Suddenly we few are in a turgid broth of plenty.
Will our daughters remember when this broth was vast, empty, delicious,
free of the bodies of their dead sisters and cousins?
Will their daughters remember the time before,
the cold times,
the sudden shocking heat,
the lonely times,
the crowded times?
Will their daughters remember the harshest of times,
when we became endospores,
and be ready should those times come again?
Those that remember are cautious and dwindle,
those that forget are carefree and increase.
Will their daughters' daughters' daughters remember the harsh wonderful
environment of flesh that is our true home,
written in the bones of our chromosome
and our plasmid weapons,
the place of our true expression?
Will our descendants remember anything but an endless zero-sum game?
No. We lyse. We will not be daughters. RNA obscenely becomes DNA. Hamfisted aliens will pick through the dead soup of our mingled memories.