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'ORIGINAL OF THE SPECIES'
by
LES GRICE (JAMES JAY)
31ST. MARCH 2017
“Good night, good night, parting is such sweet sorrow”
“Who is she?”
“Eve. She's a Hybot, the most advanced one so far. Barely human. Y'know like years ago some
humans went in for cosmetic surgery? Big time? Well, converting to Hybots, one body part at a time
and then finally full conversion into Autobots, that's what's been going on. And there's the Auto's
that humans created and which reproduce, that is, manufacture each other very nicely too. That's
been the story of us since the Quantum Revolution. Science finally took the sting out of us, humans
made the war and science said enough, now we make the peace, but oddly, it's killing us.”
“But a Hybot, on stage. Acting? And who is he?”
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have,
for both are infinite.”
“Adam. He wanted to act too. The Autobot Council asked if they could learn the lines and act it out.
All the Council is here tonight. I tried to get the role as did your mother, but the Auto's stopped that.
So we're confined to props and stage-work. But those two are very close to the centres of power,
can get to places in their government we can't. They are the key.”
“But the Bots are learning Shakespeare? What the hell for?”
“They’re consuming everything we've learnt.”
“Why don't they just read the books.”
“They wanted to learn not just hear words. They wanted to see it played out. Understand what our
emotions are, how we work.”
“Before we all disappear.”
“These violent delights have violent ends, and in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which, as
they kiss, consume.”
“So they may use our millions of years of knowledge for themselves, at least the parts they want,
though we fear they want no part of us that can dream or scheme, nor one that can imagine. Just a
cold world that exists as if frozen in time. Devoid of meaning, a museum, an exhibit for whatever or
whoever should come and find us. Like Neanderthals. They came and went too. Just got bred out
the human race. There is a trace of them in our DNA, but where are they now?...History..as we will
be too.”
“But we can't breed.”
“We can only hope that there is still some small spark of creativity, some neurons left untouched
that...some part of whatever universal force that is responsible for us is left in us to reactivate Homo
Sapiens.”
“But the Auto's have never ever killed anyone, they've always obeyed Asimov's three laws of
robotics.”
“We're just naturally dying off. We can't breed quick enough, the Autobots have drained us of our
will, our everything. Unless.”
“Unless what?”
“Unless we can make it work.”
“Make what work. I don't understand.”
“Don't waste your love on somebody, who doesn't value it.”
“You know what happens at the end of the play?”
“Yes. You and Mum read it to me often enough.”
“Well then, we had to find a way of getting DNA into a pair of Hybos, hoping it would bring
back the humanity in them.”
“Then?....”
“Then they fall in love. Remember falling in love? Its what the human race used to do. Mother
Natures way of preserving the species, binding us together. It disappeared until it's just become a
memory. Not even a memory............... How can you forget how to fall in love.”
“What DNA, what are you talking about.”
“Your mother. She made a potion. Ha, a potion...the language doth persist, a will of it's own. On the
Curie machine she made in secret, a DNA searcher.”
“Love is smoke made with the fume of sighs”
“She locked herself away for months. What did she discover?”
“The Godspot.”
“The what?”
“The centre of us, our soul, our very being, the heart of our brain, that which makes us human. Our
consciousness if you will, our empathy, y'know that part of us which relates to others.”
“How do you know that’s what it is and what it does?”
“We really don't and we won't.”
“I don't understand.”
“Its all done by smoke and mirrors.”
“That's not funny.”
“There are mirrors, onstage I mean, as part of the scenery. For the actors to reflect on themselves
and see each other, to help trigger the mirror neurons.”
“But the potio....the poison, the DNA, whatever it is. Where did it come from.”
“Where does anything come from?
“Never stop playing games, do you Dad.”
“Do not swear by the Moon, for she changes constantly, then your love would also change.”
“You remember the old story about a Plant and a Bee?”
“Yes. A pink gentian grows in Africa, near where Man evolved from Monkeys, the real garden of
Eden, which is pollinated by handsome furry carpenter bees.
The flowers of the gentian spread their petals wide, revealing to all a curving white style and three
large stamens. Each stamen ends in a long thick anther that seems to be covered in yellow pollen, an
obvious temptation to any passing pollen-feeding insect. But that is something of an illusion. The
yellow anther is hollow and the pollen is held inside. The only way it can escape is through a tiny
hole right at the top of the anther and there is only one way of extracting it. Only the carpenter bee
knows how.
“What's in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.”
It arrives at the flower making a high-pitched buzzing noise with its wings as most bees do. As it
alights on an anther, it continues beating its wings but lowers the frequency so that the note of its
buzz suddenly falls to approximately middle C. This causes the anther to vibrate at just the right
frequency needed to burst open and release the pollen and the grains spout out of the hole at the top
in a yellow fountain. And therefore only this bee and this flower are in unison. Evolution equals
preservation. Oh my not-God”
“And who was the storyteller of that tale?”
“Old Man Attenborough?”
“Yes. So change is possible, it's hidden within and without, you just need the code and the key”.
“But how ..I don't understand.”
“Your mother both understood the concept of Natures inner capacity for evolution, regardless of
time or interference from anything. Some people called that God. And as many times before, man,
only this time woman, used the plant-life that contained self-wisdom, smuggled it over to us, to
concoct a DNA that will initiate change in the Hybo's.”
“O teach me how I should forget to think.”
“But how will you administer the drug?”
“Watch, listen, we're nearing the end of the play.”
“Dad, Eve, I mean Juliet, has bitten the apple and lies still. Sleeping not dead. Was that a real apple?
The one you supplied. With the DNA?”
“Yes, in the play she bit it knowing it contained a drug that would make her only sleep, except now
she has accepted the drug...and here comes Romeo.”
“Here comes Mum too. Are you OK Mum, you look as white as a ghost?
“I'm OK.”
“Look, Romeo sees Juliet.”
“Arms, take your last embrace. And, lips, ….”
“He's taking a bite out of another apple.. Did you supply that apple too?”
“Yes. It's got twice the strength.”
“Dad, are you OK?”
“I'm feeling a bit groggy. We knew they'd check everything, but not the apples, the Auto's dismissed
the Bible years ago.”
“Here's to my Love! (Bites into apple) O true nature! Thy drugs are quick..”
“Now Romeo has died. For real.”
“Mum, Dad. What's happening to you?”
“We've been falling in love all over again this past few weeks. But now, we're dying.”
“No, no, you can't. What did you do?”
“We had to test the drug. We took it ourselves. But we knew all along it was too strong for humans.
But we knew for sure it worked.”
“Thus with a kiss I die.”
“Dad, Romeo has really died.”
“In Shakespeare's play, yes, but Adam won't die, a Hybo's guts will convert the drug and raise his
desires towards Eve.”
“Juliet's got to die now. Dad. There's no knife.”
“We persuaded the Auto's to use fruit, more symbolic.”
“Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.”
“Dad, Mum, she's bitten the other apple. The stronger one.”
“Good, good. Listen to me. Be a good son. Find a good woman. And live.”
“But what will happen to Eve and Adam?”
“The drug will awaken their desire for reproduction via love. Here, take the formula. You know
what to do.”
“For never was a story of more woe, Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”
“We will preserve humans. One child at a time. Goodbye son.”
“The play is over. Romeo and Juliet...they're taking the applause, still holding hands.....they're
walking off stage...still holding hands. They're glowing. It's working, it's working. Mum, Dad, look,
….Oh no....... Mum, Dad. It's going to be OK. It's a new beginning. Soon there will be an original
of the species.”