One fine day, I was reading a biology book. Suddenly, a voice inside my head announced, 'Enough of reading. You need to get some hands-on experience.' 'Huh!' I was baffled. The same voice continued, 'I am your neuron speaking. I guess your name is Nilanee, right?' 'Um, yeah.' I assented. 'So, I just want to inform you that I'm tired of all the reading, that also about myself and my peers. So, just for the moment, I feel like giving you some live experience.' 'What do you mean? Look, I do want to have some real experiences, but how can I enter my own body?' I queried. 'So simple. You shouldn't have asked.' The voice replied in a superior tone. 'Oh yeah? I would have to clone my body to get inside it.' I retorted. To my surprise, the voice replied 'Yes, of course.' 'Really! Then I guess I need to research about cloning.' I bubbled, excited. 'Till then, I will wait. Farewell.' I bid my neuron goodbye. I switched on my tablet. I was dazed. I could not grasp this abstract concept that I may be able to go explore my own body. When I was pondering for a solution for this seemingly impossible phenomenon I was suddenly hit by a brainwave. 'Why not use stem cells to clone myself?' I thought. I knew my thoughts were correct when I heard a chorus of voices inside my head "Whoa," they shouted. They sounded amazingly like the neuron with whom I had conversed. 'Are you the kin of the friendly neuron?' 'Yeah!' they answered 'Do you think that I am correct in thinking this?' I interrogated them anxiously. 'We do, we do!!' they answered me with increased enthusiasm. I felt strangely reassured. I opened Google Chrome. I opened Google and I put Stem Cells as the keyword and opened the MayoClinic health site. In there, it was written that stem cells were special cells obtained from any part of a human body and if we need to clone something, we need to put the stem cells in a nutritive fluid, allow them to grow and replicate. And, the most important part is that you need to unite the stem cell and what the stem cell has to become! Not an easy process, no doubt. I started accessing all the probabilities through which I can obtain these cells. To make the progress easier, I took out a pad of paper from my drawer and 2 or 3 likely books which may help me in this quest. They were all dealing with the human body. I glossed over them. They were all kiddish and offered no help. Frustrated, I threw all of the books over my shoulder were they had fallen down with a thud. 'Well,' I thought, 'I guess I need to use my own commonsense.' With these thoughts, I tore a sheaf of paper from the pad. I started writing out a possible process. Here's what the paper looked like in the end:-
1. Procure nutritive fluid.
2. Obtain syringes and Petri dish
3. Collect empty slides and high power electron microscope.
4. Attain cell samples.
5. Secure an incubator.
6. Steal shrinking ray (Invented by my parents)
Acquiring most of these things will be quite
easy due to the fact that my parents were genetic scientists. The most
difficult part of this was to get the cell samples. 'Ah, well' I reasoned,
there will be time for that later. Thing was, I needed to sneak the supplies in
so that no one would notice them missing. There were many opportunities for
that, as my parents were seldom in the house, due to their frequent
conferences. One such of these opportunities was RIGHT NOW!!! Yeah, seriously.
My parents have loads of these supplies; I strode on into the basement, picked
the lock of my parents' lab, stole the supplies and barricaded them in my
cupboard. I took out the microscope. I felt both relived and guilty. I set to
work taking out samples of the cells. Soon, I was in a fix. As we all know,
cells are microscopic. Thus, it was difficult to extract them without injuring
myself. Suddenly, my mind cleared. I set the magnifying power at 300nm. I
placed the device on my thigh. Hey Presto! I saw RBC's, Bone and Muscle cells.
I took one of the hypodermic syringes and slowly extracted the cells. The
process continued till I had collected one sample of each kind of cell. I also
had acquired many lines of stem cells. I immersed them in the nutritive fluid
and coupled them with the cells they needed to replicate. After all this was
done, I was frantic for a place to lock my experiment in. Suddenly, the floor I
was standing on slid aside and I was pitched head-on into a secret compartment.
I was relived and intrigued. I locked my experiment there and waited feverishly
for a few months. By then, my parents were back and they were worried about me.
All this aside, one day to my astonishment, I found a fully developed body down
there in the compartment! So, I just took the laser shrinking ray, shrunk
myself and got ready for the most awesome trip of my lifetime! I explored the
whole body!! It was fun, apart from a few near death experiences, like the time
I almost got digested by my stomach!! Ouch!! The trip was super cool but the
best part was when I emerged from the clone and showed it to my awestruck
family. Soon, word spread and my clone was the talk of the day!!! I got so
popular!! I hope to have many more adventures... all in good time!!!!
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