.JPG)
Under the microscope, Sofi examines the Paramecium: life inside a matter of microns. The single cell zigzags across the slide, breaths, ingests, metabolizes and eventually births a twin. A tiny, motile miracle.
Through the telescope, Sofi studies galaxies that spiral, and nebulae named after spiders. The stars are grains of sand on a cosmic beach: too many to imagine, too immense to fathom.
Curiosity carries her forward, an exploration of existence both grand and small. Like a child’s first foray into the forest, Sofi’s experiment is without boundary, her wonder without limit.
-----
Come and get it!
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
bioflash: "Late for Work"
Bill’s clock beeped. 6:45. Whap! Snooze.
6:55. Whap! “I don’t wanna work, I just want to bang on my drum...” Oops, wrong button. Whap!
7:05. Yawn. Snooze.
7:15. Ughhh.
7:25. Uh-oh. Thirty-five minutes to get dressed and beat two bridges.
Bill rushed out the door half-dressed. He weaved through traffic like taxis in Rome. Speed limit signs went by in a blurry dream.
A green light? Go faster.
Yellow? Faster still.
Red? Proceed with caution.
Then sirens.
“Damn!”
$196.
And so, like every other day, Bill was late for work.
That night he took a hammer to his snooze alarm.
-----
Don't hit that snooze alarm! Read more bioflash!
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
bioflash: "Rainchild"
She is both mothercloud and rainchild. Each rainchild is part of a god, a god whose body is a part of creation. The vast ocean holds her heart, the sky her spirit. Her cycle of reincarnation shifts one form to the next, moving her shape from snow-white infancy into springtime childhood, to finally rest in the eternal ocean. Always, she longs for the freedom of those forgotten waves. Yet the sungod banishes her, upward, to perch on her mountain prison. There she waits, locked in ice, for the summer fairies to dance her frozen crystal legs back into the stream.
-----
Come and get it! (more bioflash, that is...)
-----
Come and get it! (more bioflash, that is...)
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Berries!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
bioflash: "Meditation"
Jakob sat still for an hour. He didn't feel any different.
He tried two hours, then three. Life became a calm, clear river, yet
he wasn't satisfied. To be a perfect being--that's what Jakob wanted.
So he sat, in stubborn rigidness, for ten straight hours. Exhausted,
his eyes opened to a table of Englishmen drinking tea.
“Welcome to our perfect place.”
“What,” Jakob ventured, “do you all do?”
“We sit. We drink. We speak kindly about our Queen.”
“Why?”
With that word he fell back into his basement suite, feeling less
than perfect, and happily so.
-----
Come and get your bioflash fix!
He tried two hours, then three. Life became a calm, clear river, yet
he wasn't satisfied. To be a perfect being--that's what Jakob wanted.
So he sat, in stubborn rigidness, for ten straight hours. Exhausted,
his eyes opened to a table of Englishmen drinking tea.
“Welcome to our perfect place.”
“What,” Jakob ventured, “do you all do?”
“We sit. We drink. We speak kindly about our Queen.”
“Why?”
With that word he fell back into his basement suite, feeling less
than perfect, and happily so.
-----
Come and get your bioflash fix!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
bioflash: "Cookie Monster"
When the cookie with a chocolate chip happy face spoke to Trevor, he wasn't fazed.
“Don't eat me!”
Chomp.
“Ouch! I bring a message.”
“I'm listening.” Chomp.
“Om-eht-mey-moth.”
“Oh--sorry.”
Trevor rearranged the chocolate chips, using the nose to rebuild its half-eaten mouth. “Better?”
“Hardly. If you eat me, the Cosmic Cookie People will destroy Earth. The choice is yours!”
The words gripped Trevor's soul. Great power carried great responsibility. And yet, never had he tasted anything so delicious. In surreal slow-motion, he helplessly ate the rest.
The first colossal chocolate chip to fall from the sky flattened his house.
-----
Visit the bioflash breeding grounds right here!
“Don't eat me!”
Chomp.
“Ouch! I bring a message.”
“I'm listening.” Chomp.
