“Ha ha! We did it! This is incredible Blake, this will completely change the way we work with our genes.” I said

“you’re right Dr. Goldwhite. We’ve just changed the world” said Blake.

The focus of their attention is several dots on a yellow petri dish. The room full of people then broke into cheers. Everyone was not so subtly trying to get a look at the petri dish. It looks much the same as any petri dish they had seen hundreds of time before, but this one signified something special.

“Dr. G you should say something to mark the occasion” said Blake. The crowd almost on cue broke out into chant “Speech! Speech!” they cried.

“Alright, Alright” I said “I would like to thank you all for your hard work these many months. Today we have accomplished something no one else has in all the world, created artificial life! With completely artificial base pairs we have succeed in creating an analogues E. coli. Rather than taking away from our own creation as something completely mundane, we can now truly appreciate how incredible it is that life arouse on its own. Through nothing else but serendipity life arises from the primordial soup. That in and of itself is a miracle. With our result today, we show that life did not come from magic but natural processes, and that life on earth is an incredible blessing, like they say life finds a way.” I Finished.

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The crowd broke into applause and I slowly shuffle out of the lab and find my office, I sit down and relax with a smile on my lips. As I bask in this victory, and think of the long months of work, feelings of satisfaction and weariness assault me. With these feelings sleep takes me.

I wake up and check the time 4:23, “so four and a half or five hours of sleep”.

I get up and make my way to the coffee shop that is open 24 hours a day and just a few minutes from my office.

In a perfect storm of events I see the driver of a pickup truck with barley enough ice craped from his window to see, and a lady who starts walking across a crosswalk and doesn’t notice the driver is not stopping.

I see how pretty she is and before I notice my body is moving, I push her out of the way as the truck slams into me.

Before I go, I notice how shocked she looks.

Then nothing.