Lens

by Trent Walters

From the journal of Aleisha Billington:  The alien–his cat-like claws retracting–probably was not the last in the world, but he was the last in our area.  I shot the SOB trying to implant himself in my baby.  Through a gurgle of blood, he said something like, ‘We have a long memory.’  ‘We do, too,’ I said and, after adjusting the phaser to kill, shot him dead before he could say more and tossed him onto the compost heap.

From our soil analyses, it appears the invasive species decayed, worms fed upon it, birds fed upon them, and Felis catus, domestic cats, fed upon them before mutating.  “Biological magnification,” the extinct human species had called it.

Or formerly extinct.  It’s hard to know if we are the same humans just because we share the same genes.  For instance, Aleisha Billington sounds so emotionally driven by vengeance.  I am Aleisha Billington, reconstituted.  But I feel no kinship with her intensity.  For this Aleisha, life is just dispassionate biology:  It gives and it takes away.  Am I the same me?