slide didn't seem right. He takes it off of the clip on the microscope to look at it. To his astonishment, he saw that there was something on top of the second layer of the glass slide.
Emerson put it back under the microscope. "Klein, can you come here?"
"Sure. What's up?"
Emerson looked up. "What do you mean what's up?"
"Sorry, it's just a figure of speech here on Earth."
"Oh." He then asked Klein, "Can you look into the microscope and tell me what those white things are?"
Klein did as asked and, afterwards, he said, "Sugar. It's a sweet thing that we have on Earth that we put in donuts, cakes, and teas. Why do you ask?"
"It kind of reminds me of a substance that they have on old Krypton."
"And?"
"It's a kind of vitamin that they used] a long time ago when ancient Kryptonians had superpowers."
"Vitamin?" Klein said in surprise and in an attempt to process the new information.
"Yes." He paused as he looked for the slide in his pocked pocket and then showed it to Klein, "I have a sample here." Emerson put the slide under the microscope for Klein.
As Klein looked into it, he was amazed at how similar in the molecular structure of the two completely different objects had looked; they were exactly alike, right down to the last molecule. "What does this vitamin do?"
"In the old days, if a Kryptonian went a week without it their body wouldn't be able to process the solar energy that the body absorbs and change it into energy."
"Hum, that's interesting. Kind of like humans if their body is lacking in a vitamin; some aliment always shows up."
"Really. Interesting."
"Do Kryptonians have that problem?"
"Rarely…Yes, but when I used to work on Old Krypton, I noticed that some families made sure that their children took this kind of vitamin supplement. The only thing that I noticed that might be an aliment associated with lack of K2 vitamin in the old days was the inability of the wound to heal."
"In another words, they can bleed to death."
"No, they just heal more slowly. And when the reserves are used up, then they bleed to death."
***
A week later, the Daily Planet building in the newsroom, Lois looked over at Clark and saw the tired look on Clark's face. He had been busy during the past week and hadn't even had the chance to stop to eat anything. Things had finally slowed down with the criminals. Clark was now trying to catch up on his work. Lois saw Clark attempt to use his super-speed to type but she had noticed that he just got even more tired afterwards. Lois looked over at the coffee counter and saw that the donuts were piled higher then usual. She even noticed that part because Clark usually ate at least three of the ones that were sugar-packed. On certain days she would find Clark on his sixth donut.
"It looks like he's running out of steam. Once he gets some sunshine tomorrow, I believe he'll feel better." Lois thought to herself.
***
But the next morning, it wasn't so. Clark still felt tired even after his second day of an eight hours sleep. Clark didn't know why he'd been so sleepy. He should've have caught up to his minimum of required sleep already. Clark got out of bed to get ready to go to work; he had a lot of work to catch up on. Clark knew that he had to get ready for work without his super speed.
***
But three days later, early in the morning, Clark's morning was pretty much as it had been three days previously. Clark got out of bed slowly and groggily. Clark's super-hearing could pick up Lois' phone call downstairs. He knew that Lois had just gotten off the phone with Dr. Klein. He walked into the bathroom to get ready for work.
***
Four days later, Klein had finally caught up with his recent lab assignments from the recent lab assignments and came into the home of Lois and Clark, as they had asked him to do. He came in to see that Lois had gone back to bandaging Clark's hand. Lois explained the problem to Klein. Lois then heard Klein ask a weird question but knew there were a for it, Klein said, "When was the last time you had a donut?"
Clark thought that was it was a weird question to ask but he said, "About two weeks or so."
Klein immediately took out a lunch bag of donuts that he had with him. He took out a sugar-packed donut and handed it to Clark. "Let's do an experiment. Eat it."
Clark did as he was he was told. As he did, he had the weirdest sensation, almost like an 'ah' sensation as if it had felt good like quenching a thirst for water when you're extremely thirsty. By Clark's third donut, Klein took off his bandages to look at the wound. Clark was surprised to see that it was gone.
Klein began to tell Lois and Clark about the new assistant at his lab and how they had shared information. Klein told him how he had found out about vitamin K2. Klein explained the similarities in the molecular structure of both the K2 and suger in detail and the function of the K2 vitamin.
Lois and Clark said at the same time, "Klein."
"Sorry," Klein said before he continued to explain in simpler terms.
THE END