“Om-eht-mey-moth.”
“Oh--sorry.”
Trevor rearranged the chocolate chips, using the nose to rebuild its half-eaten mouth. “Better?”
“Hardly. If you eat me, the Cosmic Cookie People will destroy Earth. The choice is yours!”
The words gripped Trevor's soul. Great power carried great responsibility. And yet, never had he tasted anything so delicious. In surreal slow-motion, he helplessly ate the rest.
The first colossal chocolate chip to fall from the sky flattened his house.
-----
Visit the bioflash breeding grounds right here!
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
bioflash: "Rain"
Colours of rainbow beckon the sun.
Pearls on grass: soft food for green blades.
Foil to famine, fear to fire.
Sun shield, mountain mane, river rapture.
Quenching the parched, broth of every cell.
The lost child of a nebulous womb whose mourning breaks the sky.
The flood in the plains that overflows leaf and bough.
Lucid fluid on the freeway that twists tires into tragedy.
---
Bioflash galore!
Pearls on grass: soft food for green blades.
Foil to famine, fear to fire.
Sun shield, mountain mane, river rapture.
Quenching the parched, broth of every cell.
The lost child of a nebulous womb whose mourning breaks the sky.
The flood in the plains that overflows leaf and bough.
Lucid fluid on the freeway that twists tires into tragedy.
---
Bioflash galore!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
bioflash: "Closed"
“Spineless jellyfish!” Sheryl snapped. “That’s what you are, Ben.”
That night, she acted like nothing had happened.
Ben relished the fresh wound. He held it close, the way a child both resents and covets a hidden hurt. In the dark, nourished by sullen spite, his black seed sprouted.
And so, with time, he learned to revile everything about Sheryl.
She hugged him. What a dreadful choke hold.
She cleared behind the couch. Always judging him for being messy.
She said “I love you.” He heard “You should be grateful.”
In studious silence, Ben seethed, waiting a lifetime for a forgotten apology.
-----
Bioflash by the handfuls found here!
That night, she acted like nothing had happened.
Ben relished the fresh wound. He held it close, the way a child both resents and covets a hidden hurt. In the dark, nourished by sullen spite, his black seed sprouted.
And so, with time, he learned to revile everything about Sheryl.
She hugged him. What a dreadful choke hold.
She cleared behind the couch. Always judging him for being messy.
She said “I love you.” He heard “You should be grateful.”
In studious silence, Ben seethed, waiting a lifetime for a forgotten apology.
-----
Bioflash by the handfuls found here!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
bioflash: "Last Stop"
The bus driver looked back at Tim.
“Bad dreams?”
Crushed robin’s eggs and smeared embryonic yolk. That’s all Tim saw. He frowned.
“It’s rush-hour. Where is everyone?”
The driver grinned a baleful grin. “Got off at the good stops. But we’re going to the end. Didn’t you know? You’re dead. Had a heart attack six stops back.”
“Heart attack?”
“Quite painless. Not fair, really. You should have left that bird’s nest alone.”
“Bird’s nest?” At a friend’s dare, Tim had flattened the tiny blue eggs beneath his shoe. “I was ten!”
“Old enough.”
Flame licked at the windows.
---
More bioflash than you can shake a stick at found here!
“Bad dreams?”
Crushed robin’s eggs and smeared embryonic yolk. That’s all Tim saw. He frowned.
“It’s rush-hour. Where is everyone?”
The driver grinned a baleful grin. “Got off at the good stops. But we’re going to the end. Didn’t you know? You’re dead. Had a heart attack six stops back.”
“Heart attack?”
“Quite painless. Not fair, really. You should have left that bird’s nest alone.”
“Bird’s nest?” At a friend’s dare, Tim had flattened the tiny blue eggs beneath his shoe. “I was ten!”
“Old enough.”
Flame licked at the windows.
---
More bioflash than you can shake a stick at found here!
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Bioflash: "Family Reunion"
Dave didn’t recognize the young woman walking up his sister’s driveway. By the hook of her nose and square jaw, definitely a Ryerson.
He shook her hand. “I’m Dave.”
