Shortly after noon by your culture’s reckoning, but you know better.
This is irritating. I know time is a wayward fact, and for all intents and purposes the correct solar time doesn’t mean all that much, but while culturally it is 12:15, real solar time is 10:54. It is not even nearly noon. All kinds of cultural errors rush in with the one. Culture is disturbing abnormality, an annoyance in my mind. More specifically, are species is the seeming abnormality, but of course we are as natural as the rest nature. Perhaps that is the rub, as usual in this case, we are as natural as the rest of nature and I would rather it not be that way. I wish better for the species than I do myself and all my fellows. I should like to have some alien in us, me too in this case, to make us different (better) than the rest of the living population.
I was reading a NYTimes article on the plague earlier. “Europe’s Plagues Came From China, Study Says,” by Nicholas Wade. The article concludes with the following short paragraph.
“The likely origin of the plague in China has nothing to do with its people or crowded cities, Dr. Achtman said. The bacterium has no interest in people, whom it slaughters by accident. Its natural hosts are various species of rodent such as marmots and voles, which are found throughout China.”
The bacterium slaughtered us by accident as it was interested in marmots and voles. Very funny. That’s nature for you. And, we in turn, philosophized a bit and began to question things such as the Church in those 1300’s and the Reformation was carved out of the hunt for marmots and voles, poor little fellows too, no doubt. Economically the plague helped create a shortage of labor and the rise of the capitalistic system. This gives me added faith in gallows humor which should be thrown in the margins of the history and philosophy books along with the rest of it. Why this should put me in such a critical humor I am not sure, but it does.
Might as well have been the setting for an invasion from Mars a War of the Worlds (Herbert George Wells), only in real life the little guys, even though they were only from China, did their damage.
Of course you wiped out almost the entire alternate Earth in book one.
I did. Strange, like the bacteria I never felt too bad about it. My focus was on the eventual recovery of the species. I can’t even remember how many earthlings survived and I can’t remember any of the earthlings’ names. Friendly is the only one who comes to mind and she is a marsupial humanoid. I’ll never forget Friendly. I have to check. Terrible memory. What I feel bad about is that at the time I was living their lives, the earthlings and marsupials.
Martin, Mexito, Marianne, and Karlina and her child, Charles, and Friendly and Fargo. Okay, if I remember correctly, Martin is from Australia and a pilot; Mexito was a little bushman fellow from Central Africa, a gold miner; Marianne was Polish and Karlina was from Rio de Janeiro. They had a terrible time finding one another. Everyone else died in twenty or thirty minutes. No one knew why. They marsupials had come to help save the planet, but arrived too late for everyone else. Fortunately, the Earth was not our own but it could have been as it had a pretty much parallel history. The earthlings living there are the same ones living here. Well, they are only living here now, our ‘doubles’ died back in 1988. That’s what I remember without checking by re-speed-reading the entire book one. Why is there need of memory when things can be looked up. Why else would one take notes or even write at all?
Here is when the marsupials arrive on Earth and confront the humans: (From: Braided Dreams)
This is Friendly. While I sitting in the modified Shuttlevator, my hands felt clammy and my stomach ached. It hit me, ‘I am already under Earth weather.’ Air pressures and the old barn-like odors of Earth take getting used to, plus I weigh ten percent more. After undoing the straps to my overalls and discarding my T-shirt, I remember breathing deeper for a time. I eventually relaxed, sipping on a drink, and reminisced our first Earth trip. PrimeThree quarantined Fargo and me on a space station for two years after our return. The great fear was that we had returned to HomePlanets with Earth’s imperious plague. During this time of quarantine, we dictated the notes on our first formal contact with the remaining Earth natives.
I lay back in my chair to rest. My present orders are to wait for Fargo. Once we are together, we will follow the sealed order of instruction. To amuse myself, I begun re-reading First Encounter: 1988 thinking it might provide some insight into this renewed Earth I found. This next section will be marked by bracketed asterisks. This and other like sections show how it was for the four surviving humans on the discovered dual or twin Earth of 1988. At the conclusion of each of the First Encounter:1988 readings I will close the notebook in italics as a signal that I am writing about today, the year 2000.
[***]
First Encounter: 1988
(Marsupials and Earthlings)
Edited by Friendly, the First
Earth Day: 14 June 1988
Fragment A
I, who was about to be known ever afterwards as Friendly, the First, was about to peel my invisibility suit of blackanot off when the human Mexito respectfully walked passed one of his partners, Marianne, and headed directly towards me. How he detected me in advance was never made clear. Mexito is a very unusual human. The four, two women, Marianne and Karlina and the two men, Mexito and Martin were the only known survivors on the planet. I floated from within the flushed reddish hue surrounding me as I stepped to solid Earth for the first time.
I immediately became the first official visitor from HomePlanets to Earth. I spread my arms, hands, and fingers wide to signify friendship. However, Marianne imagined me an angel of her Godofamily. Marianne later commented that she believed she was in the presence of an angel whose skin reflected burnt reddish color of a sunrise. Though from their points of view, the sun had already set on their species a year earlier.
Mexito’s noted the angel-woman (myself) had a wide horizontal pocket beneath, and he observed my a bare chest with light, baby-like hair covering flesh and ribs, but showing no breasts and nipples, he assumed I was wearing a body suit and was not naked at all. When I later discovered his error, I was surprised and upset he and the others did not recognize my nakedness. I had no weapons which was the point of the demonstration. I never dreamed Mexito would consider me an angel. Mexito did not speak standard English well and though this is not representative of his true dialect, we decided to use this as a reminder of that fact as well as for clarity.
