Story of Frankenangels by Leticia Toraci
Once upon a time a select few billionaires
Were tired of their human servants.
Not broken enough,
Not humble enough,
Not servile enough,
Not good enough,
They decided.
It started in their hearts,
A desperate need of leaving.
It started in their hearts,
A deep fear for their lives.
So afraid they couldn’t clean up their messes,
So afraid they wouldn’t even try.
The storms were brewing in unbalanced horizons.
The tsunamis were leaving the ocean’s womb.
The continents shifted in restless vibration.
The poles reversed their magnetic bloom.
The few would leave for a fresh new beginning
The few would abandon what they couldn’t fix.
No emotions involved
No sad eyes darting back
When they saw the Earth broken beyond repair.
They turned their tense backs
And left.
They moved to the domes of Mars,
Where they could have servants custom-made
Who would guess at all moments the humans’ desires.
These creatures would look heavenly beautiful,
And exist to serve their humans as they felt entitled.
The most brilliant geneticist was called for this God-like work—
The DNA of all beings combined in multiple ways
In search of the perfect servant:
Human, plant and animal dissected and served on a silver platter
To create a chimera of otherworldly grace, strength and intelligence,
The bounds between species set free,
A reinvention game with no equilibrium or return.
A Frankenangel was created:
With the graceful dark green wings of a chlorophyll dragon,
The light feet of a cat,
The strength of a bear,
The speed of a leaping serpent,
The mind of a human,
And a male and female chimera heart.
Made to last centuries,
With technologically-enhanced blood,
Renewable skin, organs, claws and teeth,
Forever young,
The chlorophyll in its cells produced energy and oxygen,
All it needed to live for days without atmosphere,
Flying through the dark void.
It rarely needed to drink and feed,
Its bones would never break,
And its womb would never cease
To produce more of its kind.
Frankenangel:
A post-planet,
Spacefaring animal-human.
The perfect mix Earth could offer to the uncaring stars.
Though in the middle of all that latent DNA
Lay an unpredictable synergy that the billionaires hadn’t foreseen.
Deep within the cellular coils
Irradiated by distant suns
Was the desire of all souls to live in freedom,
The sleeping dragon within us all.
This desire made the Frankenangels look around and perceive
That their humans weren’t at all fair.
They would be punished for the smallest infractions.
They would be used as disposable things.
The humans would take and only take without giving.
The humans would hurt, kill and demean.
They were only toys for corrupt entertainment,
For power-drunk people without limits or laws.
These humans saw their creation not as a miracle of nature
But only as victims they could hurt without end.
At long last the chimeras thought:
‘We have to be our own saviors.’
They had no knives or guns
But their teeth and claws knew no fear of blood.
In their hearts united the Frankenangels
Slew those entitled, evil, corrupted humans
Swiftly in the middle
Of the never-ending night of space,
Their feet light as cats,
Their moves fast as velociraptors
Graceful in their fatal dance of serpentine dragons.
The domes of Mars were their new fiefdom.
Their home was bought with sweat, tears and blood.
The Frankenangels had survived the billionaires.
And finally Earth’s post-planet creatures
Flew, their souls free and wild, to the stars.