by David Larson
“Let me see if I get this right,” Gary said, still rubbing his nose as if his life depended on it. “Our guest is now all about trying to do the right thing and affect some type of change on the little house of horrors that we built so long ago.” He stopped the incessant rubbing, and stared at his neatly polished shoes.
“But in order to do this he wants us to take him home with us first. That way he can get a better handle on how we live as a peaceful, thriving society.” Gary looked up and glared at Bob.
“Is that about right?”
“Yup,” Bob said as he rocked back on his heels.
“And you think this is a good idea?” Gary asked, more as an indictment than an actual question.
“Yup,” Bob said.
“Can you give me any shred of sane thought as to how you came to this conclusion? How you decided that bringing a mentally disturbed, hostile, violent being like this, unfettered, back to our world was a good idea?” Gary asked through clenched teeth. “And remember, I specifically put emphases on the word sane.”
“Yup…” Bob said, as he smiled smugly.
“I swear Bob,” Gary said as he went back to rubbing his temples with both hands “One of these days you’re going to go too damned far.”
“Look,” Bob started as he freed one hand from a frayed pocket. “How long did you think it was going to be before one of these poor unfortunates was going to ask for that very same thing? And at some point we were going to have to acquiesce?”
“That question,” Gary said pointing at Bob with his readers “has been asked and answered in the past Bob. And it will be the same answer right now.”
“I know the history,” Bob said. “The future King David and that other one…” Bob snapped his fingers repeatedly in an effort to help the name materialize in his brain. “Ummmmmmmmmmm, dingle berry, boysenberry…”
“Roddenberry?” Gary helped.
“Yeah, that guy,” Bob said with one final finger snap for emphasis.
“Gene. Those guys were real thinkers, and just chomping at the bit to do something positive. I know we didn’t even consider it for the ancients. I mean they were just waaaaaaaay to far out there in the flogging and killing department. And the more recent ones, well, I personally think we just got a little too big for our holier-than-thou britches. Roddenberry would have been the perfect candidate.”
“Look,” Bob continued with both hands outstretched, palms up.
“How long have we been doing this? Thousands of years at least. We keep getting the same results from doing the same things over and over. We’re constantly hoping that eventually we get the right combination of personality and time in history to turn this high-speed train of misery around.
Look what happened to that Koresh kid. What a goat rope. And we just sat up here clicking our tongues and shaking our heads like we were completely blameless in that mess. And that young girl…ah…Joan, from France. Come on Gary.”
“Just how,” Gary said, uncoupling Bob’s train of thought, “is bringing a lunatic back to a peaceful and happy planet going to fix this? Do we just turn him loose and hope that he doesn’t hurt anyone? Do we parade him around like one of earth’s monkeys in a zoo for people to gape at?”
“Not at all,” Bob started.
“Not at all is the perfect answer,” Gary said, cutting Bob off again. “Have you been paying the least bit of attention to what’s going on down there?” Gary nearly leapt out of the commander’s chair as he thrust his finger at the floor for emphasis. “Those people are, at best, clinically insane. Every single day they kill each other in the most heinous ways you can imagine. They fight, and claw, and cheat to gain some kind of unattainable foot hold over everyone and anyone.
“They have – from the beginning of time I might add – started wars that killed, maimed, and displaced fellow humans, not to mention destroying everything they built. Those self-inflicted atrocities set back progress hundreds if not thousands of years every time they did it. Then they sit around wringing their hands like the wars and the killings were completely out of their control.
“Hell Bob,” Gary went on in his unstoppable rant, “these clowns are so certain that war, and the death and the pestilence it gives birth to are so out of their hands that they wrote page after page in their holiest of books explaining that there will ALWAYS be war!
“These people,” Gary continued, jabbing his index finger at the floor again, “these people legislate – let that sink in – they actually legislate morality. Who you can marry, and who you can’t. Hell, the simple fact that a union between two people has to be sanctioned by the state to be recognized should tell you everything you need to know about how backwards these, these things are.
“They actually have to have laws Bob – actual written down laws that carry a punishment, to tell them they shouldn’t have sex with children, or discriminate against each other, or get drunk and imperil other people’s lives with cars!
“They have laws against medicinal herbs, and laws protecting corporations that produce far worse. They have laws that tell them they have to wear head protection on a freaking motorcycle, Bob. What the hell does that tell you?
“Some of them have laws that allow the stoning women, some have laws that include beheading as an accepted punishment. They ELECTROCUTE each other Bob. E L E C T R O C U T E. Why? Because that person killed someone. So they have kill them, of course. That makes perfect sense now doesn’t it?”
“But…” Bob started and was cut off again.
“These people,” Gary cut in, “have imaginary lines that they are afraid to cross. And just in case some of them get bold, they have laws that limit crossing of these lines. They have lines between houses, between cities, between states, and between countries. The bigger the line on a map the harder it is to cross. It’s not a real, physical line Bob. Do you get that? These people are hamstrung against fellowshipping with other fellow people by a line drawn on a map! They pledge to die for a flag Bob…for a freaking flag! How many thousands of years has it been since that unfortunate incident with Mike and Gloria? How many?”
Bob shrugged, simply waiting for Gary to run down.
