Fractals

Each cell holds the complete design; the framework, the plumbing, the wiring diagrams, all jammed into a spiral thread of sugars and bases that tells us what to be. What blind stupid arrogance, to think that a few campfire songs could undo four million years of evolution. Morally wrong, we chant; politically incorrect, socially unacceptable. But our genes aren't fooled.

They're so much wiser than we are. They know: we have met the enemy, and he is not us. Evolution, ever patient, inspires us to self-defense.

My enmity is hardwired. Am I to blame if the plan calls for something that hates?

***

What's this? They've changed the bait again?

It can't be an easy job, trying to bribe us into literacy. Each week they put a new display in the lobby, easily visible through the glass to passers-by, some colourful new production meant to lure the great unwashed into the library.

Wasted on me; I'm in here for something else entirely.

Although, what the hell, the newspaper section doesn't close for hours. And today's offering is a tad more colourful than usual.

Let's see...

A crayon drawing of crude stick figures, red and yellow, black and white, holding hands in a ring. Posters, professionally crafted but no less blatant, showing Chinese and Caucasians wearing hard hats and smiling at each other. The air is thick with sugary sweetness and light; I feel the first stirrings of diabetes.

I move closer to the display. A sign, prominently displayed:

"Sponsored by the B.C. Human Rights Commission".

They know. They have their polls, their barometers, they can feel the backlash building and they're fighting it any way they can.

I wander the exhibit. I feel a bit like a vampire at church. But the symbols here are weak; the garlic and the holy signs have an air of desperation about them. They're losing, and they know it.

This feeble propaganda can't change how we feel.

Besides, why should they care what we think? In another few years we won't matter any more.

There's a newspaper clipping tacked up on one corner of the nearest board. From an old 1986 edition of the Globe and Mail:

"Reagan Assured Gorbachev of Help Against Space Aliens", the headline says.

Is this for real?

Yes indeed. Then-president Reagan, briefly inspired, actually told Gorbachev that if the Earth were ever threatened by aliens, all countries would pull together and forget their ideological differences. Apparently he thought there was a moral there somewhere.

"One of the few intelligent things Reagan ever said," someone says at my elbow. I turn. She's overdressed; wears a BC government pin on one lapel and a button on the other. The button shows planet Earth encircled by the words "We're all in this together".

But at least she's one of us.

"But he was right," I reply. "Threaten the whole human race and our international squabbling seems so petty."

She nods, smiling. "That's why I put it up. It's not really part of the presentation, but I thought it fit."

"Of course, we don't have space aliens to hate. But not to worry. There's always an enemy, somewhere."

Her smile falters a bit. "What do you mean?"

"If not space aliens, the Russians. If not the Russians, the local ethnics. I stayed on an island once where the lobstermen on the south end all hated the herring fishermen on the north. They all seemed the same to me, a lot of them were even related, but they had to be able to hate someone somewhere."

She clucks and shakes her head in cynical accord.

"Of course, both sides banded together to hate all off-islanders," I add.

"Of course."

"A single human being, the whole damn species, or any level in between, and the pattern's the same, isn't it? It's like hatred is—"

I see galaxies within galaxies.

"—scale-invariant," I finish slowly.

She looks at me, a bit strangely. "Uh—"

"But of course, there are also a lot of positive things happening. People can co-operate when they have to."

Her smile reinflates. "Exactly."

"Like the natives. Banding together to save their cultures, forgetting their differences. The Haidas even stopped taking slaves from other tribes."

She isn't smiling at all now. "The Haida," she says, "haven't taken slaves for generations."

"Oh, that's right. We put a stop to that about—I guess it was even before we banned the potlatch, wasn't it? But eventually they'll want to start up again. I mean, slavery was integral to their culture, and we simply must protect the integrity of everyone's culture here, mustn't we?"

"I don't think you've got all your facts straight," she says slowly.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought we were multicultural. I thought Canadians were supposed to—" I spy some bold print a few boards down—" to allow different cultures to flourish side by side without imposing our own moral and ethical standards on them."

"Within the law," she says. I wait, but she's wary now, unwilling to speak further.