Life without potential is meaningless. To grow, to become – to overcome; it is the greatest definition of human strength and prosperity. Without potential, without growth or change, we have failed as a human.
The setting sun seems odd now, to May. Something was skewed about the light, a variable she couldn’t place. It annoyed her, it was different, just one more thing to add to a growing list of changes since being back. May stared at her coffee slowly cooling in the evening air. The coffee tastes different, too; everything tastes different.
“How’s it going out here?” May slowly turns to see John standing in the doorway. “I am getting annoyed at learning new English.” He stops for a moment to stare at the sun set. “It’s good to see you again, May.”
“It’s dying.” She says before taking a sip of coffee, she makes a disturbed face as she swallows. “The sun.” she motions with her mug labeled with almost-discernable letters and a logo made of two cars on a skewer. In the distance, cities carried on, built just above the ocean waters after we ran out of legal-livable land. “I honestly didn’t think it would be this hard, you know? Coming back. It all changed so quickly.”
“Nothing we can do about progress.” John says, fitting himself next May, staring out over the ocean. A lizard-like creature moves across the sand slowly before opening strange sets of feathers and diving into the water. He slides his hand over hers.
“5… 4… 3… 2… 1…” buried miles under the Siberian tundra, a small, insignificantly distinguished silver switch is flicked upward injecting a little known man-made chemical into another less well known man-made chemical. The men are enchanted by the motions of the pre-programmed machines, each moving like some hideously alien ballet moving with grace and in unity. Disturbing, one man thought as the eyeless machines acted out their destiny. In a small dark room, the men stand behind a large safety window, protection enough from any unpredicted explosions. The moment is less than exciting once the machines stop their functions. The men wait in the darkness of their safety room, their lab coats reflecting every bit of the fluorescent light from behind the mirror. Rigorously, methodically; the men test this new compound over a period of ten days before, what is later known as, the date of creation. Over ten days the men put the compound under extreme pressure and heat, they cooled the substance to a temperature relative to the vacuum of space. Nothing changed; it never boiled or changed states, it remained a liquid no matter what was done to it.
“Why don’t we ad it to something?” one said, feigning surprise when the others agreed. They added the compound to water, only to watch it separate like oil. They added it to fabric, only to watch it bead up like mercury. Finally they added it to cells, known as the date of creation.
The cells merged into something spectacular, an organism unlike flesh or cells or any body of mass made of multi-leveled parts. It became a whole without parts. They wanted to take it apart, to share it, but the nature of the organism is to not be shared. Upon cutting the mass, they witnessed instantaneous regeneration of the tissue.