Saturday, 24 June 2017

Mitosis by Rachael Dunlop

1x1
Splendid isolation. All contained within a cell wall. It flexes but does not yield. Safe.

1x2

A daughter! Of me, identical, but not me. Who knew such a thing as not-me could be? We swim together, revolving around the point where we are joined and I find that being alone was not what I wanted after all.

2x2
Pleasing symmetry, we can’t tell who was I and who the other three.


2x4
A merry band, too many now to mirror ourselves, we bunch into a ball of sorts. As our edges multiply, we become aware of the other, outside our walls.

2x8, 2x16, 2x32, 2x64, 2x128…
Bloody exhausted.

2x16,384
There is talk of some of us becoming other. Next time round, let’s do something different. Be different. Exhilaration.

2x5 million
We are too many, Grown too fast, wrong in our we-ness. We are not welcome anymore.

We are sorry.

4 comments:

  1. Loved this!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ooh, not quite where I thought it was going, and that's a good thing. 'Wrong in our we-ness'; not such a good thing. This story multiplied its meaning at the same rate as the cells but is more than welcome.

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  3. Great stuff, Rachael. You're educating me here. Thank goodness for google!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ooft - that's fabulous. Well done.

    ReplyDelete

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