Meiotic Handshake

IN THE FURTIVE WORLD of cabals, the secret Masonic Handshake is justly celebrated. But the Darwintern has evolved what is unquestionably the most elaborate of any cryptic form of identification between members, the legendary Secret Meiotic Handshake.

 

Although many of its details are either unknown or obscure, the very complexity of this ritual handshake (which can take up to ten minutes to complete) does mean it has occasionally been observed, though never fully understood.

One witness remarked that it looked like a symbolic representation of the history of the universe, starting with the Big Bang. Another said it seemed to be a pantomine of a fish emerging from the water onto the land. Yet another thought it was the whole Tree of Life played out with the fingers.

 

One current theory, which has lent its name to the ritual, is that the handshake is a symbolic representation of the bedrock process in the evolution of life: cellular meiosis, the process by which one diploid cell divides into four haploid cells.

 

The length of the handshake ritual may depend on the handshaker's rank: the higher ranking within the cabal the conspirator is, the more moves he knows. At the highest levels, to spare the Grand Master the burden of spending most of his day in such matters, only the last and most secret gestures are used.

 

But it remains, like Pimento Prognostication, a very deep mystery.