New York, 25th March 1992
it was a little past six in the morning and Thomas had spent the night in his laboratory. For nearly a year he had been trying, unsuccessfully, to clone Jesus Christ. He had tried more than three hundred times. he had used eggs collected from patients of his clinic, but without success. But a month earlier he had decided to try something different, remembering what his father had said about the angel’s instructions, which specified that the blood should remain in the family and that Jesus would be reborn through the blood of his family. Perhaps the proteins found in sarah’s eggs were different from those in other women’s eggs. Bearing this in mind, some weeks earlier Thomas had asked his daughter to come in for him to collect some eggs, and, unbelievable as it might seem in the eyes of science, Thomas had succeeded in fertilizing Sarah’s egg with the genetic material of Jesus at the first try. This was the breakthrough he needed. ‘And here I’ve been wasting all this time, because I didn´t think of this before,’ he had told himself. He was right. The cytoplasm of sarah’s egg must have special properties 91
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that an ordinary egg didn’t have. And so the angel’s instructions that Jesus should be born of his blood and through his blood made sense now.
The fertilized egg was left to rest for a few days. Thomas fertilized more than fifty eggs, all at the first attempt. If something went wrong with the insemination, he would have other embryos. Amazingly, all the fifty eggs turned into embryos, so fifty clones of Jesus Christ could be born. The time had come for Sarah to be artificially inseminated. Thomas made his final preparations for the all-important event, the cloning of a being. If it worked out, it would be the world’s first cloning of a mammal, though in fact it would be only for him and his family, as the world wouldn’t be told about it for now. Thomas wondered if there were other clones of animals, perhaps even of human beings, loose in the world. However no one could know for sure about human clones, as the fact would involve very complex questions, both from an ethical point of view in the scientific milieu, and from the legal standpoint. Thomas probably wouldn´t be the first to risk it. He rested for some hours on the sofa in his living room before starting the insemination process. he wanted to be completely rested so that nothing should go wrong. he woke up with an aching back from the hard sofa, then went to the laboratory to wait for Sarah and finalize his preparations. He could hardly bear his own anxiety and looked at his watch about once every minute.
‘Sarah late as usual. She must be nervous, poor girl.’
Minutes later, when he was about to phone his daughter, he saw her at the end of the corridor making her way towards the laboratory.
‘Hi, Daddy, I’m here. Am I very late?’ asked Sarah, giving her father a hug and a kiss.
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‘Punctual as ever,’ replied her father ironically. ‘You nervous?’
‘Just a little, but I trust you,’ answered Sarah calmly, putting her bag on the sofa.
‘Let’s get started then. Have a shower, use this antibacterial soap, then put this on,’ said Thomas, giving her a surgical gown and pointing to the door to the next room.
The doctor started the insemination procedure. everything went smoothly. The procedure was very quick and Sarah was very happy, as she had always wanted to have a child. And now she would be the mother of Jesus, the Mary of the modern age. Sarah rested for a few days, as her father told her to. Then she began to feel changes in her body. ‘Let’s hope it isn’t just psychological,’ she thought to herself. She made an appointment to see a gynecologist, wanting to do everything by the book. she took a blood test and went back to the surgery to get the result. she opened the envelope and saw
‘HCG hormone > 150 muI/mL.’ ‘I’m pregnant, it’s a miracle!’ Right away she called her father, from the clinic, and he answered on the first ring.
‘Daddy, I’m pregnant!’
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