Paradeisia: Origin of Paradise

by B. C. CHASE

  Doctor Ming-Zhen said, “I believe you are on the correct course.” He said this because he actually recognized these fossilized limbs: he had seen a matching, eight-foot pair before, in a Barcelona museum. With three two-foot-long fingers tipped by gigantic claws, the fossil at the museum presented such a frightening prospect that the original discoverers had given the new dinosaur the Greek name for “terrible hand.” He provided his students with a hint, “What other dinosaur was discovered in this province, something terrible.”

  Jia Ling smiled, “Deinocheirus!” She pronounced it dino-KY-rus.

  Doctor Ming-Zhen said, “You are correct.”

  Jia Ling leaped into the air and jumped up and down with a squeal of excitement. Chao embraced her and kissed her soundly.

  Doctor Ming-Zhen shot Chao an icy stare, clenching his jaw in anger. The most recent target of Chao's philandering had been Jia Ling, and she had thus far ignored strong warnings to avoid him. Doctor Ming-Zhen was not sure how far their relationship had gone, but he knew one thing for sure: Chao wanted her for only one thing, and he was not going to get it while Doctor Ming-Zhen was around.

  Chao returned Doctor Ming-Zhen's gaze by cocking his head in triumph and planting another kiss on Jia Ling's mouth.

  Doctor Ming-Zhen's blood boiled as he stepped forward.

  St. Joseph's Medical Center

  Doctor John Burwell, pathologist, and his technician, Sarah Rodriguez, had received the latest cadaver with the following notes:

  -Miscarried 14 weeks approx. 04:00

  -TOD 04:40 en route to St. J's due to miscarriage

  -Paramedics report could not perform CPR-high fever

  -No success with AED

  -Tried to vent via trachea

  “Could not perform CPR-high fever?” Doctor Burwell said to Sarah. “That doesn't make sense... Who were the bozos on that ambulance?”

  “I've never liked paramedics. They always seem so cocky.” Then she said quietly, “They're not like you.” She didn't look up at him. She just said it into the corpse, as she always did when she dropped a compliment.

  Even though he noticed these little hints and even though he found her brilliantly attractive, he could never bring himself to reciprocate. The only time they really spent together was in the lab, cutting open cadavers. It just didn't seem right to make plays at her in that environment, especially since he was her superior. And he never saw her outside the morgue... So even though they hadn't exchanged romantic conversation, there had been plenty of romantic tension the last eight months.

  Doctor Burwell unzipped the body bag, revealing a woman with wide-open, jaundiced eyes staring at nothing. Her throat had been slit, probably by the ER surgeon who had tried to get air in through her windpipe: clearly the situation had been desperate.

  If a patient was unable to breathe via mouth because of an obstruction or fluid, it was sometimes possible to insert a tube directly into the trachea. Called a cricothyrotomy, this procedure was performed only on extremely rare occasions due to how dangerous it was. But Dr. Burwell was puzzled. He thought this patient had died on the ambulance. Surely the paramedics had not attempted a cricothyrotomy. Only experienced surgeons were qualified....

  Her skin was pink, but upon closer inspection, he realized that this was because of millions of tiny blood spots that had come to the surface. Rupture of the capillaries. Doctor Burwell knew that this could occur in cases of untreated diabetes. He noted the symptom.

  Even through his gloves, he could feel that the skin was warm. They had taken the body from the refrigerator. Five hours later, and still warm? The other tech must have left it sitting out of the fridge and then, noticing his mistake, slipped it in right before he and Sarah showed up. Gross incompetence... The kind of incompetence that deserved termination. That guy was getting more and more careless. Just last week he had—

  “What the heck,” Doctor Burwell said, distracted from his thoughts. As he raised the body to look at the backside, something very strange became apparent. Although the time of death was over five hours ago, rigor mortis had not yet set in: the appendages were loose. He made a note of this and then, turning the body back over with Sarah's assistance, proceeded to make an incision on the front, down from each shoulder, to the sternum.

