Death on earth : adventures in evolution and mortality

236 Pages·2016·5.08 MB·English

by  Jules Howard

DEATH ON EARTH
Also available in the Bloomsbury Sigma series: Sex on Earth by Jules Howard p53 –
The Gene that Cracked the Cancer Code by Sue Armstrong Atoms Under the Floorboards by Chris
Woodford Spirals in Time by Helen Scales Chilled by Tom Jackson A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup
Breaking the Chains of Gravity by Amy Shira Teitel Suspicious Minds by Rob Brotherton Herding
Hemingway’s Cats by Kat Arney Electronic Dreams by Tom Lean Sorting the Beef from the Bull by
Richard Evershed and Nicola Temple
For Lettie and Esme
DEATH ON EARTH
ADVENTURES IN EVOLUTION AND
MORTALITY
Jules Howard
Contents
Introduction
PART 1: THIS IS A DEAD FROG
1 Life and Death in the Universe
2 Senescence and What Waits for the Lucky Few
3 Fear and Loathing in Birchwood
4 Free Radicals and the Secrets Within
5 This is a Dead Frog
PART 2: THE EXPERIMENTAL PIG PHASE
6 The Circus under the Tent
7 Sex and Death: The Contract Killer
8 Coffee with the Widow-maker
9 Suicide, Snowy Owls and the Executioner Inside
10 This is Not a Sheep
11 The Grotto Salamander and the Guano
12 The Horrid Ground-weaver
13 Dark Matters
PART 3: JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE SHITATITE
14 Bring out your Dead Ants
15 Mourning has Broken
16 Who Wants to Live Forever?
17 No, This is a Dead Frog
Epilogue: The Meaning of the Loa Loa
Acknowledgements
Index
INTRODUCTION
Neck ligaments. A cross-section of a trachea. An eyeball. In front of me is a
white shelf filled with cylinders of varying sizes that contain a host of pickled
parts. Swollen human hands, bleached spines and knee joints, some sort of sawn-
off skull cap, brains in jars. This is not my usual day out. Some body parts are in
cylinders, some in Perspex rectangular cubes; all are resting within some
unknown embalming fluid that seems to bleach things in just the right
nightmarish sort of way.
I walk to the next set of shelves. I stop. I sip my coffee and calmly put it back
on its saucer. I realise I am shaking – the teaspoon on my plate starts knocking
rhythmically against the coffee cup like I am a tiny alarm clock. I am ringing,
and people start to look my way. I try to gather myself. The irony is that I am
genuinely a bit alarmed by all of this. The room is about the size of two tennis
courts – there is a good space in the middle, overlooked by two tiers of metal
balconies that loom above us. The glass ceiling covers the hundred or so
attendees to the event in a sepia glaze, as though we’re in a bizarre lucid dream
from which we can’t escape. For a century or more this enormous room was an
operating theatre; thousands of medical procedures and post-mortems have been
undertaken here. And it really was a theatre: the light from above, the balconies
in tiers that would once have been home to hundreds of students, eager to perfect
their science and their future trade. This is a strange place to be.
I am attending something called Death Salon, an American movement holding
its first event in the UK. It’s taking place here, at Barts Pathology Museum, just
around the corner from the financial sector of the City of London. According to
the blurb on the welcome pack in my hand, Death Salon is an event ‘that brings
together intellectuals and independent thinkers engaged in the exploration of our
shared mortality by sharing knowledge and art’. It had sounded really
interesting, partly because I have always wanted to be an ‘independent thinker’. I
am pleased to report that I have achieved this aim admirably. Here I am
independently thinking about things like tracheae, intestines and tiny testicles
bobbing up and down in a preservative solution. I am here for three whole days,
I realise. Three whole days.
I look around at the other attendees – there certainly is quite a mix of punters
here, old and young. It is the first conference that I have attended for years
where the gender bias is very female-heavy. This is a welcome change. I’m
struck by how many young people there are, too – not just studious sorts, either.
The style here isn’t exactly preppie. It’s something … it’s something I’ve never
seen before. Many of the attendees have a kind of … mortician chic. The men
have so much style – geek glasses are in, as are leather satchels and skinny jeans.
Some wear pinstripe suits and trainers. I notice one man wearing bowling shoes
and managing, inexplicably, to pull it off. And the women, too. There’s an air of
burlesque about some: flowing curls, long clinging black dresses and black nail
varnish. Many of them have fringes. Not for the first time in my life, I stick out
like a sore thumb. I continue drinking my coffee, my little coffee spoon trilling
like my beating heart.
My literary agent Jane was one of the people who had told me about Death
Salon, and she’s actually attending. I see her in the front row talking to another
of her clients, a kind-looking lady who is here to give a presentation about her
experiences of grief after the death of her mother. Just as the presentations are
beginning I stumble down a row of chairs, heading to one of only a handful of
empty ones at the far end. I catch Jane’s eye from the back of the room. She
gives me a thumbs-up and looks at me gleefully. She mouths the words ‘ISN’T
THIS WONDERFUL?’ from across the room. I give her a slightly saggy
thumbs-up back. I find a seat and gather myself. I’m here to write a book,
Goddammit. I’m here to begin my journey.
Everyone says not to start work on a book until it’s been commissioned. Only
now do I realise why. Like Alice, I’m falling into a rabbit hole from which I’m