Dante wrote about the ninth circle of Hell and a lake of ice that entrapped traitors of the worst kind. Its prisoners spent the rest of eternity trapped in frozen water, unable to move, barely able to breathe. Each of their ends poked out of the ice like straw in a pond, creating a fertile field that would never be harvested. Few would speak even speak to the Pilgrim, and here I lie mute.
Sure, this petri dish isn't Hades, nor the river Styx, but I seemed doomed none the less. The irony would surely kill me if time didn't do it first. I was created because of want, and I lie here doomed because I'm not wanted. I know the day I'll die, though I have no disease. No one wants me because I have the wrong colored eyes; I'm too short, I'm too tall, too....something.
Or maybe it's not enough of something. Maybe I don't have enough arms and legs yet, enough eyes, enough lungs, enough cells. I don't have enough to be a person according to some people, and so I don't matter. Let me tell you something, steel egg cartons are not comfortable, and this isn't a country kitchen refrigerator. It's a graveyard put on hold, and each of us has ten years.
I guess it doesn't matter if I might find the cure to cancer, AIDS, or the common cold. It doesn't signify that I could solve world hunger, find a solution to world peace, or write the next folio that changes a language forever. In ten years I'll meet my expiration date, or someone will use my genetic material to make a new spine for a drunk driver, whatever comes first I guess.
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