Short Stories:
Human Cheese, Incorporated
Grenadine
The Land of Give and Take
Saint Simeon
Carlos and the Visitor
The Blues Singer
The Transformation
Emily
Selected Poetry: 1974-
Poetry
Novels:
The Certification of America, Vol. 1
Introduction
Overture
In The Shadow Of The Cathedral
The Man Who Could Read Minds
Rachel and Annie
The Family Heirloom
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
2
Matron X muscled her way through the domestic toil of the morning, as Adam X continued his odyssey, streaming along the oviduct some eighteen hours since fertilization. The gaping mouths of side passages spawned buffeting eddy currents at points along the Fallopian conduit, but Adam X fortuitously managed to maintain his course in the mainstream.
At 8:27 A.M., on January 27, l940, the centrosome lying adjacent to the fertilized ovum's nuclear membrane divided into two parts, each of which then migrated to opposite poles of the nucleus. In the course of the next few hours, the granular chromatin confined within the nuclear membrane would gradually condense, first into thin threads, and then into chromosomes. These later would migrate into the equatorial plane of the cell following dissolution of the nuclear membrane. By 11:36 A.M., the chromosomes would be dancing in short paths on either side of the equatorial plane, as if they were being pulled first toward one pole and then toward the other like tiny marionettes on invisible strings. By 11:48 A.M., the chromosomes would have migrated to opposite poles of the ovum, which would then become elongated, develop a constriction at the equator, and finally pinch apart. At that point, two identical Adam X's would exist, each the mirror image of the other.
Adam X, as a conscious organism, would never be content to accept the unexpected without question. Faced with such a profound metamorphosis, Adam X, cerebrator, would be no Gregor Samsa. But on January 27, 1940, at the instant of his first post-ovulatory mitotic cell division, Adam X would ask no questions. He would no longer be only an egg, having become a tiny morula consisting of two blastomeres. He had not yet differentiated the agent of his consciousness. Who would he be, therefore, to question why?