A Child of the Lab

Forty years ago, when I first became serious about a writing career, I envisioned being a writer of short stories like Hemingway (In Our Time), F. Scott Fitzgerald or Jack London. Yes, they all wrote novels but I found that writing stories and articles while working full time was within my grasp and a novel was simply to massive of a project in those circumstances.

For the first four years after our return from a year in Mexico Susie and I painted apartments. There were two things I especially liked about it. First, wherever we went looked nicer after we'd been there than before we arrived. Second, there is a mindlessness about painting white on white so it was an opportunity to let my imagination run free. As a result my mind conceived of countless concepts for stories, some which became outlines and others which were completed. (Years later I assembled many of these into books like this short volume, Unremembered Histories.)  

The story below was conceived sometime during the 1980's I believe. Or rather, the concept for this story was birthed and a few notes jotted down. Over the years since that time I've thought about fleshing it out and turning it into something I could share. 

This past week I decided to do something different. I fed my story concept to ChatGPT to see what an AI would generate. Here's what we came up with as a story beginning. For a much longer story it has real possibilities. What do you think?

A Child of the Lab

In the dry heat of the Negev desert, deep within the secure walls of a state-of-the-art laboratory, Dr. Yitzhak Baram and Dr. Leah Mendel spent their days peering into the mysteries of the human genome. Theirs was no ordinary research—after years of studying ancient texts, theological debates, and genetic data, they began to suspect a tantalizing possibility. Buried within the intricate code of human DNA, they believed they had found a signature, a remnant of a primordial flaw, a genetic marker shared by every living human being. They called it "Eve's Mark."

For months, the pair wrestled with the implications of their discovery. Could this genetic trait be a trace of what religious traditions called Original Sin, a fundamental imperfection passed down through generations since humanity's mythical fall from grace? If so, could they remove it? And if they did, would the result be a human being untainted by the imperfections that had shaped human history?

Leah's voice trembled as she proposed the unthinkable: "We could create a new embryo... without Eve's Mark. A human being, like Adam and Eve, before the fall. Imagine the purity, the potential for good."

Yitzhak's skepticism melted away over nights of whispered conversations, and they resolved to do what no one else had ever dared—build a genome devoid of this flaw. In the dimly lit lab, they synthesized the embryo, painstakingly editing the genetic code until "Eve's Mark" was no longer present. Nine months later, the child was born in secret, far from any official record. They named her Miriam, for she was to them a new beginning.

As the months passed, Miriam grew with a vitality that stunned her caretakers. The scientists documented everything—her rapid development, her serene temperament, her uncanny way of absorbing the world around her. She did not cry like other infants; instead, she observed, her eyes, an almost startling shade of blue, scanning her surroundings with preternatural awareness. They began to believe they had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Yet, beneath their excitement, fear gnawed at them—would others, especially those who might see this as heretical or dangerous, accept what they had done?

Their fears were well-founded.

One summer evening, as the sun dipped behind the hills, a missile struck the lab. It came without warning, an attack from across the border, shattering the building with a force that set the desert ablaze. Yitzhak and Leah died in the chaos, caught beneath the collapsing walls. But as the fire spread, a nurse named Ayla, who had cared for Miriam like a mother, cradled the child to her chest and ran through the smoke and flames, her only thought to save this miraculous little being.

She stumbled through the desert night, following the faintest paths through the dark, driven by some instinct stronger than fear. In her arms, Miriam remained silent, her wide eyes fixed on the stars as if understanding their brightness. The next morning, Ayla reached the outskirts of a small village, exhausted but alive, the child untouched by the horrors that had unfolded behind them.

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