Mexito recollected: “When I shake angel’s hand, I surprised she be warmer and wetter than me. The angel from hole-in-the-air have a dark pad of short, fine curl hairs on her belly suit. Dark curl hair follow the pouch to the crotch like her suit be ruffled from her falling. Her fingers be soft and clean with short cut nails. She be having five fingers on each hand like me. She be having two feet, each with five toes, two ankles, two legs, torso, two forearms, two elbows. Angel be having a rib cage, and two shoulder blades just like me. The angel-lady be with broad and joyful smile of shiny white teeth. Angel-lady’s neck be same with me, and she be having wholesome ears and nose attached below her kindly face. She be the prettiest of angels, and she be whispering wordless secrets to me.”
Mexito continued from our dictation: “Angel-lady be having emerald and wet eyes, especially her right eye be wet with feelings as I see her directly as she be. Her right, thin eyebrow be raised, and she be having a woman’s hair on her head. I watch rosy skin color fade as she be borne-in-the-air, but standing on ground she be having a cut and bruise near blood running on lower left ear. I wonder how angel blood feel, and she let me touch. It be warm like my blood so I be thinking she be a lady-angel instead of angel-lady. She be a striking, lady glorious, a sky mother who come to life from hole-in-the-air.”
This shows Mexito’s nature best. Mexito can be words alone. He is that honest and clear-thinking. Fargo and I grew to love him best. For all our civilization and technology the human reader can add at least an extra twenty-thousand years to your own. Yet, in our own ideal we would like to be as Mexito in our hearts. We think this is an interesting factual observation of ourselves. When we observe others of another species, we learn about ourselves as well.
This next sequence of events also relates to our early observations in 1988.
Fragment B
Mexito runs to Marianne saying, “Bring extra trousers, some clothes for lady-angel. She be having real tears, Marianne, real tears. I think she be very frightened. I think she secretly want to run, and I feel bad for her to be scared of Mexito, the last giant marble man of African continent. Lady-angel be like I be when I meet Martin first time. The first time I know everybody but us four be dead.”
Mexito peers into the dark of Marianne’s eyes because he is talking to Marianne’s inner heart, not the physical Marianne he sees. “I know how lady-angel be feeling, she be open and mostly naked, like me. Martin be a kind white man who takes me with him on his boat. I think now my turn to be caring for lady-angel She give me good reason to stay alive. Lady-angel be a bleeder, but she be a spirit too. I taste her blood, and I give her a piece of my secret heart in return.”
While holding baby Charles to her breast, Karlina stepped to Marianne and spoke sarcastically, “Why would an angel take a year to get here? Perhaps angels have been busy with the recent billions of dead in this world.” She thought, ‘it was an accident. A couple thousand gallons of botulinum toxin killed everyone on Earth but us four. Why it did not kill us, we will never know. Why it has not killed baby Charles we will never know.’ She remarked to Mexito, “I wonder what the lady-angel must think of us? Everybody is dead. Maybe she thinks we caused it.”
“No, Karlina,” said Mexito taking the baby. “She say there be another with her, that they will cause no hurt to us and to please not damage them.”
‘Mexito, you fool,’ thought Martin. “What did you say to her after that, Mexito?”
Mexito looked up at Martin and brushed some crumbs from his friend’s neatly trimmed black beard, “I tell her I be having no weapons, I tell her we give them up.”
“You’re a fool,” grumbled Martin. “These are human beings in disguise. They are maneuvering us into something.”
Mexito grew glaringly quiet. “We have no weapons.”
“But,” said Martin condescendingly, “it could be a trick.”
“What you mean, it be a trick; she be mostly naked.” Angry, Mexito turned to Marianne, “You remember how it be to be naked in front of Martin and me?”
Marianne shook her head in embarrassment. “Well, would you do that on purpose?
Lady-angel fall out of hole-in-the-sky-world. Why she be coming here? To have us for supper?”
“No,” replied Marianne anxiously, “I don’t think so.”
“I think it be okay,” said Mexito. “I be staying right here. I saw her, and I touched her; you did not. She be a real lady-angel.”
“She didn’t look like a lady to me,” said Martin. “She had a pocket under her navel, and no breasts, Mexito,” continued Martin, “She had a very tight body suit on.” A real looker, he thought, if she had some breasts.
Mexito turned his head slightly and glancing down at the concrete runway, he immediately identified with a small, crawling insect. “I be that embarrassed of Martin’s thinking,” he would say later. At the time he replied, “Do you think me be human, Martin?”
Martin grew ill at ease as Mexito shook his finger, “You be red-faced now, you know what be wrong. You once say we are equal. I believe I be equal too. The lady-angel good enough to be equal too.”
He stood defiant, stern, and father-like, “I am ashamed of you, Martin Davis.”
Martin weakened, his face in embarrassment, he diverted his eyes to the bicycles. He thought, Mexito is too honest for this world. I love this little man.
“Martin,” said his small, lean multiracial friend, “I be sorry for trouble.”
My forest friend, realized Martin, is as sharp as ever. Mexito is a quiet hunter with morals the scope of the world. Martin sighed, “I am sorry too.” They shook hands, smiling at one another. They shook hands and neither wanted to let go of the other. In this modern twin world of some twelve years later it would have been uncomfortable to witness such a longing to touch another. The sense of touch gains a different response when there are so few to touch. Deep down, human beings appear to be the same as we marsupials.
***
Almost time for supper, orndorff. Post. – Amorella.
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