ghosts & admissons

In the not so distant future….

A scientist sat tinkering in his laboratory. Slightly annoyed, he blended molecules as beakers all around him smoked a bubbled. On the couch sat William Shakespeare who was cloned for the fifth time earlier that morning. William was highly critical of the scientist methods, which were of particular annoyance since an error had occurred once again in the cloning process. Gone was his eloquence and wit, replaced by a disjointed and dyslexic vernacular. He ended up speaking much like Yoda, which pissed Yoda off who sat quietly across from him, who was largely silent all morning because of his peculiar cadence of speech was being ripped off.

Now the scientist was biding his time until Shakespeare could provide an adequate urine sample so that he could resume the ugly task of killing and disposing of the body before attempting to clone him again. William complained of the bitterness of the tea and the by and large unrefined nature of the future. “You’ve come a long way from Canterbury” though the scientist as he put on another kettle.

Earlier that morning he had killed Shakespeare and had to deal with the awful mess of sonnets pouring from the open wound in his neck. They seeped under the couch and into crevices, poems were stuck beneath the scientists fingernails, and rhyming couplet’s had stained his lab coat. Cloning is difficult business made all the more taxing by the messy extermination of test subjects. Yoda remained silent, choosing not to inform William of his impending doom. He has seen many like him come and go in the course of the morning and had no intention of getting attached. The fact that he too could be next didn’t faze him because the peace associated with being a Jedi pacified his already docile spirit. Besides Yoda was good company, he was perfectly fine occupying himself through meditation and generally didn’t get in the way.

The reason for such experiments stemmed from the general dissatisfaction of the scientist of futuristic life. Machines had taken over every task from the most mundane to the most sophisticated. Super computers run most government agencies and some had even been elected into the House of Commons. Because machines have made daily living so easy many humans had descended into a life of leisure and lethargy. Not so for our noble scientist. He has been diligently working on rejuvenating society with a much needed dose of culture. Museums had closed; personal historian robots were available to recite all required data. Galleries were empty; people opted for downloading fanciful images directly into their brains. It was the scientist hope that the living incarnates of historical theatrical and artistic figures would aide in this process. He was filled with the thrill of discovery.

As the kettle whistled the scientist went about preparing another cup of tea.

posted by El Chupacabra @ 2:07 PM