  Next to no blood seeped from the tissue because there was no blood pressure: the heart wasn't pumping. From the sternum, he cut all the way down to the pubic bone. All the organs had the same red spotting that he had seen on the skin.

  He used a special blade to saw off some of the ribs and began the methodical process of extracting the organs. As always, he would have to remove the throat and tongue by going up from the chest: families at the funeral didn't like to see their loved ones with stitched chins.

  As he began the procedure, he noticed a major problem. The thyroid gland was missing. A butterfly-shaped organ that wrapped around the throat, it produced the hormones that regulated everything from metabolism to growth and development. But it simply wasn't there.

  Perhaps she had been born without one. Congenital hypothyroidism occurred in one in 4,000 babies. If so, she would have been taking thyroid medication since birth.

  However, when he further inspected her throat, it appeared to him as if damage had been done. No, this was not congenital. Her thyroid gland had been removed, and recently; because there was no blood, he surmised it happened after she died. Had the nincompoop who attempted the cricothyrotomy mutilated her thyroid gland in the process and then removed it to cover his tracks? Doctor Burwell shook his head. This was the most bizarre autopsy he had ever performed, without a doubt.

  The real kicker came when he removed the heart. As he sliced off the large arteries so he could extract it, a gush of blood spewed out. He jerked his hands back. “Ouch!”

  “Cut yourself?” Sarah asked, concerned.

  “No, it's... It's hot,” he replied with disbelief.

  The blood had felt so hot it seemed to burn him, even through the latex gloves. And now, as they peered down into the chest cavity, a bit of vapor was rising from the sliced-open arteries and the aorta.

  Doctor Burwell turned to Sarah, “I know I'm supposed to be the one with the experience here, but have you seen anything like this before?”

  She shook her head an emphatic “no.”

  He continued extracting the other organs. And as he did so, it became more and more apparent that, aside from the heat and the missing thyroid, something was very, very wrong.

  The note had said “Miscarried.” But Doctor Burwell was puzzled. Normally after a miscarriage, the cervix would have been open to allow the tissues to pass, but the uterus was empty, and the cervix was closed. There was no remnant of amniotic fluid, no sac, certainly no fetus...no nothing. In fact, with the exception of Montgomery's tubercles around her nipples, there was no obvious evidence that this woman had been pregnant at all, and certainly not that she had miscarried.

  United Nations Security Council

  The Australian representative said, “May you state your name and position for the record, sir?”

  The professor adjusted his feet under the desk, and replied. “My name is Matthew Martin, I am a professor of biology of at the University of Cambridge, England.”

  “Thank you, sir. Now, please proceed with your testimony.”

  Doctor Martin felt himself calming. This was no different than a lecture at the university, he thought. His tone was even as he said, “Many of you might have sensed throughout your lives that there was something beyond what you could see or touch, that there was a power or presence, if you will, beyond the physical world. You might have heard of psychic phenomena such as fortune-telling or mind reading or telepathy. You might have seen these things for sale, perhaps at a fair or on the internet. You might have experienced certain strange feelings or thoughts that you could not explain. Feelings such as déjà vu or premonitions. You might have sensed that ideas were placed in your mind. You might believe that you were contacted by someth
ing or someone. You have heard of 'out of body' experiences and find them either unsettling, or empowering. You might have been frightened, even terrified at times and not known why, for example, in the dark.

  “If any of this is true of you, then rest assured, you are not alone. I have also experienced some of these things, and so have ninety-nine point two percent of the world's population, according to research. And I believe,” he chuckled, “that the same is true of this as it is about the study on men and masturbation: ninety-nine percent of men admit they have masturbated, and the other one percent are lying.

  “Now, these phenomena are so common and so pronounced, in fact, that religions are founded upon them. When looked at as a whole, the fact is that, for better or worse, the 'spiritual' or 'psychic' side of humanity has been the greatest force for change acting on the world since the beginning of recorded history.”

