Week 9 Story: Ethylene Glycol Poisoning

Ethylene Glycol Poisoning

By Connor Dugan

There once were two competing scientists, one a creationist, and one an atheist.  They regularly argued about the origins of life and the age of the earth and universe.  Sadly, the creationist had very little evidence other than his beliefs in God, whereas the atheist had many scientific theories and proofs to challenge and contradict the creationist beliefs.  One day, the creationist came up with a devious plan to get rid of his competition once and for all.  He came running up to the atheist as he was researching protein folding.  Lying, he exclaimed to him that God had come to him to tell him that the atheist was right about the universe, that it really is billions of years old, and that God wants him to come up to heaven and be high right hand scientist to work on a new universe.  The atheist, as cunning as he is, acted incredibly surprised and excited.  He exclaimed, "none before have I believed in a god until you reveal to me that he has indeed brought you to the truth!  Let us celebrate before my departure to the great glory of heaven!"  They went to the atheist's log cabin.  The atheist questioned why the creationist, now having seen God, wouldn't like to come with him on his journey to the heavens.  The creationist pondered this question for some time and realized how joyous it would be to walk up to the gates of heaven to watch the atheist get rejected and sent to hell.  "You know what," said the creationist, "I think that would actually be a great idea.  Let's go there together!"  The two scientists go to the atheist's lab where there sits a large container of ethylene glycol.  They both drink enough of the sweet, thick nectar to die, and to celebrate the atheist breaks out a bottle of grain ethanol that he distilled for himself.  The creationist, however, refuses to drink it because it would be a sin to drink such a high concentration of alcohol and be drunk.  The ethylene glycol kills the creationist because he doesn't drink the ethanol.  The atheist lives because the ethanol competes with ethylene glycol for alcohol dehydrogenase, the first enzyme in the metabolic degradation pathway, stopping it from producing deadly glycolic acid and oxalic acid.  The end.

Ethanol sourced via Wikipedia

Author's note:

In the original story, a king has a painter and carpenter.  The painter tells the king that god told him that his father wanted him to send up the carpenter to build a temple by burning him.  The carpenter digs a tunnel to escape when the fire is lit, comes back later, and tells the king that the temple was great and that it needs to be painted now and they burn the painter and he doesn't escape and actually thinks that the carpenter burned and came back to life.  I really liked the original story, but wanted to make it much more modern and scientific.  I also have been seeing a lot of stuff with creation scientists and their work is unacceptable.  This story was produced with the motivation of being upset from the persistent and ridiculous "scientific" claims from the creationist movement.  With the technology and infinite amount of information at our hands today, thinking that the universe and earth are ~6,000 years old is equal to saying the earth is flat and there is no such thing as an atom.  Luckily, we live in a world where the scientific community has incredible power and will not put up with such nonsense.  Those who bring forth information to the scientific community without reputable and reproducible evidence of their claims will be laughed at. I am all for philosophy, I am a very philosophical person myself, but keep it away from science. I kept the general theme of god supposedly telling a message and the person who tries tricking the other gets outsmarted by their victim.  I also find ethylene glycol poisoning really interesting and wanted to incorporate it.

Bibliography:

Tibetan Folk Tales: The Wise Carpenter by A.L. Shelton

Week 9 Reading Notes Part B: The Golden Squash

The Golden Squash

There were two old men living in the mountains, one was kind at heart and the other was greedy.  The king old man had a bird land in his garden with a broken wing.  He nurtures it back to health, lets it free, and it comes back with a seed that it says will do him well.  He grows the seed and it produces a gigantic squash.  He god five men to help him carry it to his house, but when he tries to eat it he finds that it is made of pure gold and because of this he is now rich.  He uses his wealth to help the sick and poor.  The greedy neighbor, envious of the kind man, gets a bow and shoots a bird's leg when it is near his garden.  He then nurtures it back to health pretending it is out of the kindness of his heart, and when the bird gets better it brings him a seed that bears a squash of similar size.  He gets five men to carry it to his house just like the kind old man, but when he opens it, a scary old man jumps out of it.  He tells him he has been sent from the king to weigh him, grabs him by the neck, weighs him, and says, "You are far too light and no use at all," and proceeds to cut his head off.  The end.

Large Squash sourced via Wikipedia

I liked this story, not just because of the message it bears, but also because of the absolutely crazy ending it has.  It inspires me not just to write about this message that many people from the modern era need to hear about the bad things about greed, but also to write something that stuns the reader like I was.  It was a strange, but good feeling to think the squash was going to have spiders or be rotten or something, but ends up having a man jump out of it and cut his head off because he doesn't weigh much!

Bibliography:

Tibetan Folk Tales: The Golden Squash by A.L. Shelton

Week 9 Reading Notes Part A: The Wise Carpenter

The Wise Carpenter

The new king has two men under him, a painter and a carpenter, both the masters of their crafts.  The painter tells the king that he had a spiritual encounter where the king's dead dad demanded a message to be delivered to the new king demanding him to send up the best carpenter he has.  The king tells the carpenter he will be sent there, and the painter tells the king that if he wants him sent there, he would need to be set on fire along with all his tools and he'll ride the smoke to heaven.  The king tells him that he has seven days to prepare for his departure.  The carpenter, knowing the painter just wanted him gone, gets his wife to help him dig a place from where he is to be burned to his home so he can escape.  The village builds a fort around him, set it on fire, and he escapes through the tunnel.  He waits three months, then comes to the king with a letter from his supposed dead father, telling him the carpenter did a great job and should be given many riches, and that the temple he built was amazing, but that it needed to be painted by the finest painter he has.  The king commanded for the painter to be sent to heaven the same way, and the carpenter tells them to play music so it would drown out his screams and he dies.  The end.

Big Fire sourced via Wikipedia

I thought this story was really funny!  I love it when a person is being screwed over by their enemy, and they are able to turn it back around on them.  I wanted to do this story in a more modern context for people in a comedic way since I haven't done much comedy in my stories.

Bibliography

Tibetan Folk Tales: The Wise Carpenter by A.L. Shelton