The
Ghost of Zygote Never to Come
By
Jack Hall
CHARACTERS
Herbert- A stem cell researcher
Glen- The ghost of an embryo
AUTHOR'S NOTE: When I wrote this, I
imagined it as a Monty Python sketch, with Glen having the voice of Eric Idle.
Use it, or do your own thing. Just get the message out what a farce embryonic
stem cell research is!
Herbert is working on a petri
dish. Glen enters.
GLEN: Hello, there. Having a good
day?
HERBERT: Do you mind? This is a very
delicate procedure.
GLEN: Sorry, doc, didn't mean to
mess you up.
HERBERT: That's quite all right.
GLEN: Wouldn't want you to have a
slip of the scalpel there. After all, those are my cells.
HERBERT: Beg your pardon?
GLEN: In the dish. That's me.
HERBERT: It's a zygote.
GLEN: It was a zygote before you cut
it open. Now it's just an empty lot of cells, and here I am, drifting aimlessly
in the spirit realm.
HERBERT: You're a ghost?
GLEN: Ghost of Zygote never to come.
Ha ha. Not that you believe in all that life begins at conception nonsense,
right?
HERBERT: Is that sarcasm?
GLEN: Is it? I dunno, doc. I'm only
a zygote. You tell me.
HERBERT: Look, I don't know why
you're haunting me, but we're doing nothing illegal here.
GLEN: Never said you weren't.
HERBERT: What we do in here helps
people to live better, more fulfilling lives.
GLEN: Nothing wrong in that, right?
HERBERT: Nothing.
GLEN: So you're using my cells to
cure a disease?
HERBERT: Well, no.
GLEN: Reproducing organs for
transplant then?
HERBERT: If you must know, I am
making sperm.
GLEN: Sperm?
HERBERT: Human sperm.
GLEN: I should hope so. I was human.
Oops, I mean, I woulda been human had I made it through the zygote phase.
HERBERT: You know there are a lot of
sad, infertile men out there who can't become fathers on their own. This procedure
will enable them to produce their own offspring.
GLEN: So let me get this straight.
You cut up my cells, which were formed by a sperm and egg, so that some chap
firing blanks can come along and have kids of his own?
HERBERT: It's not like you were
viable!
GLEN: Oh hardly, sir! I was just a
blobule! Take me out of the womb, and I'm a nothing.
HERBERT: Exactly.
GLEN: Then again, let me bake around
nine months, and Mr. Empty Cannon and his darling wife woulda had a bouncing
baby all their own, with no needless cutting or gutting.
HERBERT: You are being sarcastic!
GLEN: Am I? How can I tell? I'm only
a zygote.
HERBERT: Shut up!
GLEN: Who am I to tell Mr. Empty
Cannon he has no right to reproduce himself?
HERBERT: Will you please shut up??
GLEN: Can you at least tell me if I
was a boy or girl?
HERBERT: No!
GLEN: Come on, am I a Glen or
Glenda?
HERBERT: That does it! I quit!
Herbert exits.
GLEN: Hey! Any chance you can patch
me up or something?
Glen takes the petri
dish, sadly, and exits.
Copyright 2009 by Sunday
School Dropouts