  He shifted his feet again. “In dealing with these phenomena, let us call them 'psychic phenomena,' you will fall into one of nine groups. In the first group, you find them so overpowering that they become the focal point of your worldview and you ascribe powers of good or evil to them, devote significant amounts of your time trying to appease them, and do a great deal to convince others to do the same. This would be most of the population who strictly adhere to a religion of some sort.

  “Second group: You believe they are real and are forces to be harnessed for your personal benefit and advancement. This would also be many religious adherents, such as charismatic Christians, Krishna Buddhists, and so forth.

  “Third group: You believe they are mostly evil and, as such, should either be ignored or warded away through the use of incantations, good luck charms, evil eyes, or other means. This would include many Native American faiths and superstition of the American Ozarks in the nineteenth century.

  “Fourth group: You do not know what to think, so you think nothing.

  “Fifth group: You believe they have something to do with outer space and are at risk of becoming fixated with UFO sightings, crop circles, cattle mutilations, abductions, and other phenomena. Once a firm believer, you may become convinced that you have experienced sightings or abductions yourself. The UFO's ARE FOR REAL organization is a glorious example of this.

  “Sixth group: You are skeptical, you think that in cases where subjects are not fabricating information, psychic phenomena are always explainable by science. They are contrivances or afflictions of the mind; for example, they take the form of mental illnesses or randomly firing neurons, as in dreams. Most of these phenomena, if problematic, can be dealt with through the use of drugs. Psychologists make billions of dollars every year treating their patients from just this mindset.

  “Seventh group: You are curious, you want to know more, but you have not learned enough yet to form an opinion or belief, and you don't find it to be worth your time. You are lazy, qey sera sera, that is all.

  “Eighth group: The implications of these 'psychic phenomena' frighten you so much that you refuse to ascribe reality to them despite being knowledgeable enough to know better. You are in denial. Take Richard Dawkins as an archetypal example of this.”

  He sipped some water, then continued, “In the ninth group, you are unaware, and therefore have yet to form an opinion. Less than one percent of the population can honestly claim to be in this group.

  “If you are in group six, if you are a skeptic, I am now speaking to you. I was also in group six. I believed psychic phenomena were fodder for the weak-minded.

  “One day, eleven years ago, I had an experience that changed my mind. It was the worst experience of my life, and it forced me to move into group seven; I now want to know more. I will now relate what happened to me that induced this change.”

  Gobi Desert, Mongolia

  His fingers trembling with fury, Doctor Ming-Zhen growled, “This is a scientific excavation, not a party.”

  Jia Ling backed away from Chao, her head down, “Yes, Ming-Zhen jiàoshòu. Sorry, we are just so excited.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen nodded, “I'm sure you are.” At least even if Chao didn't have any sense, his Jia Ling apparently yet retained some of her faculties. He straightened his shoulders, “Now, let's see what else we can find.”

  The skeleton was lying belly up, as if it had rolled onto its back when it died. They dug down past the coracoids to the upper ribs, and were now busy clearing out the chest cavity. Doctor Ming-Zhen was eager to see if the spine was there, because if it was they could trace it up to the head.

  Most complete dinosaur skeletons that had been found exhibited opisthotonus, or the “death pose.” Heads thrown back, tails raised up, as if in agony, the “death pose” occurred in any creatures that died of brain damage, asphyxiation, or drowning, including humans.

  So if they did find the head, it would probably be behind the vertebrae of the back.

  Now, though, they unexpectedly ran into a round dome-like fossil within the lower rib chamber.

  As his young students chipped away at the debris around the domed fossil, Doctor Ming-Zhen watched closely to be sure they didn't damage it. They were using dental picks and brushes, but fossils were very delicate and you couldn't be too careful.

  It was definitely a domed skull from something; most likely the deinocheirus' last meal. This was exciting because it could reveal something about the extinct creature's diet, but at this moment he couldn't remotely identify what it was from.

