Larry's quest

Meet Larry. Larry was quite alike his peers in every single way. Literally. He was down to version 89.5623.AxznF.005 and all his 1.53*10^17 counterparts were genetically identical to him. Of course, he lost a couple along the way for some strange reason. He was never able to figure out why they disappeared from the colony in such large numbers, but that was something he was investigating on the side.

Maybe the narrative calls for a small backtrack here in order give a few more precisions on our little friend Mr. L. For little he was. Quite little actually. So little that you couldn't even see him. Yes, Larry was a unique strain of an E-coli bacterium that called home petri dish L5 in Lab H-415 of the Acme Labs research facility. Lab H-415 was known for its top secret experiments and was primarily made famous when researchers managed to condition two white mice to sing and dance at a specific tone of bell.

But this was all beyond Larry's comprehension. For him, existence resumed itself to finding nutrients, growing and duplicating. Finding nutrients, growing and duplicating, finding nutrients, growing and duplicating. It was an endless cycle, but that he did not mind. It was a cycle that he knew well and that he liked. He couldn't quite say when it all started or what he came from. Whenever he replicated, he felt his insides splitting and opening up.

It was not a pleasant process, that he would concede, but once it was done, it left him feeling relieved, but somewhat starving for companionship. For no matter how many versions accumulated, they remained, inexorably, versions of himself. His own organism segregated in many different parts but without an inkling of difference. For, if solitude is defined by the act of not having anyone but yourself as a companion, Larry was the loneliest creature that ever came to be. If he were to ask a question, no answer would ever come except for the reverberations of his own thoughts from the general collectivity or the crowd as he liked to call them. His thoughts were their thoughts, his questions, their questions. It was a never ending conversation with himself, an echo that he could not escape. Sometimes he even wondered if his reflections were in fact his own or if he was sometimes a part of the echo that bothered him so. The truth was that he was the crowd and the crowd was him. Like yin and yang, they were separate all the while forming a single entity.

But all this changed one day. It all started with a strong vibration and then a subtle change in the air. Larry could not quite say what had happened. It felt like replication, but somewhat more odd. And then he saw it. A version he could not recognize in the crowd. He thought he might be mistaken, but that was not possible for he knew all versions of himself and their versions and their versions' versions. Was this it? The change he was hoping so desperately for? His salvation? Finally, a mutation in the genes? But no.

As he got closer to the bizarre creature, he saw that the differences were too flagrant for them to be the product of one error in the code. The rod shape was replaced with round grape-like forms that aggregated in a small cluster. Maybe a malformation of the membrane? But no. That answer did not feel right and he could sense his versions in the crowd agreeing. Therefore, only one conclusion was left. This was an entirely foreign organism that had penetrated their midst! And the implications of this realization were huge!

It meant that their cozy petri dish was not the beginning, nor the end. It did not define reality in its entirety. It mean that there was something else out there. Something bigger that encompassed all that he knew and even more. And that idea intoxicated him. He wanted to know it, to see it, to experience it, all of it, at that moment precisely! He wanted to discover every inch of it with all that it had to offer!

And wouldn't it be amazing if Larry could do just that? Wouldn't it be amazing if Larry could discover the lab that surrounded his little petri dish? If he could see the scientists walking in and out, discussing their experiments, eating their lunches, venting their frustrations for 6 month's work gone down the drain? If he could see the two white mice three labs down the hall? And then, wouldn't it be amazing if he could comprehend all that?



On a somewhat less scientific note, but still in the same sense of looking out towards a greater world and reality, if you manage to bear with the mosquitoes, go out in your backyard tonight and catch the peak of the Perseid meteor shower! They should be there all night and despite the full moon, I'm sure that with a little patience it's possible to see them. In any case that's where I'm headed! They say you can make a wish when you see a shooting star. Does it still count when there are roughly 3 of them every 2 minutes and you are waiting for them to come?