She acted aloof, eying him warily. “Jasmine.”
“How are you connected?”
“Gloria is my aunt. I found out about the reunion from her, just a few days ago.”
“My sis? Strange. Oh—here’s my better half. Vanessa, this is Jasmine.”
Jasmine smiled sweetly. “A pleasure, I’m sure. But we’re not related.”
Dave scratched his hooked nose. “I’m confused. What does that make me?”
“My father. Nice to meet you.”
---
Lots more bioflash here!
He shook her hand. “I’m Dave.”
She acted aloof, eying him warily. “Jasmine.”
“How are you connected?”
“Gloria is my aunt. I found out about the reunion from her, just a few days ago.”
“My sis? Strange. Oh—here’s my better half. Vanessa, this is Jasmine.”
Jasmine smiled sweetly. “A pleasure, I’m sure. But we’re not related.”
Dave scratched his hooked nose. “I’m confused. What does that make me?”
“My father. Nice to meet you.”
---
Lots more bioflash here!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Bioflash finally returns! -- "Shooting Star"
After a long hiatus, the bioflash have returned! I hope to put up one 100-word story every week.
---
“Shooting Star”
Juno burst into Earth’s atmosphere, a stone bullet igniting the night sky. She travelled halfway across the universe to burn up in a brief white flash.
A shooting star, they called her. A nice way to speak of the dying.
But she was no star. A shell of iron, and heart of nickel. Still, 187 wishes were called her way. Juno granted none.
Perhaps, if someone called her by her true name, she would reconsider. But they were too late. Her flaming body, reduced to a bitter kernel, fell forgotten onto Earth, that most disciplined child of the sun.
---
Many more bioflash can be found here!
---
“Shooting Star”
Juno burst into Earth’s atmosphere, a stone bullet igniting the night sky. She travelled halfway across the universe to burn up in a brief white flash.
A shooting star, they called her. A nice way to speak of the dying.
But she was no star. A shell of iron, and heart of nickel. Still, 187 wishes were called her way. Juno granted none.
Perhaps, if someone called her by her true name, she would reconsider. But they were too late. Her flaming body, reduced to a bitter kernel, fell forgotten onto Earth, that most disciplined child of the sun.
---
Many more bioflash can be found here!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Death, the Final Emotion
I read this last night at the Kwantlen Writers' Guild annual reading.
You can also read the full version here.
These words hold a dark, indefinable weight. What will that last heartbeat feel like? My final gasp of air? These thoughts lurk like a wolf spider in my subconscious, a furry shadow I can’t quite see. Organ failure terrifies me, but not as much as the subsequent loss of conscious thought. One day, knowledge and memory will disappear like city lights winking out one by one. Some might remain on file or paper. Others to be recalled by family or friend. But all of my emotional vitality and fastidious reflections will be buried with me.
And I don’t want to lose that. I have spent far too long in rumination, ponderance and soul spelunking. Like a cow with its cud, I have chewed over every aspect of life—ethics, spirit, philosophy, creativity, relationship and happiness to list some of the highlights—until there is nothing left to digest. Then I take a bite of something new. I want to keep the essence of me alive. Sure, we’re all connected and one day everything will pass. Yet as much as I appreciate community, ecology and the universal thread that holds it all together, I still very much like the notion of I.
I am Lee Michael Beavington. I was born into Arkell, Ontario on May 18th in the year 1977. I like to eat chocolate and watch National Geographic specials on cheetahs. And I will someday die.
There, I said it. I will one day cease to exist. There will be no thought process, no brain activity, no ability to analyse situations to determine the pros and cons. After I die, I won’t be able to look back and think: Hey, this isn’t so bad. I can jump from Earth to Mars to Jupiter! My body only got in the way before...
