THE SHIFT

A Work of Fiction with a Sprinkling of Evolutionary Science

There is a surprising amount of unexpressed DNA lurking within the human body. A stunning 98 percent of our DNA has no known purpose. It is evolutionary detritus. What might happen if a portion of that silent DNA was suddenly not so silent? While most evolutionary change occurs over many millennia, genetic adaptions can occur rapidly, literally from one generation to the next. Environmental stressors can change the way genes are expressed, even though the genes may remain the same. We are poised for a genetic leap. The appearance of a new hominid species will happen, eventually. That's the way evolution works. The alternative to adaptation is extinction. So perhaps our children will not be exactly like us. How would the world react?

Set against the backdrop of a continuing COVID-19 pandemic, a once-in-a-millennium drought, a divisive culture, and a society reliant on misinformation from social media, follow the story of a very human mother and her maybe not-so-very-human daughter and grandson as they try their best to live normal lives in a rapidly changing world that is anything but normal.