Imaginary Keith’s application for a cloning license has been passed by yet again! We can remain silent about it no more.
It’s a travesty that the British regulators in charge of handing out the cloning licenses have given yet another one to Ian Wilmut. A preposterous travesty! What are they thinking? Wilmut already had his chance with Dolly the Sheep! Give some of the rest of us a chance, for crying out loud.
“Calm down,” I told Imaginary Keith yesterday, after we’d both come across the article in the newspaper. (Fucking newspapers! Always breaking our hearts!)
“Calm down? Calm down?! Do you know how many times I’ve applied for that cloning license? Eighteen. Eighteen god damn times!”
“Maybe nineteen is the lucky number.” Offering encouragement in the face of an obvious impossibility is not my strong suit.
“You know what the papers call him? The Dolly Scientist. Do you get it? Dolly? It’s just stupid, that’s what it is. I was pulling the heads off my sisters dolls before Wilmut had even scrubbed his first test tube. If anyone should be the Dolly Scientist, it should be me.”
“Is that what you’d . . “
“No. But I’m just saying. It’s not fair.”
* * * * * * * * * *
“ . . . the creation of cloned human embryos destined for experimentation and subsequent destruction is particularly abhorrent.”
- Julia Millington of the London-based ProLife Alliance
My own parents climbed into the back seat of some old Chevrolet, and without a single thought about my own subsequent destruction, created me. I worry now, endlessly it seems, about the fact that most people are not created by unmarried teens in the back seat of old Chevrolets. By definition, I myself am an aberration.
My life has been nothing but one big experiment. My daily toil sees to the destruction of my body, just as time sees to the destruction of my memory. I find the fact that I was born, only to one day die, particularly abhorrent, and am pushing for legislation that will outlaw any type of sexual behavior within Chevrolets.
* * * * * * * * * *
from The Revised History of the Early 23rd Century Clone Wars
The troops of cloned evangelists, marching in crisp formation under the hot, midday Texas sun, passed across the massive, brick promenade of the True Capital in wave after wave. The determination of Truth Training could be seen on every face and in the white-knuckle grip on every Bible. And when True President raised his hand in tribute, it is said that that the roar from the troops, a unanimous call of “God Speaks!” was so loud, that even many faithful believers fell to their knees out of fear of what was being unleashed upon the world.
* * * * * * * * * *
“How come animals get no respect?” the boy wants to know. He demands an answer. Silence is not an option.
“If a cow breaks it’s leg, do we fix it? No. We eat it. That’s what we do.”
How do you respond when your own children attack you for the way of the world? Thank god I am not a cow. I really have no leg to stand on.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. I want to tell him what I’m really thinking, but he’s still too young. In my mind it is all about the human desire to control everything around them, but a nine year old will not grasp this. He already thinks that the world is about control. His control. Control is one of the basic tenets of being a child. It is practice for being an adult, and being able to rationalize why we do things like keep dogs and cats as pets, but decide to eat so many other kinds of animals. Why one bird can be ground up and made into inexpensive hotdogs, while another is sold to ride around on our shoulder and poop on our shirt.
The world of a nine year old is a highly distorted thing. It’s a good thing. He’ll need every single bit of it to survive as an adult.
* * * * * * * * * *
I don’t know about you, but I’m more then a little worried about the afterlife. And now there’s this whole cloning business. Talk about your theistic monkey wrench.
What if they clone me, and my clone gets to heaven before me? Is this the sort of thing that worries you as much as me? Who’s going to get in? Both of us, or will it be first come, first serve? Will god know the difference? If clones are such an aberration, like many faithful believe, wouldn’t god just toss them back into the fire?
* * * * * * * * * *
I think people are uncomfortable with cloning for the same reason they’re uncomfortable about talking to their own children about sex. The same reason we’re uncomfortable standing up in a crowd and saying our piece. The same reason we don’t walk around naked, or tell our spouses what we’re really thinking, or put our picture up for everyone to see. Let’s face it, we’re uncomfortable with just about everything. We’re uncomfortable with the way other people dress or the cars they drive. We’re uncomfortable with the weather or how clean our homes are. We seldom tell people our middle names and become self-conscious when others watch us eat. We don’t want people catching us in the shower or on the toilet, or reading over our shoulder, or with any part of our own body in our own hand.
Let’s just say we’re an uncomfortable species, and leave it at that.
* * * * * * * * * *
Is that a clone growing in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?