I wonder, is it my brain that I fret over? My soul is reasonably safe. I’m vegetarian. I never kill spiders in the bathtub. I’m an all-around nice guy. When I die my soul—in whatever shape it so decides—will live on. But my mind, the 100 billion neurons that have wired themselves based on the specific choices I have made these past 32 years, will not make that final transition. Think of all the books I have read! What about my biology degree, all those facts and figures? Cheetahs can run 110 kilometers per hour! One blood cell carries a billion oxygen atoms! Sclerenchyma cell walls possess lignin! If I could only be a head in a jar. I wouldn’t take up much space. Just give me a shelf somewhere in a university library. I could read a new book or journal every day, and help direct students to the New Scientist.
I have trouble, in particular, with the notion that death is forever. The fact that life is finite would not be so hard to swallow if everything that came after wasn’t so long. That isn’t fair. In fact, it violates the code of my moral handbook. If life is short, death should be too. The universe is 12 billion years old. If I’m lucky, I’ll be a centenarian. So that means every second I breathe, comparatively speaking, is nearly four years for the universe. What kind of Divine Being determined that to be okay?
The answer to that question I will likely never know. At least not until I die. And I’m a curious person. I’m a scientist. I like to know how things work. Perhaps God will oblige me in testing some hypotheses. Yet my logical, rational intellect will literally die with me. What if I forget to include a control in my divine experiments? I imagine God is a busy person, and won’t be my personal guinea pig for long, if She agrees to that in the first place. (I use the word She here because, let’s face it, birth is a woman’s domain, and creating the universe would have been one helluva labour, and credit is due where credit is due.)
Of course, death can be devastating. Sudden, violent, and unforgiving in its cold and rigid grip. Lives end—permanently—while others are forever changed. You often can’t predict death. (Though sometimes you can, the great curse of self-awareness.)
But I’m stuck in my head again. Is that the problem? When you get down to it, death is an emotion. That’s right. A feeling. Humans are emotional beings. We feel, we laugh, we hate, we grieve. As much as scientists—men in particular—want to believe otherwise, it is our emotions that define us. Our bursting passions, our darkest fears, our greatest joys. The events, jobs, people, creations and adventures in our lives—the experiences we recall most vividly—are built on feeling. In Star Trek, Spock’s most pivotal moments are when he loses control, when emotion enters the picture.
So death is our final emotion. And that is a scary thought.
My own experience with death is limited to a trip to Disneyland when I was six years old. At the hotel pool, playing tag with my cousins in the deep end—they could swim, I could not—I lost my grip on the concrete lip and fell under. I fought to find air. But no matter how hard I screamed on the inside and flailed on the outside, I could not escape. My cousin Sam pulled me out. I still remember the dark spectre trying to drag me down. Is that what death feels like? Submersed in fluid, caged in the amnion, powerless to escape from the reaper’s womb? Dylan Thomas would have us pledge: “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Yet when my time comes, is it not an exercise in futility to rage against the dying of the light?
Then again, maybe it’s best not to dwell on one’s own mortality. Which means I have stewed long enough over this murky pot. At the very least, when I’m dead I won’t have to think about being dead. And if I can, what a pleasant surprise that will be.
You can also read the full version here.
-----
These words hold a dark, indefinable weight. What will that last heartbeat feel like? My final gasp of air? These thoughts lurk like a wolf spider in my subconscious, a furry shadow I can’t quite see. Organ failure terrifies me, but not as much as the subsequent loss of conscious thought. One day, knowledge and memory will disappear like city lights winking out one by one. Some might remain on file or paper. Others to be recalled by family or friend. But all of my emotional vitality and fastidious reflections will be buried with me.
And I don’t want to lose that. I have spent far too long in rumination, ponderance and soul spelunking. Like a cow with its cud, I have chewed over every aspect of life—ethics, spirit, philosophy, creativity, relationship and happiness to list some of the highlights—until there is nothing left to digest. Then I take a bite of something new. I want to keep the essence of me alive. Sure, we’re all connected and one day everything will pass. Yet as much as I appreciate community, ecology and the universal thread that holds it all together, I still very much like the notion of I.
I am Lee Michael Beavington. I was born into Arkell, Ontario on May 18th in the year 1977. I like to eat chocolate and watch National Geographic specials on cheetahs. And I will someday die.
