The
Godly Pattern
Day One
"Morning Doc," announces Jim
as he enters the lab.
"Jya jya jya. How's are you do'n,"
replies Doc with that whistling rasp in his speech that makes one think he is
about to stand and dance to the beet of the proverbial drummer.
"Same as usual. Find it yet."
"Not yet, but soon."
Jim smiled that knowing smile parents give
their child when the child thinks the answer to the meaning of life has been
found, only to find reality a little further down the road. This ritualistic
greeting, ritualistic for no other word can describe the pattern, had been
going on for the twenty years that Jim had been working with Doc. Jim couldn't
help but smile again when he imagined the lab assistants of Doc's previous
thirty years with the National Genetics Exploration and Development doing a
similar ritual at the start of each day.
Like any old man Doc loved to tell stories
of the ages past and it befell Jim to listen to them all. Not that Jim cared
one bit. Who would when your working with the only man to date who could claim
greater gains in science then Einstein. Doc loved to tell Jim of how it was in
the beginning when N.G.E.D. was jokingly called by the public,"No G.E.D.
required". "In all fairness," Doc would remind Jim, "they
couldn't understand what we where doing. Research into DNA was still new and
our promises of longer lives, and cures to cancer were still a long way
off." Doc was always willing to take up for his fellow man. At first Jim
thought it was this love for his fellow man that lead Doc into the gene
business. He was wrong. Rather quickly he found out the true reason why. Doc
had only one love greeter then relating the old tales of the N.G.E.D. His
search for God. See, Doc was a very religious man and yet he couldn't deny his
findings in the lab. All his research proved the evolution of man from animals
true. And still he couldn't deny the Bible. God created man from the earth not
an ape. So after much thought and reflection on the problem Doc realized the
answer was right there in front of him, in the beginning, in Genesis.
"Doesn't it stand to reason," Doc would say, "that if God
created Eve with DNA from Adam that Adam was created, or at least advanced,
with a DNA sample of God. You see Jim. Apes evolved from dirt. Man was an ape
until God gave him some new DNA. By the transitive property of equality man
evolved form dirt and was created by God." So he pressed on searching for
a single strand of DNA which no other plant or animal alive or dead could
possibly have except man. This was the reason behind the fervor with which Doc
accomplished his research. And, so it went that every morning Jim would ask Doc
of his success and Doc would reply not yet, not yet.
Doc had one other belief which no one,
supposedly not even Jim, knew. He believed that when he found this strand of
DNA he would have the true name of God. Not in the form of the silly, clumsy
writings of man. Rather in the pure patterned form that it should be. And with
this pure name he would bring heaven to earth as the old ledgens told. You see
Doc didn't only tell stories; he listed to them as well.
_._._._._._
Day 2
Jim came in the front door and started the
ritual again. And as usual Doc had his back to the door sitting in front of his
desk working out his solution. Only Doc wasn't exactly sitting. Slumping is a
better term. Jim strolled over to Doc, checked for vital signs, and grimly
nodded. Doc was dead. But, leave it to Doc. He wasn't the type to go without a
fight. Jim knew this from experience. Doc had been writing in his journal write
before his death. A journal Jim wasn't supposed to know about. Though after
twenty year there was little Jim didn't know about Doc. So as if he had all the
time in the world Jim begin to read Doc's most private thoughts.
Entry 0
-oOo-
Today I start my search for God. With any
luck I'll find him before my death. To those who follow me in the event of my
failure I leave this daily journal in the hopes that you will continue my
search. But this warning I leave. There are those who would find you and I
insane if they knew the true purpose of the NGED. So this search must be kept
secret. All technical information shall be found cross referenced in my log
journal (L.J.).
-oOo-
Of course Doc couldn't leave these entries
in standard english. While Doc loved his fellow man and would defend them at
all cost he was realistic enough to know if a common man found the journal - it
would surely be burned. So Doc wrote in a coded Latin which took Jim a while to
decipher. That done it was no problem to continue reading. And so he did.
Entry 107
-oOo-
Almost had it today but some damned breed of
a greek dog turned up positive with the sequence as well. Dogs are man's best
friend. HA! (L.J. pg.345-51)
-oOo-
Journal 107 is a prime example of the majority
of the
entries. All entries were referenced to his
lab journal where he kept his notes on the research's daily progress. It wasn't
for sometime that Doc placed any entry that showed the promise of the end to
his search. And then his last entry.
Entry 18249
-oOo-
I make this entry knowing full well that I
may not live to make another. By now Jim you must have found and read the
entire journal. Not that it matters for whither I live or die you can ask me
questions later. Though that too is neither here nor there.
I have succeeded!!! I found the elusive
strand thanks to that blood test of your's from when you were hired. That's how
I figured who you are. Your blood was crawling with this strange DNA. The
pattern is so simple, so pure. Evolution with all its complex turns and twist
could never have hoped to produce this strand. It's taken all night but I
managed to isolate the strand and produce a culture large enough for injection.
I'll couldn't wait so even as I write I feel the injection spread through me.
Everything is so clear to me now. Even that fact that I must die. Though, I
have no fear for I can see in to the otherside. I see what you must have been
staring at all your mortal life. How could you stand being so close Jim, and
not be able to touch. If only I could have lived to tell the world...
-oOo-
Jim knew this was bound to happen, but how
much more of a warning could he have given. For years he tried to get the
stubborn old goat to look at the laws of God in a new light but failed. It was
right there in front of him he had only read it. The second law,"Thou
shall make no ingraven images or likeness of anything in heaven above...."
God is smart though. He knew someday man would turn to science and search for
him there. He knew someday that his seed in man would be found and isolated. He
knew man would try to use his name to reach the level of gods. So he left them
a warning in the third law. But leave it to men with their silly, clumsy
writing to miss interpret a word. "Thou shall not take the name of the
Lord your God in vain." Anyone taking a straight injection of so pure and
powerful a strand was doomed to die. If only Doc could have understood maybe
Jim wouldn't have had to enter the last entry.
Entry 18250
-oOo-
I leave this warning once more to the men
who would make themselves into gods. He who has ears to understand be blessed
among man. The laws of Moses still hold true today in this the age of science.
Know then that this man's death was not without merit. For any who would follow
in his steps, BEWARNED. Here lies the smartest man to live. To smart for his
own britches.
-oOo-
Jim then carefully lifted Doc's hand
replacing the open journal to be found by one of the other researchers. With
this done Jim went home. First, to brag to his father of his new witty parable.
Second, to sit and listen to old Doc and his endless stories of yesterdays.