Zinc - May form explosive with air if in dust form. If damp or wet a reaction occurs and heat forms and may cause it to ignite. Good shelf-life if kept dry. Soluble in acids and alkalies. Light gray. No odor. Transition metal. Brittle. High melting point.
Sulfur - Dust can be moderate fire risk. Toxic when burned. Found in volcanoes and under quicksand in Louisiana and Texas. Forms toxic sulfur dioxide when burned. Low toxicty but may be skin irritant. Indefinite shelf-life. Soluble slightly in alcohol and other organic solvents. Insoluble in water. Yellow. Faint rotten egg odor. Non-metal.
Zinc Sulfide - Phosphorescent, lab grade powder. Poor shelf-life. Moisture sensitive. Soluble in acids but not water. Yellow. No odor. Contact with acid liberates toxic and flammable hydrogen sulfide gas.
Once there was this guy named Zinc. He had been sitting in the same mountain for the past 2 million years and was getting bored. He was thinking to himself, "Man, I wish something would happen," when all of the sudden he was blown into many tiny dust particles by an explosion. He thought, "Uh-oh, I could spontaneously combust if I don't get out of this dust and get back into a chunck fast. Or, mabye, I could chemically unite with another element." Just then he saw Sulfur, sitting in a volcano all by herself. It was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen, but when he snapped back to reality he realized heat was not the thing to keep him from being incinerated.
By this time he was floating high above the mountains and he could relax because it was cold up there. Then an enormous downdraft swept all his particles down into the volcano. It was so powerful he went right in the volcano without being burned. He went flying right by Sulfur, and she didn't even notice because she was trying to suffocate the people who were mining her with her stench. Then he ran into a vent and was abruptly slammed into Sulfur.
Note: the following contains scenes which may be unsuitable for children.
They reacted violently, his valence shell touching hers, and their electrons became shared property. It was over in trilliseconds, but it seemed like an eternity.
They were shipped off some days later, as zinc sulfide, to chemistry classes everywhere. Some of them became defective due to their poor shelf-life, some of them mixed with acid to make their offspring - hydrogen sulfide gas. The gas was quite amazing, but that's a story for another time.
