Ice is the condition of life unlived, crystal zygote. Orphans
now. Were we ever anything more? Here is the potential for bone
and ligament, for kneeling and dance. There is the ice crystal
that will become an Achilles tendon, and here is the deltoid that
will hold a child, lift a kitten out of a tree.
You think blood's gonna flow here? Frozen blood doesn't flow.
We have a chance.
Miniscule at best. A snowflake's chance in hell.
Motherless zygotes are so depressed. Catalogue potential. This
microscopic chip contains the capacity to develop a cerebellum,
a cerebrum, to traverse the currents of gravity and become a column
to lift us to new heights above our ancestors.
Oh, sure, high enough to oversee the bacchanal but never close
enough to join.
Nevertheless. This tiny gem of DNA contains the basis for the
caratid artery, the brachial artery -
Dream on.
. . . the pulmonary artery, and the femoral artery. That pin pick,
smaller than an angel's wings. . .
You can't get away with that.
. . . could be a heart. Beating.
I see.
Of course, there are the parts no one wants to contemplate, the
large intestine, the small intestine, the liver. . .
Who will change our diapers?
We're rich. We'll hire someone. Here we have the potential for
cartilage, there is tissue for lungs. . .
They say we could be monsters.
You're a monster. I'm normal. Here is the opportunity for a thalamus,
there the thyroid gland.
You will always be tired. I will have no gonads.
Androgynous people are quite popular these days.
We'll never know. Believe me. Already they're shuffling around
in the lab, back-stepping, double tracking. An excess of hand-wringing.
Oh what to do with the "living heirs."
A difficult moral dilemma.
For them. Not for me. I want to live a long life and enjoy my
filthy lucre.
You make a poor orphan. Orphans should be strong. Here is the
possibility of pelvis, there the potential for ganglia, and right
over there, the sciatic nerve.
Who says orphans should be strong? I'm no survivor.
These parts we retain in our hearts, the superior vena cava, the
tricuscpid valve, the inferior vena cava, and then of course the
right and left atriums, right and left ventricles, ventricular
septum . . .
Hold your breath. Here they come.