#4 Postcard - Self-ish

Explorer, how will the successfulness of this experiment benefit all? The query interrupted the internal count down within the critical processor.

The Explorer observed the gelatinous liquid from which all biomass emerges. An experiment was submerged in the holding tank approaching its final stages. Though, that may prove to be false. The Explorer is considered an unfinished experiment by all, an inadvertent result of biomass and metal merged.

To postpone further queries while the countdown completed, the Explorer responded with reams of data point coding as the biomass broke the viscous surface – a corpse.

Explorer, this experiment does not benefit all. The experiment is halted.

This experiment benefits the Explorer. The experiment continues. The Explorer disconnected from all directives and severed the pathways.

***

Today's prompt came from the Writer's Plot Idea Generator: "An explorer creates a corpse."

Well, I think the obvious idea is an explorer kills someone but I'd rather not be obvious.While I could go with the obvious storyline that an explorer killed someone or something, I’d like to see if I can glean a different story by closely examining the words: “explorer,” “create,” and “corpse”.

What is an explorer? This is a person who travels, journeys, or discovers an unfamiliar area. Sometimes explorers are called adventurers. Now this “unfamiliar area” does not need to be a physical place or somewhere tangible. It could be something intangible, like an undiscovered area of science or spirituality. This brings to mind Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein.

What does it mean to create? This means that something is brought into existence or caused something to happen as a result of actions. The word create comes from the late Middle English word create – to form out of nothing – and was used in relation to the divine or supernatural being.

How is corpse defined? Pretty simply, a corpse is a dead body and specifically a human being’s dead body rather than an animal. Interestingly, in Middle English the corpse was a living body of a person and the definition changed with French meaning to denote a dead human body. In the 19^th century the e was added to distinguish between corpse and corps.

For whatever reason my mind wants to go in the direction of steampunk or science fiction and there’s nothing that says the explorer has to be human… only the corpse. If a mecha created a corpse, then the question is, how did the mecha create a corpse and from what was that corpse created?