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The Heart of Darkness

Dear Lady Lauren,

       I am writing first and foremost to thank you for the thoughtful and exquisite gift.  The bonsai maple arrived yesterday. What a marvel of superb craftsmanship!  What designed perfection! A finer proof I cannot conceive of with which to illustrate the ultimate triumph of humanity over nature!  It is indeed the perfect metaphor for rationalism.

 Emerson pauses, nervously glancing over his shoulder. Were the shadows in the corner moving?  Surely not!  And the curtains… the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrilling him… filling him with a terror never felt before! He fumbles with the little pouch once stuffed to capacity with the black Splice 9 kernels… now nearly empty but for the final three.  Without even thinking he pops two into his mouth crunching deep into the bitter marrow.  Picking up his pen he continues:

 Rationalism!  The true guiding principle.  I know you have disagreed with me in the past on matters philosophical, my lady, but truly humanity, through the tools of science can control this earth in any way we please.  The romantic poets… bah!  When the great rationalist poet Tomás of Dolbyshire wrote: She blinded me with science he meant dazzled… amazed… stunned! Now that is poetry!  Floating lonely (like a cloud) over daffodils is the poetry of the past.  Here in New Babbage, what one floats over is industry and progress.  But I digress from my message of thanks, dear lady, and rest assured, your prized bonsai maple… years in creating… sits proudly now in my front window overlooking the streets of New Babbage. 

     Yours sincerely,

     Emerson Lighthouse.

Pausing briefly, after signing the letter, Emerson allows himself a moment to ponder the horror of what has occurred.  The bonsai… the beautiful bonsai!  Indeed he had placed it proudly in the front window… right next to the zea mays somniferum – sown not more than two weeks passed from one of the splice 9 kernels.  In the jostling of the two plants, he had barely noticed a little bead of white drip from the splice 9 spawn onto one of the leaves of the exquisite maple.  Wiping it off with his thumb, he noticed it had the same bitter taste as the seeds he’d been consuming in greater and greater quantities… seeds which, to his great dread, he realizes are now, save for one, all gone… eaten!  Unless…

 Emerson reaches for the axe he purchased this morning… hefting it… balancing it on his shoulder.  He turns to approach the bonsai maple.  Such beauty not more than 24 hours passed.  Yet, what he sees now continues to repulse him.  The bonsai has been twisted, tortured, transformed into something hideous, almost beyond all recognition.  Before him stands a grotesque mockery… a monstrosity almost beyond imagination.  A single bloated pod of nearly ten feet in diameter exuding a foul and sickly bitter stench!  The horror!  The Horror! Emerson raises the axe unable to endure this any longer and swings with all his strength.

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