INfusion 47 ebook - Summer 2012 - NMIT

Anne Bowman Cassandra Andreucci
The Blind Toymaker
(Anti-Intelligent Design sonnet written for
Albert Einstein’s birthday)
Shall I compare thee to a clockwork toy?
With each intricate piece designed to work,
Filling its creator with pride and joy,
And never so much as a random quirk?
This perfect toy lives on a perfect world,
Made for it through some creator’s fancy;
And when the universe first churned and whirled,
The plan did not include anything so chancy —
As evolution, random mutation;
You propose to rewrite biology?
To fit your specific computation
Of irreducible complexity.
Okay, you might have a different take;
But pure belief does not a science make.
144 145
Destruction
The wind blows from the east as I walk home from the corn fields. The ground
under my feet is blood-red and scorching hot. The sun beats down on my
cheeks and sweat trickles down my back. The satchel my mother made for me
is filled with corn and is very heavy as I break out from the grasses and onto
the dirt road.
The wind changes and picks up the dust from the earth. I start to cough;
the dust tastes different in the back of my throat. I take in another breath;
the choking air isn’t dust, but smoke. I look up and see some billowing ahead
from the direction of the village.
I start to run. My satchel bounces wildly as the smoke gets closer —
that’s when I hear the scream and the gunshots.
I am near the village edge and wedge myself into a crevice of the great
Elder Tree. I hope that none of the rebels spot me. The howling screams from
mothers in the tribe pierce my ears; is my mother one of them? Have they
taken my brother?
A hot tear runs down my cheeks as the curses and gunshots of the rebels
draw closer. My bottom lip quivers; more tears race down my face and neck.
But the gunshots and shouting suddenly stop. All that is left is the twinkling
sun through the leaves on the floor, a rustling silence in the branches and the
soft mournful whimpers of the mothers. I take a moment, take a few breaths,
then I force myself out of the tree’s safety and onto the threshold of the
village.
There are bodies before me. And blood. Houses in the village centre
blaze the colour of the setting sun. Black smokes plumes up into the crystal
blue sky. I look down at the young men lying in the village centre. Large
gashes expose their guts and smile up at me. Many bullet-holed women lie
here too; blood oozing from their bodies. Pools of blood seep into the dry
earth. Mothers and elders mourn over the dead and try to save the ones that
hold on.
This place — once a place to come together as a community and feast; a
place to pray — is now desecrated by evil. I take a few more steps into the village,
trembling, trying to remember something important. But all I can think
of is death. I walk in the direction of my house and my neighbour cradling her