It is no secret: I am no biologist. As I grow older, and the world mystifies, amazes, and confuses me more so, I realize that no one is though. Instead, what we are – and what we remain to be – is a shelling of a fleshy cadaver bred from billions upon billions of years of evolution. We do not stand as the harbingers of biology; we sit under the ray of a magnifying lens for we are a biological experiment.
It begins with cloning. Then, darkness. Then, light. Then, breath. Then, no one knows. At that point, biology becomes probability and logical impossibilities meet illogical congruities. In short, life begins.
And while my beginning is unknown to me, my current state is known. I am a slime mold, a fungi, a plant, a chimp, and all else in between. I am everything I ever was, and everything I ever will be. After my death, evolution will occur again. New biological experiments will begin. Others will end. So the cycle continues. So it always will.
Here, though, I will not discuss the resultant processes that construct us nor will I catalogue the many hypotheses of evolutionary history. It’s not because I am ignorant on these topics; rather, I am not smart enough to discuss them freely. I would be parroting other ideas before me instead of inciting thought of my own. While it is true I am genealogically related to a slime mold, I hope that my evolutionary history will at least allow me to separate from a parrot. It would be all Polly wants anyways.
So instead, I will outline the evolutionary history of my life. Oddly enough, I am not smart enough to describe my life either. This is one thing that I have been taught. We may learn something new every day, but we die stupid.
Stupidly then, the life and death of Kacper Niburski:
Day 1
Sex.
Day 2
Regret.
Day 3
Struggle.
Day 4
Two eggs. Two sperm.
Day 5
Nothing.
Day 6.
Nothing.
Day 7
Throw up.
Day 8
Tears.
Day 9
Test. Worry. Smile.
Day 10
Secret.
Day 11
Lie.
Day 12
Truth.
Day 13
Happiness.
Day 14-181
Blowing placental air into a balloon.
Day 182
Bursting.
Day 183
Three months premature amoebas are born. They cannot cry. They cannot move. They can live, though. Barely.
They begin to die on March 20, 1992.
Day 184
Complications.
Day 185
5 to 7 percent survival.
Day 186
Survival.
Day 187
Survival.
Day 188
Heart monitor flat-lines.
Day 189
Miracle. Resurrection.
Day 190-268
Tubes. Needles. Analysis. Biology.
Day 269
First time home.
Day 270
First time back to hospital.
Day 271-364
Prayers.
Day 366
Half birthday; celebrated like full. Every day, every second, every moment; birthdays.
Day 548
First real birthday.
Day 913
Second.
Day 961
Walking.
Day 1294
Heart mixes with dough, dough with blood, blood with screams, screams with silence.
Father comes home. He is never the same.
Day 1303
Bankruptcy.
Day 1304
Food stamps.
Day 1305
Salvation army.
Day 1306
Praying again.
Day 1307
Waiting.
Day 1308
Stop praying. Doing.
Day 1326
Third birthday.
Day 1343
First word. “Twin.”
Day 1360
Luck.
Day 1361-1402
Moving.
Day 1404
Day care.
Day 1405
Hate school.
Day 1406
Feign sickness.
Day 1407
Lie uncovered. School becomes a punishment for at least 20 years.
Day 1691
Fourth birthday.
Days blurr
Sometime during the hazy days: Lego, full sentences, speech impediment, first love, first heartbreak, scars, bullies, fights, black-eyes, sports, winning, losing, success, failure, awards, called a genius, called an idiot, believing in the latter, criticism, wonderment about the world, dreaming, star-gazing, friends, enemies, sleeping with regrets, waking up with them, laughing, crying, doing both at once, promising the ocean to never stop moving, stopping to see the ocean move, lying, reading, reading, reading, poor penmanship, glasses, math challenges, challenging math, cancers, lack of answers, Poland, cousins, family, heritage, tradition, airplanes, and trips, where father always mumbled away, mother always grumbled back.
Some things – like a life – can never be forgotten.
And sometimes, it can be told in a paragraph.
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Other times, only in pictures.
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Day 269
Day 544
Day 1265
Day 1368
Day 1588
Day 2200
Day 2734
Day 4230
Day 5110
Day 6445
Today
If you look into my eyes, globes of evolutionary history that they are, you’ll be looking through the eyes of a biologist.
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