Friday, June 4, 2010

The Last Neanderthal



The last Neanderthal died in Oslo, Norway, at the age of ninety-two, after a long struggle with melanoma.

Magnus Jonsdottir is survived by two sons and four grandchildren, all now living in federated New York City.  Mr. Jonsdottir achieved some notoriety when it was discovered that his was the last family of purely northern European stock, and as such the closest living relatives to the long-extinct Neanderthal.

Genetic analysis of fossil specimens in the 2000s showed that Neanderthal DNA is more prevalent in northern European, Chinese, and Papua New Guinean racial subgroups.  The Bootstrap Plague of 2023, which was the result of an improperly designed recombinant gene therapy treatment, resulted in the death or sterility of all members of the Papua New Guinea subgroup, which in conjunction with one of the 21st century's bloodiest civil wars resulted in that people's extinction by 2047.  The Chinese subgroup genome was so modified by retroactive eugenics campaigns in the 30s and 40s that their DNA is no longer factored into genetic statistical analysis by the EEUU Scientific Taskgroup.

Mr. Jonsdottir had been the subject of several documentaries after genealogical confirmation of his family's unique position in history.  These led to periodic unwanted attention from white supremacist and race-based ultrafederationalist factions, both in Norway and the ScandoRussian Trade Union states.  The Jonsdottir family became reclusive after Bryan Jonsdottir (d. 2084, Magnus's brother) was killed by a remote-detonated letter bomb, apparently in retaliation for statements he had made condemning the Free Left Initiative, a radical group that had advocated the legalization of school segregation.  Magnus Jonsdottir did not comment on his brother's death at the time.

A private service will be held on Monday.  The family has requested that in lieu of flowers donations be made to the Oslo Pottery Guild.  Mr.  Jonsdottir was an avid ceramicist.

OR:

Leg broken.  Red-hair tribe laughing, musk-ox theirs now.  Bone out of skin, bleeding;  bad.  Spear is broken like leg.  No water, and brother is dead.  Father and mother and sister are dead.  No water after hunt-run and bleeding is bad.

Red-hairs come and look at me lying on gravel in dry river.  Tonight they will feast on oxflesh.  Mostly they cluck and hoot in their way of talking, then walk away.  The children throw pebbles.  Only one stays and waits for a while, stroking her belly where the baby will soon show.

Then she too leaves.

--Steve Kilian

Consider Your Enemies


Extraordinary Measurements

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