The Tale of Steve the Plasmid by Becky Lane.
Once upon a time, there was a little plasmid called Steve. He grew up in a cell called the MicroLab, before being brutally extracted by the alkaline lysis we have come to call ‘Becky’. So cold he was when put in the fridge, then so confused when running through the gel, seperated from all the other little plasmids. He was then almost destroyed by Mr Ethidium Bromide, then blinded by UV light, but he was still alive. Cut, he was. Seperated. Everything around him became like jelly as the agarose solubilised. More solutions came to attack from all sides until he was totally alone. Then PCR. Oh dear. The thing he had been dreading the most. It was finally here. Burned alive as he was torn apart, his entrails ripped from him and multiplied, amplified a million times. Surrounded by entrails, he wept. As his world grew cooler once more, he knew it was over. Once more he was placed in a tank, electricity flowwing through him. But he was weak, tooo weak.
Only his entrails would be visible on that machine they call a computer. All else would be thrown away, brushed out of sight, out of mind.
So there he sat in the hazardous waste bin, all alone, forever more…..
The End.
Becky Lane will return in the Tale of the Caterpiller Lady.