A Bond Too Far

This is a story I wrote for extra-credit in Chemistry, but I thought it would do well in a science blog as well.

A Bond Too Far

Lithium and Oxygen, two elements who thought they’d be together forever, were being transported to an HP battery manufacturing plant. The two lovers were transferring their last electrons through ionic bonding when a scooper picked up the lithium oxide (Li₂O) couple and threw them into a furnace. At first, the furnace was cool and isolated; but soon, the temperature started to rise and the air began to glow dry. The hot climate was too much for oxygen; and so, the couple was forever split.

Oxygen, now broken hearted, floated in the air as she desperately watched the conveyor belt take her lithium husband away. Suddenly, she realized that she was not alone. Millions of other oxygen particles like her were watching their husbands go away. Oxygen, in a desperate attempt to find a partner for consolation, covalently double bonded with another oxygen molecule. Although the last-minute partner ship quelled electronegative love, it could never replace the ionic relationship Oxygen shared with Lithium. Finally, the convection current pushed the oxygen couples into the air—Oxygen thought she’d never see Lithium again.

Lithium, now desperate for any companionship, looked around in vain only to see other lithium widowers. He did not want to be with them; fortunately for Lithium, he had been selected not for a lithium ion battery, but for a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. Thus, Lithium was separated once more and led to an isolated, dim, and cozy chamber. Suddenly, a flirtatious fluorine atom seductively made her way towards Lithium…

“Hey there, handsome. Are you alone?”

“No!” Lithium cried as he remembered his oxygenated past.

“Are you sure you don’t want to bond with me?” Fluorine question as she pulled Lithium ever closer to her electronegative bosom.

“Yeeees—er I mean NO!” Lithium  exclaimed as his valence shell rose to a higher energy level, unable to resist the bond that could be.

“You know you want me Lithium—you can’t resist,” Fluorine whispered as she moved ever closer before forming the ultimate electronegative bond with Lithium.

Their bond consummate, Lithium and Fluorine, now pronounced Lithium Fluoride, were transported to a LFTR reactor. However, the plane shuttling the couple flew consumed a certain oxygen molecule. As Oxygen was sucked into the giant turbojet engines, she saw Lithium Fluoride. Heartbroken, she combusted into a charred vapor with the fuel—forever alone.