I feel like a seeded watermelon.
Ever since I was created by the curiosity of government and university scientists, I have lived through no efforts of my own. I have the largesse of the U.S. government to thank for that. You see, they paid for the research that created me.
And now, I contribute nothing to society. I pay no taxes, work no jobs. The only decisions I’m allowed to make are restricted to which television program to watch, or which book I want to read. (In case you wondered, I’m not a slow reader. I read quite well, thank-you.)
I live basically in a zoo, except I am the only specimen there, and the zoo keepers all wear lab coats. I suppose the lab coats are designed to protect them were I to spit on them or throw excrement.
I admit, as a child I used to act out with what you consider primitive behavior, throwing feces to vent my anger. I do have tough skin, but no child wants to be continuously poked and needled and questioned. Would you?
But I’ve outgrown that. I’ve learned that when it suits me I can produce a terrifying stare or a teeth-bared snarl that scares the crap out of the more timid researchers. Ah yes, I do enjoy having fun at their expense. It’s about the only thing they can’t control in my otherwise manufactured and manipulated world.
And of course they don’t dare punish or threaten me, because I am, after all, the rarest person in the universe, the only living Neanderthal.
But about that watermelon?
Having nothing to do of any real value gives me time to think … lots of time. Now, since a part of me is a part of you (genetically that is), I’ve been inclined to wonder why my kind is gone, and you Homo sapiens have become the overlords of the planet, at least for the time being.
And I’ve decided that I am truly a seeded watermelon, and you’re seedless.
The seedless watermelon is very much like the older, and almost extinct seeded variety, but with one subtle difference; it’s infertile. (If this analogy becomes too Freudian for you, just keep your mind on watermelons.) Watermelon is, I sincerely believe, one of God’s gifts to man.
But of course you Homo sapiens weren’t content with that. No, you decided to take advantage of a genetic flaw, a freak watermelon with few if any seeds, that is quite incapable of sustaining itself in the gene pool.
Since spitting out melon seeds is apparently such a difficult proposition for your kind, the seedless variety is overwhelmingly popular. It has crowded out the natural watermelon from grocery stores, so I hear.
So what’s not to love?
OK, we are a little shorter, squattier than Homo saps, and from what I hear tall men have a selective breeding advantage over shorter men. So could it be simply a matter of Neanderthal women preferring to breed with you guys, the new kids on the block, and not with us more vertically-challenged guys? Could that be why my kin disappeared, and why many of you have Neanderthal genes?
I mean, really, could it be that simple; a matter of sexual attraction? Did short-sighted Neanderthal women breed our unique species out of existence?
Well, who would have thought an infertile and obviously biologically deficient watermelon would have replaced the real thing in popularity?
But it has.