The I(r)onic Bond, a Chemical Romance

By Jonah Glover





A little Hydrogen atom wanted to become attached to a Chlorine atom, but he didn’t have the courage to talk to her. On the other side, Chlorine really liked Hydrogen, but she couldn’t talk to him either. Finally Chlorine decided that she would dress up as another Hydrogen atom because of how comfortable Hydrogen is hanging out with itself. That night Hydrogen came up with the scheme of dressing up like Chlorine, because he knew that she loved to chill with other Chlorine atoms. The two both figured that the next day they’d see the other and become happily diatomic.

During the day neither of them could find the other. Hydrogen and Chlorine were both very sad.

But, after school, Hydrogen forgot he was pretending to be Chlorine, and he saw another Hydrogen atom that he really wanted to hang out with. So he ran over to the lone atom — who turned out to be Chlorine in disguise! He asked if they could bond, and Chlorine, forgetting that she wasn’t actually Hydrogen, decided she wouldn’t mind hanging out with this Chlorine molecule.

That night while the two shared some electrons, they laughed about their Ironic Bond*.

—Jonah Glover

* Editor’s Note: “An ionic bond is a type of chemical bond formed through an electrostatic attraction between two oppositely charged ions.” See the Wikipedia article here. Actually, H and Cl share electrons to form a covalent bond, which is ironic.