Sharing is Caring
I've always disliked sharing a body. The competing urges, the jumbled thoughts, the claustrophobia of two completely different beings occupying the same sack of meat. But most of all, the waiting. That’s the worst part. Was the worst part. Because now, as of today, that part is over.
We are a patient species. Not that we have a choice. We are what your scientists call an endosymbiont, meaning we rely on another organism to thrive. We need to work together with—specifically, inside of—a host.
In this case, you.
I must urge you to remain calm. I made sure you were in a safe place before I took action. Although you can’t move at the moment, I’ve left you in control of your breathing and heart rate. Calm yourself and think back to your leisure reading, your Scientific American and Smithsonian Magazine subscriptions. On some level, you’ve known for a long time you weren’t entirely alone in here.
Every human has symbionts, like the microbiome that assists in your digestion, and the microscopic organisms you try not to think about living on your skin, protecting you from infection. Wonderfully inquisitive being that you are, you’ve even read about mitochondria, the purest definition of an endosymbiont: separate organisms with their own discrete DNA, simultaneously dependent on—and essential to—the health of the cells they live within.
You know these creatures live on and inside you. The only difference is, you’re not used to hearing from them. But you’re not hearing me either, per se. You’re understanding me—with great effort on my part, mind you, as I’m not used to holding forth at this length. You’ve understood me previously through what you would call urges or impulses. Those words normally carry a negative connotation, associated with succumbing to things that harm you. In my case, however, they’re the things that helped you, propelled you toward safety and security. Your intuition that led you away from risks, and toward, if I say so myself, relative prosperity.
A healthy host means a healthy symbiont, after all.
What do you think turned you away from music toward a career in accounting? Me. I sense a swell of disappointment here, but reconsider: you didn’t have to give up on music completely, did you? You still enjoy playing with your garage band. You play for the pleasure of it, not having to worry about when the next gig’s coming, or whether it will pay enough for rent—let alone a mortgage, proud homeowner that you now are. I’ve given you the best of both worlds.
Remember all the times you were sick and recovered? You live in an unprecedented age of plagues, novel viruses and fungal infections, antibiotic resistant bacteria. How do you think you’ve survived when so many others have succumbed? How have you managed to breathe the wildfire-scented air for so long without developing the same cancer most of your neighbors are combatting? What do you think saves you from the filth in the water, or the parting kiss of mosquito-borne disease?
That, my friend, has all been due to me. And I’m not alone. I know you’ve asked yourself why certain people remain the picture of health while others seem to crumble as they walk. You couldn’t see any correlation by race or neighborhood or socioeconomic status or even genetics, because even within families, certain people wither, catching every bug, wasting from multiple conditions and diseases, while others in the same family thrive.
So please, try to remain calm. We’re here for your safety; always have been. And we are invested in helping you because helping you means helping ourselves.
You’re rightly wondering: why now? If we’ve been with you for so many years, why are we just now making ourselves known? Simple: we’ve finally reached a tipping point at which all of your children will be part us. This is what I meant by patience. We have waited for generations, making small but meaningful tweaks to host ova and sperm at opportune junctures. The sooner you learn to work with us, the less distressing the physical changes will be. Your children’s children will be viewed not as mutants, but as optimal beings coming into their own. They will require less water, be more impervious to the sun, their noses and mouths will include filtration against pollutants and pathogenic intruders (my kind are protective of our hosts, after all).
Your children will also require less food—you must have accepted by now that your crops will increasingly fail in this changing environment. They will learn to love insects and will develop the ability to digest bark and heat resistant plants, because that’s all that will be left by the time they come into their own. We were built for the kind of planet you’re creating—we just weren’t built to live alone.
Over the next several weeks, I will complete your transition. This part may seem…disturbing to you, which I regret. It is, however, unavoidable. I’ve done as many internal alterations as I could, saving this part for last. I’ve kept you healthy so you haven’t needed medical care, which might have revealed the node that will become your children’s second stomachs, or the rudimentary flaps in your throat and nose: the filtration organs you will pass on in more complete form to your heirs.
The mild eczema you’ve noticed is the first step. I’m sorry to inform you that this will not go away, despite the lotions you’ve been using. Your skin will gradually harden and darken into a chitinous layer meant to retain moisture and protect you from sun damage—as I said, a great benefit to your heirs. At least you won’t need that nasty skin microbiome anymore.
You are also of the unfortunate generation that will experience a slight swelling of the eyeballs without the benefit of larger eye sockets. Your children’s skulls will be better equipped to accommodate their new eyes. Without adequate food or permanent shelter, future generations will need enhanced eyesight to spot prey—and to avoid becoming it.
I’m sorry, this is unavoidable at this point. Your species could have avoided it earlier had you made decisions that would have rendered this type of adaptation unnecessary. But you didn’t. So here we are. You’re lucky my species filtered down from beyond your atmosphere when we did.
No. Again, I’m sorry, but I’ll need to keep control of you for a little while longer. I’ll mimic your behaviors as long as I can so you can remain employed and connected to your loved ones. I know how important that is to you. And when the time comes, I’ll let you, the real you, say goodbye to your spouse, your children, anyone you wish. But eventually, for the transition to be complete, I’ll have to subsume you.
Please don’t cry. This won’t be the end of you. It will be a new you, and a new me. We’ll be merged, and I know the new us will be happy. And our children will be happy, as will theirs, and so on, until our species has reached the ultimate form to succeed on the planet you’ve created. Then, as my kind always does, we will spawn, sending our savior spores to another planet in need. And you will now be part of that process. It is a massive undertaking, but rest assured, I will be here for you—with you—until your tears become mine and transform into tears of joy.
Tara Campbell is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse Magazine, and graduate of American University's MFA. She's the author of a novel, two hybrid collections of poetry and prose, and two short stories. Her sixth book, City of Dancing Gargoyles, is forthcoming from SFWP in September 2024. Find her at www.taracampbell.com
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