But we often take, I think, an erroneous view of the probability of closely allied species invading each other’s territory, when put into free intercommunication.



The sixth edition of Darwin’s The Origin of Species has long been rumoured to contain a specialized synthetic polymer believed to be responsible for much of the work’s seminal elasticity, bestial viscosity, and political ganglion. New research has revealed this unusual plastic. Before examining its properties, however, some details about the chemical structure of the book are necessary. There are 1,009,495 letters in total. The most common noun is species, which occurs 1,922 times. The longest (macromolecular) word is intercommunication, which occurs once, in chapter thirteen. The only common repeating letters shared by intercommunication and species are i,c,e (which occur a total of 243,420 times), or, more specifically according to their ratios, I₄C₃E₃. The formula C₃I₄ combines the carbon and iodine present in Darwin’s composition in such a way as to produce the compound Tetraiodoallene, which is noteworthy for its distinctive shape resembling the first-person singular nominative case personal pronoun:




After careful scrutiny of the molecule and several experimental applications of intertextual catalysts, it was recently revealed that polymerization begins in the presence of polarized light. One source in particular provides the energy necessary to break the weaker iodine bonds (see book one, verse three, Genesis). The resulting dimer takes shape catechistically:




As polymerization continues, the trimer assumes its exquisite corpse:




A transparent film is produced by this polymerization process. As with other soft plastics, the substance fails to completely crystallize. The result is ice that continues to wear its drink as a waking dream, fish that persist in pugilist cybernets, a military whose horsepower is Trojan. The origin of species is also the origin of material ambiguity. Mammals perambulate in bodies that assume glaciations still matter. They don’t. Selective advantages now appear as glare.


The organisation seems to become plastic, and we have much fluctuating variability: