I couldn't stand the dry air any more, so I threw open the doors and windows and let the cool, damp night air come in. The ice-cube had disappeared without even a surface puddle. Now, as the humidity came back, I thought I noticed a restless shimmering in the jelly. The phone rang. It was Lottie's mother wanting to know why Lottie had come over there in hysterics, and where had I been since seven o'clock. I don't remember what I answered, but it served the purpose. Lottie hasn't returned and they haven't called up any more. When I returned to the bucket, it seemed that the stuff was deeper yet, but I couldn't tell because I hadn't marked the level. I got Lottie's fever thermometer out of the medicine chest and took the jelly's temperature. It read 58 degrees F. The wall thermometer read 58 degrees, too. Room temperature, with the windows open. What kind of "life" could this be that had no temperature of its own? But then what kind of a fancy-pants metabolism could you expect out of an organism that fed on nothing but Lake Michigan water, right out of the reservoir? * * * * * I got a pencil and notebook out of Lottie's neat little desk and started making notes. I wondered about the density of the stuff. Ice floated in it and the bucket seemed heavy. I broke the thermometer and tapped a drop of mercury onto the restless surface. The droplet sank slowly to the bottom with no apparent effect either way. Heavier than water. Lighter than mercury. I took a beer out of the refrigerator and swallowed it. The last drops I sprinkled into the pail. The drippings sizzled across the surface until only a fine dust was left. A tiny ripple flipped this dust over to the edge of the pail as if clearing the thirsty decks for action. But this drew my eyes to the rim of the liquid. There was no meniscus, either up or down. Remembering back, I figured this meant there was no surface tension, which reminded me that part of this mixture was made of detergent. But had I created a new form of life? Like Lottie said, was it really alive? Certainly it could reproduce itself. It had brains enough to know the direction of more water, like when it took off after me on the table. Not long ago, there was this important physicist who wrote about how life probably got started away back when the Earth was just forming. He argued that special creation was more or less a lot of hogwash, and that what actually took place was that as the Earth cooled, all the hot chemicals mixing around sort of stumbled onto a combination or two that took on the first characteristics of life. In other words, this guy left off where Mr. Darwin began his theory of evolution. Now me, I don't know. Lottie makes me go to church with the kids every Sunday and I like it. If this chemical theory about life getting started is right--well, then, a lot of people got the wrong idea about things, I always figured.