There, I said it. I will one day cease to exist. There will be no thought process, no brain activity, no ability to analyse situations to determine the pros and cons. After I die, I won’t be able to look back and think: Hey, this isn’t so bad. I can jump from Earth to Mars to Jupiter! My body only got in the way before...
I wonder, is it my brain that I fret over? My soul is reasonably safe. I’m vegetarian. I never kill spiders in the bathtub. I’m an all-around nice guy. When I die my soul—in whatever shape it so decides—will live on. But my mind, the 100 billion neurons that have wired themselves based on the specific choices I have made these past 32 years, will not make that final transition. Think of all the books I have read! What about my biology degree, all those facts and figures? Cheetahs can run 110 kilometers per hour! One blood cell carries a billion oxygen atoms! Sclerenchyma cell walls possess lignin! If I could only be a head in a jar. I wouldn’t take up much space. Just give me a shelf somewhere in a university library. I could read a new book or journal every day, and help direct students to the New Scientist.
I have trouble, in particular, with the notion that death is forever. The fact that life is finite would not be so hard to swallow if everything that came after wasn’t so long. That isn’t fair. In fact, it violates the code of my moral handbook. If life is short, death should be too. The universe is 12 billion years old. If I’m lucky, I’ll be a centenarian. So that means every second I breathe, comparatively speaking, is nearly four years for the universe. What kind of Divine Being determined that to be okay?
The answer to that question I will likely never know. At least not until I die. And I’m a curious person. I’m a scientist. I like to know how things work. Perhaps God will oblige me in testing some hypotheses. Yet my logical, rational intellect will literally die with me. What if I forget to include a control in my divine experiments? I imagine God is a busy person, and won’t be my personal guinea pig for long, if She agrees to that in the first place. (I use the word She here because, let’s face it, birth is a woman’s domain, and creating the universe would have been one helluva labour, and credit is due where credit is due.)
Of course, death can be devastating. Sudden, violent, and unforgiving in its cold and rigid grip. Lives end—permanently—while others are forever changed. You often can’t predict death. (Though sometimes you can, the great curse of self-awareness.)
But I’m stuck in my head again. Is that the problem? When you get down to it, death is an emotion. That’s right. A feeling. Humans are emotional beings. We feel, we laugh, we hate, we grieve. As much as scientists—men in particular—want to believe otherwise, it is our emotions that define us. Our bursting passions, our darkest fears, our greatest joys. The events, jobs, people, creations and adventures in our lives—the experiences we recall most vividly—are built on feeling. In Star Trek, Spock’s most pivotal moments are when he loses control, when emotion enters the picture.
So death is our final emotion. And that is a scary thought.
My own experience with death is limited to a trip to Disneyland when I was six years old. At the hotel pool, playing tag with my cousins in the deep end—they could swim, I could not—I lost my grip on the concrete lip and fell under. I fought to find air. But no matter how hard I screamed on the inside and flailed on the outside, I could not escape. My cousin Sam pulled me out. I still remember the dark spectre trying to drag me down. Is that what death feels like? Submersed in fluid, caged in the amnion, powerless to escape from the reaper’s womb? Dylan Thomas would have us pledge: “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Yet when my time comes, is it not an exercise in futility to rage against the dying of the light?
Then again, maybe it’s best not to dwell on one’s own mortality. Which means I have stewed long enough over this murky pot. At the very least, when I’m dead I won’t have to think about being dead. And if I can, what a pleasant surprise that will be.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
First draft of The Tainted River is complete!
Yesterday, by Lynn Creek in North Vancouver, I finished the first draft of my novel, The Tainted River.
I actually wrote chapter one while on the backwaters of Kerala, India. Once again, at the end, I find myself by the river.
More to come...
Friday, February 12, 2010
Why I love Desmond Tutu...
Interveiwer: "Do you think God has a sense of humour?"
Desmond Tutu: "Absolutely! Look at all the strange creatures he has made. He gave me this big nose and short stature, yet he still has to love me!"
Desmond Tutu: "Absolutely! Look at all the strange creatures he has made. He gave me this big nose and short stature, yet he still has to love me!"
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