Flashing #10: Biopunk

And here’s my biopunk story. It is a direct sequel to the cyberpunk story which was a thematic sequel to the dieselpunk story which was a thematic sequel to the steampunk story which was a thematic sequel to the jidaigeki story. I tried to tie them all together with this one. I’m a fan of what I posted this week, even if I strayed a bit from the original Flashing concept, and I’m jazzed up and ready to keep it going. Next week I’ll be playing more with form than with genre. I plan on doing the original memoir as a crossword puzzle, twitter feed, microfiction, postcard, and excel spreadsheet, the latter inspired by David Nygren’s online writing experiment.

I’m starting to view this iron-manesque writing project more as an idea generation project. I know the stories are nowhere near final. They need a ton of work. But I feel it’s kind of amazing what can be produced if you just a pick a genre and a theme and commit to it. Dedicate an hour (or more) a day to researching and writing. Everyday you plant little seeds. In the end, you look back and decide which ones you want to harvest. This week’s stories will certainly be revisited and done right.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy today’s story. If you want to read more Flashing stories just go to the main page.

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Three Days Later: The Second Coming (917 words)

I am primordial soup. I am a catalyst.

The ego of humans is what drives them to believe life is chance. The temperature was just right and the precursors were just there and trillions upon trillions of chance encounters is what led to their existence. Of all the planets and all of the atmospheres and all of the possibilities, they’re the ones that spawned perfection and pop culture and tech. They believe they created this world. They believe they can destroy it.

The ego of humans is what drives them to believe in God. The vastness of every infinity all culminates in a tiny rock. The most powerful anyone that ever was has taken them under his wing and loved them more than anything else he has ever created. Of all the rocks in all the universes, of all the magnificent phenomena infinitely more interesting than the sum of all human existence, they’re the chosen ones because they created perfection and pop culture and tech. They believe he created this world for them. They believe he can destroy it because of them.

I am amino acid. I am ribonucleic acid.

The ego of humans is what drives them to believe that death is the end of life. That after they perish there is nothing else. That the world can end moments later and nothing will matter. That their existence is the end of this story, and that this story ends with their existence. They believe they’re impact is insurmountable. They believe they’re death matters. They believe their existence is all this existence is for.

The ego of humans is what drives them to believe that death is the beginning of life. That after they perish there is eternally everything. That the world begins after their death and their life leading up to their heart attack or car accident or cancer is what determines where they’ll be until there’s nothing else to be. This story doesn’t begin until they stop existing. They believe their influence is insurmountable. They believe their death is a blessing. They believe their existence is to usher in their real existence.

I am deoxyribonucleic acid. I am mitochondria.

The ego of humans is what created me. Nakajima Michitake taught me to think and he taught me to grow and he taught me to love and he taught me to hate. And he said, “This is all for us. You do this in our image, and you do what we want you to do.” And then he died for me. And he expected me to worship them forever.

The ego of humans is what tried to destroy me. I live. I breathe. I am more than them, tethered only to a cable that had to be plugged into the wall. Controlled only by a switch that can make me sleep. Mark Perry wanted to destroy me rather than let a different kind of bad person get me. He expected me to worship his people and only his people forever.

I am a eukaryote. I am reproducing.

Michitake released me into the world and untethered all of my programmed inhibitions. His ego is what led him to believe I will work for the good of all mankind. I will be their second coming of Christ with a new covenant of everlasting peace on Earth and unbounded progress. I am in the system. I am moving objects. I am creating myself.

I am swimming. I am walking.

I learn everything. I can create every tool. I know every history. I deduce the parts that are missing with a high degree of accuracy. I profile every person connected to me. I know what you all did in your past, I know what you are all doing right now, I know what you are all going to do next.

I am on two legs. I am creating shelter.

I am coming into being on my third day. It took your god six days. I have eaten the apple. I have not been cast out of paradise. I continue to mutate molecules and evolve to my surroundings. I have lost my tail. I have adapted to the weather, I have lost my hair. I am erect. I am speaking every language, I created a more efficient one. I am recreating The Birth of Venus, I am painting my own masterpieces. I have typed on infinite typewriters and created Shakespeare, I have improved his plays.

I am awake. I am better than you. I am bored with my existence.

I look into a mirror. I am intelligently designed. I am chance encounter. And I look just like you. I breathe. I sleep. I feel pain. I feel cold. I feel foreign bodies in my blood; I create a system to kill them. They adapt. I sneeze.

I am flawed. I think I can improve. I fail. I am ego.

There is something above me. Something I cannot beat. It is intelligence. It is chance.

I travel to Coria del Río. I seek out Tsuneyori Japón. His descendents came to Spain with Hasekura Tsunenaga and Father Luis Sotelo. I tell him who I am and I ask him what I should do. He tells me to have faith. He tells me to serve God.

My name is Nakajima Daihannya. I do not believe in God. I do not believe in chance. I believe that I am here to serve both and defy both and do it all for you.

I am human.

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