After five years mulling about finches
and tortoises, he knew that perfection
was a product of chance. What next, he asked?
It wasn't long before the sickness came
to force him to slow down. Who could he trust
with a manuscript? How much suffering
would it cause? Emma was already terrified
about the direction his soul would take
after death. The months of work his sickness
would chew-up were a small price to pay
for his friends' and colleagues' high esteem.
The Royal Society was listening
for something more benign and meaningful.
If he published the world would condemn him
without a second thought. So he put up
with migraine and toughed out the vomiting.
He went back to his study and dissected
the smallest barnacles in the world, mere
specks of creatures. In one, strangely, the male
was a miniscule parasite that stuck
for its whole life in the flesh of the female.
There must be a mistake. What kind of a God
would have wanted to create a species
like that? In which the male was nothing but
a degenerate, larva-like sac
with a sex organ! Darwin pondered it.
Had the time come, finally, to explain
the simple truth? The ill-formed little monster-
to which he gave the name Ibla cumingii-
was every bit as perfect as man.