ol of water lay on the bottom. A greenish scum covered the surface.
The scum moved with a million tiny wriggles.

"Yes, Yljm," came Mjly's voice. "It is I. But I am no longer one being."
And her voice sounded like a million tiny chirps joined together. "I
landed with such force that I came apart. Now each of my body cells
lives a life of its own. And now and then each cell grows fat and
becomes two. I am my sisters, I ..."

Let's not be subtle about it. Mjly was a microbe, the beginning of
animal life on the earth. She lives today, she is and always will be her
sisters, her mothers, herselves and her ancestors. But there are few
ancestors, for microbes do not die--just part of themselves die.

And I do not die. For I crept away into a hole in the ground, where I
will live forever. I do not starve, for roots reach me here. But I miss
my love life with Mjly. I can never be a mother or a sister. I will
always be me, a lonesome old bem.

... THE END

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from _If Worlds of Science Fiction_ July
1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note. Two
occurrences of the word 'visory' have been amended to _visual_.

End of Project Gutenberg's Lonesome Hearts, by Russell Robert Winterbotham

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONESOME HEARTS ***

***** This file should be named 30170.txt or 30170.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/1/7/30170/

Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for