I vaguely remember sitting at a wobbly desk during a science class in the sixth grade and the teacher explained that some ancient thinkers believed in spontaneous generation. wrote in On the Generation of Animals that flies and maggots could emerge from decaying matter in proper environmental conditions. The recipe for bees, “bugonia,” was to leave dead cattle lying about; bees would be born from the carcass. Theories of spontaneous generation had been tested: Scientists had supposedly put meat or fruit in a sealed container, then returned later to see find insects inside. Experiments like these led to the wrong conclusions, though, because the researchers had not sanitized or sterilized the food properly beforehand. In the modern era, the teacher said, we now understand that that life must come from life.
But I write to declare that I am certain spontaneous generation must be true because these soundless floating demons, so tiny that they almost evade detection from the human eye, keep appearing in my apartment. I open a cabinet in the kitchen, or twist the handle on the faucet, or lift the lid to the trash, and instantly five gnats begin hovering around me. Each day, I notice some little black dot in the air, then I realize that I have spotted a fruit fly rather than floating lint. The little black fleck on my counter is not a coffee grain that escaped its container, but instead a pest that has invaded my home.
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