Living things can alter their genetic codes through random
mutations. Sometimes they’re rejected. Sometimes, if the mutation
is helpful to the organism, they are accepted and passed on to offspring.
Random mutations change the world.
God promised that he would never again destroy his people
with water. I never thought it was god anyway. We haven’t really
seen god in a while. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he decided it was
time for man to stick it out on his own. Either way, there’s something
much closer than god. Something we see everyday. Something
which maybe had enough of the human race as it was.
Aaron was just a child. A little boy of eight who
lived alone with his father in a little house on the east coast of the
United States. It doesn’t really matter where, it doesn’t change
the story, but the boy lived on the ocean--the thing he loved the most
and feared the most. And although a child of eight is still a child,
he has had eight years to live in a man’s world.
Aaron had never met his mother. She died when he
was a baby, he doesn’t know how, and they never speak of her. Aaron’s
father is a very nice man. He loves his son and only wants the best
for him, but he is a scientist and a man and there is only so much he can
do.
Another oil tanker, along the pacific coast, hit a rock
and went down. It happened so frequently lately. The sea animals
had all left the surrounding area or been killed long ago. The animal
activists blamed the oil industry, the oil industry blamed the animal activists.
It didn’t matter who man blamed, judgement day came, and man was still
wondering whose fault it was.
Along the coast of the pacific, a small seaweed made a
very small change in her genetic code. In the next few days this
little plant began secreting a substance from her leaves that dissolved
the oil that was clinging to her and starving her. One small little
lucky seaweed, that reproduces asexually, with one little advantage.
Now man is not so stupid, when everything within an area
is dead but this one little clump of seaweed, then there must be something
special about this seaweed. So man dives to the floor of the ocean
and brings this plant out and gives it to a Dr. Deirt to determine why
it, and nothing else, lives.
Aaron was sitting on the edge of the little cliff by his
house. He liked to sit there, he did it a lot. The ocean was
his only friend. Aaron’s father was a marine biologist that did independent
research on grants and home schooled his son. He hadn’t always been
such a recluse. There was a time when he had had friends, had gone
to parties, had fallen in love. He and his wife were all they needed
in the world. Together they had moved to their remote house, to leave
the world behind them, to be alone with their dreams and their love saving
the world with their science. It was the perfect dream. They
wanted to share it, to have a baby. But Aaron’s mother was killed
in a car accident on the way to the hospital the day he was to be born.
She died instantly but Aaron was saved.
But Aaron didn’t know this. He knew nothing about
his mother.
Aaron’s father held the letter in his hand and watched
his son. Should they go to California? Aaron had never been
anywhere like that. Maybe it could be good for them both. The
house would still be there when they got back.
Then Aaron disappeared over the rocks. His father
had told him numerous times never to climb down the rocks there, it was
dangerous, he could fall. But Aaron had seen a bird, fighting for
its life on the water. He knew if he could just get down there fast
enough he could save it. So he went down over the rocks. And
as he was climbing down he slipped into the water and banged his head on
a rock.
Aaron’s father saw his son floating in the waves face
down and ran. He took the long way down, around the cliff, but if
he were to fall too they both would be lost. He pulled Aaron out
and he coughed up water. Then he carried him back to the house where
they had some warm soup and fell asleep on the couch together.
In the morning, Aaron was fine. His father told
him about the letter, about the chance to go to California and see this
fabulous plant. Dr. Deirt had been a friend of Mike’s before he met
his wife. They still wrote sometimes to discuss the latest discoveries
but that was all. Mike hadn’t seen him since college.
But they needed to get away from this house, from this
area for a while. The trip would be good for them both.
The oil companies were trying to salvage what they could
of the spilled oil but most of it was in vain. The winds were picking
up and the waves were making salvage missions almost impossible.
Mike was amazed at this little plant that had been found.
Once it had dissolved all the oil placed on its leaves, the little plant
secreted the acid into the surrounding water to dissolve oil that could
potentially cause it problems. But the acid did not appear to be
harmful to humans. It didn’t burn or sting when it came in contact
with skin and it didn’t seem to bother any of the fish in the tanks either.
It was the answer to their prayers. A way to clean
up the oil so that the animals would come back.
They proposed a plan to cultivate it and spread it along
the entire shoreline. The plan was approved and they got to work.
They even decided to seed some of it in the Atlantic and send samples to
other countries if they wanted to do the same.
In the meantime, the winds grew worse. Storms came
nearly everyday and the water became too dangerous for any kind of work.
But the little plants flourished along the entire coastline.
Dr. Deirt, mike, and Aaron returned together to mike and
Aaron’s home to plant the amazing plants on the east shores. It wasn’t
until after they left that the fish tanks broke. Parts of the glass
were apparently dissolved until they were too weak to support the pressure
any longer.
But this was only the acid from the first plants.
The trait grew stronger.
Although the men were only aware of the clearing ocean,
Aaron was vaguely aware of what was happening in the rest of the world.
Many of the world’s countries had accepted the gift of the plant and it
was blossoming in many waters. One scientist had claimed that it
was dangerous because the acid had dissolved his rubber gloves that he
used to handle the plants with but he was mostly ignored. Along the
coasts the wind was horrible. Waves came in and shattered the cliffs
at record speed. Man began putting up cement walls to hold the waves
back. In the Midwest they were in draught. Although storms
came nearly every day, very little rain fell. Volcano eruptions became
more frequent.
Then one day a little fire started. Somewhere in the Midwest
a barn blew up because the cows hadn’t been aired. The corn began
to burn. The fire spread like it always does. Everywhere fields
were burning, houses, barns anything that would burn was. Firefighters
couldn’t control the fires. The people fled to the coasts where buildings
were growing that were fire resistant and water was in abundance.
And then the people started to panic.
Aaron and his father returned to their little home after fire
destroyed the labs in California. Reconstruction had already begun
but it was time to go home. They returned to find the waves crashing
at their back door. It was as if the yard around the house had never
existed.
Two weeks they lived in the house and then the earthquake came.
The earthquakes had been coming. It was nothing new to have earthquakes
now but this quake shook the house. And then the fires came.
Aaron begged his father to get out of the house. They had to run,
they had to get away or they would be killed. But his father would
not leave this house that he had built for his wife and his son.
He would not leave the laughter or the tears that were in the walls.
The house burned and Aaron ran.
All over the US the people were flocking to the mountains.
The earthquakes collapsed buildings, fire spread, there was draught everywhere,
the water had become undrinkable, the acid so strong it dissolved everything
that didn’t burn. The sea was eating the land. There was nothing
to do but go to the mountains and hope.
But not for Aaron. Once when he was younger he had made a little
boat for himself to go out on the sea. The boat of course had burned
but he remembered how he made it. He really made a raft. He
used lumber and horsehair rope that he found in the basement of an old
building. And when the water finally came to cover all the land he
was ready with his little raft.
Aaron spent three days alone on his raft. No one had ever
helped him. If there were any people left who hadn’t burned, been
crushed, drowned or otherwise been killed he didn’t know where. He
had no oars to steer. The sea had become surprisingly calm toward
the end and he was not afraid or storms. He figured he had enough
food, if he rationed it well for six months and by then he would either
find land again or learn to kill fish and eat them.
Three days on his raft. And on the third day he jumped
into the ocean.
Aaron’s little raft bobbed on the water. The water never
dissolved the raft. The fish and creatures of the sea flourished.
Whether anyone else survived I don’t know. Eventually land reappeared
and I suppose evolution started again.
Perhaps someone will remember.