The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2816 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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“So effectively, we began as individual single, simple celled organisms that decided to club together and form more efficient, resilient complex cells. We don’t know what the trigger was but we know that in order for them to achieve that massive change took about fifty to one hundred million years of relatively quiet and undisturbed life. At the end of this period we had not just some of the original simple bacteria but some new species of complex cells which were brilliantly demonstrated in the fossil record of the foraminifera.”

I showed how the shell like structures of the external skeletons of these simple celled organisms become increasingly complex as they progressed up the geological periods towards the current one by a collection of photographs taken by Professor Brasier of Oxford University.

Finally I finished with the warning that Brasier used to end his book; which was that the more efficient a species becomes, the more specialised it becomes the faster it seems to head towards extinction as it has no leeway to give to change and that man had been reasonably successful because he was effectively a generalist who adapted to virtually every environment.

I stopped and Tom asked for questions. Some were good and challenged me others made me wonder if they’d listened to anything I’d just said. However, it was Christmas, so I explained things in terms of one syllable to these simple celled listeners. I spotted the two I’d overheard talking as I walked to the hall, thankfully, neither asked if were a man or woman, if they had I suspect Tom would have stamped all over them. I would have attempted to turn the ridicule back on them for asking. Instead, as I half expected I got one from the religious wing.

“Professor, nowhere in your lecture did you mention the fact that God used these mechanisms to create the world in which we now live, why is that?”

“As far as we know there is no evidence to suggest the mechanism was anything but one where given enough undisturbed time, life will experiment and in this case it moved things on rather more than some of the blind alleys it also tried and which led to extinction possibly because they became over specialised and therefore had no slack in their response to change in their environments. If you consider that this was divinely inspired it doesn’t say much for the designer who seems to have got it wrong more often than right. But if you want to see it in evolutionary terms, then the following model shows what probably happened.”

I showed a picture of the evolution of man with him arising from the hominids, “This probably happened between two hundred to fifty thousand years ago according to the fossil record, and this, about five to fifteen thousand years ago.” The next slide showed god emerging from the mind of man.

“Professor, are you insinuating that man created God?” asked the excited questioner.

“I’m insinuating nothing, just showing the evidence.”

The questioner stormed out muttering to himself as he went. Tom wound things up, “I think that is as good as anywhere to stop. Now it’s customary to ask someone from the floor to propose a vote of thanks to a very enjoyable and understandable lecture. I’d like to call upon Sir David to offer the vote of thanks.”

At last I’d see who this mysterious business or political heavyweight they’d talked into coming to be bored out of their tiny brain. An elderly but quite spry figure came from one of the seats at the side. Oh my giddy aunt, it’s Him, St Attenborough, the patron saint of conservationists. I felt quite ill, I was in the presence of my hero, oh my goodness. I felt quite faint so I didn’t really hear what he was saying in that lilting, soft voice of his, except when he stopped the place erupted with applause.

I acknowledged the audience and waved my thanks to them before sitting down. My legs felt really strange, had I just hallucinated the whole thing? “Cathy? Cathy, come on dear, Sir David is waiting to go to lunch.”

Tom was pulling on my arm asking me to rise and my whole body seemed awe stricken. It was ludicrous that the most gifted communicator of the natural world was here paying tribute to me, a mere tyro by comparison. It felt completely ridiculous, I was in the presence of a demi-god, me—the weirdo from Bristol. My feet seemed to follow Tom’s urging as I staggered along with him to meet my all-time hero, my brain still in stunned mode.

We were introduced and can you believe what I said? My stupid gob opened and out tumbled the words, “Could I have your autograph?” as if I needed proof that I’d been in the presence of the presence.

Lunch followed but I can’t really describe what I had or what was said, but I was sitting at the same table as this great man drinking in his every word but none of which seemed to register in my consciousness. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was blown away by his normalness and approachability. A legend in his own lifetime and as down to earth as anyone I’d ever met.

When he left the restaurant, I thanked him for coming and he shook my hand and told me it had been his pleasure to meet me, and how much he’d enjoyed my two films and looked forward to seeing me do more.

Tom and the Vice Chancellor saw him off to his cab while I slumped in my chair feeling totally exhausted by the experience. I knew Tom would tease me for a long time over it but I was totally and completely overawed by the great man’s charm. After that, everything else would seem a total anticlimax.

“Cathy, c’mon hen, ye need tae get yersel’ in gear lassie,” all I could do was yawn at him.

“How come you spoke English to Sir David but not to me?” I asked my brain still not functioning except on auto-pilot.

“Och. He widdnae understand proper English the noo, wid he?”

I returned to my office somehow. We had a taxi back to the university. Diane asked if I was okay and Tom sniggered and told her I was star struck. She brought me a cuppa and said she’d really enjoyed and understood my talk, which was nice of her to say. She went on to relate how Delia had told her to go and listen to me lecture if she could, because she’d enjoy it.

“Sir David Attenborough did, or said he did. He also said he felt good to be handing over the biology element of his mantle to one who was a worthy successor and that Brian Cox would carry the other sciences, but it was nice to see a lovely young woman presenting his subject, the natural world, with such calm authority.”

He said that about me—about me? Oh god, I feel sick...