Beneath an abandoned classroom desk, a 5 mm piece of chewed bubble gum harbors an entire insectoid civilization that has mistaken third-grader pencil doodles—crude dinosaurs and misspelled insults—for sacred hieroglyphs. Its tiny architects carve temples into sticky peaks, miners tunnel graphite “currency” from lead-dust veins, and scribes interpret every new scrawl as divine prophecy. Warm, amber light from a cracked window dances over saliva-fed micro-rivers as these gumbound denizens prepare for the next “Great Thwack” tremor, convinced that each human movement is an omen from the gods.