  They continued to work, and by the time the forward facing eye sockets, nasal cavity, and top row of teeth were revealed, the truth was so obvious that Jia Ling dropped her pick with a sudden gasp, pulling away in revulsion.

  Evident even to an untrained eye, this was the skull of a mammal, a primate. And not just any primate. The familiar, disconcerting gaze which stared back from the gaping eye sockets conveyed the irrefutable truth to every person staring back: this was Homo sapiens.

  From his knees where he had fallen, Doctor Ming-Zhen stared at the long-dead human and was overcome with a strange horror. Flashing through his mind was a giant, long-fingered hand clutching a man, the claws curled around to gore him through the chest, and immense jaws swooping down towards his head.

  But this was impossible, he thought. Dinosaurs and man were separated by millions of years of evolution.

  His mind spinning, he remembered that a team of his colleagues in China had identified a cat-sized mammalian fossil that contained a tiny dinosaur in its stomach. At the time, scientists the world over had admitted that it overturned the premise that early mammals of the Cretaceous had been timid little animals that lurked in the shadows of the much more advanced dinosauria. This premise had of course been based on the necessity of evolution taking time. The cat-sized animal provided an image of a more powerful, more evolutionarily advanced Cretaceous mammal.

  Even so, a small mammal here or there did not equate to a human being. Not by a long shot. This was impossible.

  And yet, here it was, before their very eyes.

  Still gazing at the fossil, he said quietly and slowly, “It is fortunate that you came, Chao. It seems we require the expertise of a paleoanthropologist after all.”

  If only he really was an expert, he thought with repugnance.

  China Academy of Sciences

  Doctor Ming-Zhen and his team made the journey back to Beijing as soon as they had completed the excavation, and immediately began work on a paper for publication. Knowing that their discovery would likely attract a great deal of scrutiny, they left no stone unturned and took a full year to fully document the find.

  When they had finished excavating the stomach cavity, every piece from the unfortunate human was accounted for. It appeared the dinosaur had swallowed him in three chunks; fairly dainty dining for something with a ten-foot mandible. And the evidence was proof positive that the deinocheirus had swallowed the man: the teeth of the dino perfectly matched indentations on the human's bones.

  As for the deinocheirus itself, the truth of the creature pr
oved paleontology to be totally mistaken in its classification as an “ostrich dino.”

  Representing an amalgamation of features from several dinosaur families, the complete deinocheirus skeleton defied belief. Its head was nearly twice the length of tyrannosaur's, and the jaws contained an extremely formidable set of teeth; the longest tooth measuring in at over a foot from jaw line to tip. It turned out to be the largest carnivorous dinosaur ever found; sixty-five feet in length.

  Clearly, t-rex was going to fall to be bottom of little boys' toychests... This skeleton had proven deinocheirus not only to be the new “king” of the dinosaurs, but also, given the contents of its belly, the king of men.

  They documented all of it, every last detail.

  But it was all for nothing. In the end, he wished he never would have found it.

  94 Golfpointe Road

  Wesley's eyes opened. He couldn't believe he had actually been sleeping. It had been two days since Sienna died, and he hadn't slept a wink until now. He brought the recliner upright and yawned, orienting himself. He was in the sitting room of his mother's house, a five-bedroom lakeside colonial. In the room was a sandstone fireplace surrounded by white shelves filled with those bounded vestiges of the past that nobody knew how to get rid of.

  For a few moments, Wesley just stared at the flames as they licked off the logs. Why his mother had a fire blazing in near-summer weather, he didn't know. Probably just the ambiance... He almost felt like he might doze off, but then it happened again.

  A memory.

  They were at the department store exit, sunshine glistening off the pavement outside the glass doors. He was pushing a cart with the new crib and a couple baby supplies. She was scampering in front wearing little shorts and a carefree t-shirt. The doors slid open and she spun around with a smile, “This is going to be one spoiled baby!”