First she tried to create life in the laboratory,
with nothing more than science to help her. She mixed methane and hydrogen,
carbon dioxide and water vapour, and passed electric sparks into it for many weeks.
But all she got was a soup with complex organic chemicals and an amino acid or
two. Perhaps if she waited a few decades she might make a single strand of DNA, she thought, but she hadn’t the
patience to wait for something that wouldn’t ever happen anyway.
Then she thought that if she couldn’t
create life de novo, she might as well
attempt to revive the dead. She read up on all the great literature on the subject,
including the writings of such eminent resurrectionists as Jesus Christ, HP
Lovecraft and Mary Shelley. Unfortunately, each of them had his or her own and
wildly different methods, and reconciling them seemed impossible.
She tried, though; she did her best. Under
the shadow of a crucifix, and with an open Bible beside her, she stitched
together the pieces of corpses disinterred at the dead of night, and muttered
arcane voodoo prayers over them while passing electric currents into the
resulting composite body. The next morning, the chest cavity of the corpse
showed signs of movement, and she thrilled with the thought that it was
breathing. But it was merely the gases of decay, and when the body blew up from
them, the lab stunk for weeks afterwards.
After that she thought of selling her soul to
the Devil in exchange for what she wanted. But the Devil had long ago resigned
and left Hell in disgust, since his evil couldn’t compete with that of humanity.
So finally she got married. A husband wasn’t
quite as good as a zombie, but it was
better than nothing.
Copyright B Purkayastha 2012
There seem to be an enormous number of folks walking around my city who are the walking dead.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be less stressful than natural living.