When you live alone and you don't get much time to do household chores, one of the last things which often gets some attention is your microwave oven. It just sits there in the corner; inanimate but dependable, ready to click into action when it's needed. In fact, you take it for granted.
Andy looked inside the oven one day after a ready-meal he'd been cooking had burst its plastic container and the liquid had gone all over the inside. As Andy had been upstairs when this happened, he didn't notice until he'd got back downstairs when he heard the microwave go “ping” to tell him his meal was ready. He opened the door and found that a good deal of the liquid from inside the plastic container had splattered all over the inside. As he peered inside, he saw that this wasn't the only occasion which food and liquid had splattered all over the inside. In fact, it was covered!
“I really MUST clean the inside” Andy thought to himself. “It's disgusting! Hardly very hygienic for heating up food. I'll do it after I've eaten when everything's cooled down”. Andy retrieved what was left of his meal and put it on a plate, took it to the table and began eating.
Unknown to Andy or to anyone else for that matter, something had gone on inside this microwave. Some weird combination of all the splattered food, the liquid from today's meal and the microwave energy had created a chemical. A unique chemical. A chemical which had never existed before on the earth. A chemical which when it comes into contact with water and washing-up liquid would undergo a change into a new combination of the elements which would have some VERY strange properties when it came into contact with any form of life for the first time! But also a chemical which was very unstable and would only exist for a short time.
Andy had finished his meal and placed the plate into a bowl of hot water and some washing-up liquid. He then got a dish-cloth, put it in the bowl and then squeezed out the excess liquid. He then began to wipe around the inside. As he did so, he had no idea that a chemical reaction was occurring between the unique, newly created chemical, the washing-up liquid chemicals and the water. This reaction was almost instantaneous and so fast, that it generated a massive amount of heat in the dish-cloth as the reaction proceeded. The new substance came into contact with Andy's hand. It passed through his skin into his bloodstream. It began to seek out and combine with Andy's DNA.
“OW!” Andy exclaimed, as he felt the sudden heat on his hands! He involuntarily dropped the dish-cloth and withdrew his hand. The heat was intense even after he'd dropped the dish-cloth. Andy rushed over to the sink, turned on the cold tap and began to bathe his hand. But to no avail. The sensation of burning began to extend up his arm, through his shoulders, down his other arm to his other hand, into his head and down through the rest of his body down to his toes. He was burning up! The pain was so intense! He managed to stagger from the kitchen into the living room and slump into a chair screaming with pain as the heat spread and pulsated through his body. He managed to summon up the strength to take off his clothes with the idea that being naked would dissipate the heat and make him feel better but it didn't work.
The chemical was spreading through every cell in his body, seeking out Andy's DNA and changing it. Adding a new strand to every molecule of DNA in every cell in Andy's body. As one new form of DNA was created, it ejected a copy of the newly-created chemical, somewhat like a chain reaction in an atomic reactor. Thus the chemical spread rapidly through Andy's body. Creating a new form of human life. A genetically-modified human. A powerful human. A human with, as yet, unknown and untested powers and capabilities.
The pain that Andy was now feeling was so intense that he passed into unconsciousness. But it wasn't the sort of unconsciousness that meant that he became completely insensitive to the pain. In his unconscious state, he could feel the pain even more intensely than when he was awake. This seemed to go on and on for minutes, hours, days, weeks, even years! It was for him like time was passing in vast eons whilst he lay there, his body squirming and feeling like it was inside a blast-furnace.
The pain began to subside and as Andy began to become properly unconscious, a feeling of complete and utter relaxation spread though his body, replacing the pain. As this happened, the last molecules of DNA were modified and the unstable chemical broke down and ceased to exist. Though in actual fact the pain and burning heat had lasted about five minutes, when he began slowly to wake up, he had no idea how long he'd been out. He began to be aware of his surroundings once more. He heard the trickling of the water from the cold tap which he'd left on. He went into the kitchen and turned off the tap. He picked up the dish-cloth off the floor and put it in the bowl and finished off the washing-up. The microwave was clean enough now so he closed its door. Going back into his sitting room he picked up his clothes and got dressed again. It was whilst he was doing this and thinking about what happened...