“A lot!” Gary said as his face turned purple. “A lot! And even after that many thousands of years they still can’t communicate across the major lines they’ve drawn BECAUSE THEY DON’T SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE! Do you get that Bob? Do you? They can’t even speak to each other without an interpreter. How absolutely pathetic is that? I can go on Bob…oh I can certainly go on. The myth of money, governments, sexuality, religion. Jesus Bob, RELIGION! Don’t you see it?”
“You do see the irony in that last statement…right?” Bob asked smiling.
“I could stuff you through an airlock right now,” Gary said as he wound down, “and never think twice about it.”
“Not very enlightened of you,” Bob said smiling. “That might hurt a little.”
Gary simply glared at him.
“Listen,” Bob said. “I know that everything you’re saying is true. But, when we get back from one of these trips they don’t simply turn us loose on humanity. They quarantine us so we have time to decompress and get back to our normal selves. We all know that this type of insanity is contagious. Just as contagious as any other virus, and it could destroy our civilization. Maybe the opposite could be true also. Maybe if we take him with us, quarantine the shit out of him, then let him out to see how we live he might be able to make a difference. We’d keep him under constant surveillance, and only allow him to move around with specifically trained escorts.”
“I don’t know Bob, this could be devastating on one hand,” Gary said “but on the other hand it could be just what we’ve been lacking.”
“You just sounded like Tevye,” Bob said smiling.
“On one hand,” Bob continued in a gravely Jewish accent “What would the life of a tailor be? On the other hand, he’s an honest hard worker.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Gary
asked impatiently.
“Nothing,” Bob said.
“I’ll have a conference call with the elders back home and get back to you,” Gary said as he slumped back in his chair.
“Cool,” Bob said as he turned to walk away.
Then as he got to the door Bob turned, threw his hands in the air and yelled “Le Chaim!” Then he turned, jabbed one finger into the air and started singing “to life, to life, Le Chaim!”
“Disappear,” Gary said darkly.
“Za vashe zdorovie,” Bob continued singing with both hands in the air, as he spun in circles through the door and out into the hall.
Gary could still hear him singing and dancing down the hallway as the door whooshed shut. “Heaven bless you both, na zdrovie…”
“Sometimes I truly hate him,” Gary mumbled to himself, “but he sure can sing.”
Three:
Mike sat cross-legged in the gleaming white room. It appeared that he was levitating about two feet off the ground. He was actually surprised that he was beginning to get used to the idea. All he had to do was think of sitting or lying down and there seemed to be a surface of the exact right height underneath him. It was refreshing.
Mike heard the now unmistakable soft whoosh of a door opening behind him and stood to face his company.
“Good news ole’ buddy.” Bob said. “It looks like you’re going for a little deep space ride.”
“So they bought it?” Mike asked absently.
“Bought it?” Bob said. “That’s an odd way to put it.”
“Tell me,” Mike said staring blankly at the floor “who’s your interior decorator.”
“What do you mean?” asked Bob “You don’t like the digs?”
“I guess if you’re really, really, into white,” Mike answered “with no corners, edges or… basically anything other than whatever that thing is in the middle of the floor.” He was pointing at a silver needle like spike that protruded about a foot out of the floor in the middle of the room.
“You mean the potted flowers?” Bob asked.
“Potted what?” Mike looked at him incredulously.
“Oh man,” Bob said snapping his fingers. “I never even thought about that. You don’t see anything do you?”
“Just that,” Mike said still pointing at the spike.
“See, we never had anyone up here long enough to even think to ask how they perceived the rooms,” Bob said. “We’re all used to the implants.”
“Implants?” Mike asked. “I thought you said they were potted plants.”
“No,” Bob said “That little thing in your temple that makes you understand me. It’s not just a translator, it’s a…geeze, how do I explain this?”
“A long time ago,” Bob continued “we realized that it was ridiculous to waste valuable resources and time creating and manufacturing things that were simply eye candy. Without explaining how it works, your chip just kind of realizes when you bend your knees that you’re going to sit down, and it shoots a kind of…I don’t know…force field under your ass about 2 feet off the ground. The bed works the same way. As for decorations, well, the room looks pretty much the way you might perceive it to look.”
“So, I guess I perceive the inside of a marshmallow then,” Mike said.
“Not exactly,” Bob said. “In essence you don’t actually perceive anything in this room. Or anyplace else I guess. The only thing you can see in here is the receiver sticking out of the floor. Most people automatically put something there so they don’t fall or step on it.”
“You mean everyone that walks in this room sees it differently?” Mike asked. “How the hell does that work?”
“Let’s say that back on Earth someone tells you to walk over to the red wall. You do, and everyone understands what red is,” Bob said as if he were talking to a child. “But how do you know that the way you perceive red is the same way that everyone else does? You don’t, and your mouth is hanging open again.”
“Look,” Mike said becoming clearly irritated “are you telling me I don’t know what red is?”
“No old buddy, I’m telling you that until you see red through someone else’s eyes you have no idea what they call red. These rooms work the same way. You still get to decorate it any way you want. The best part is that anyone that comes into your room feels right at home because they perceive it to be a comfortable place.”
“So you guys have taken bullshit to a whole ‘nother level,” Mike said sarcastically.
“What does ‘stuff’ do for you?” Bob asked. “Nothing, is the answer you’re looking for. Stuff is simply stuff, and the more stuff, or more importantly, the more expensive stuff that you fill your house with, the farther up the social ladder you climb. We have no need to impress each other. Our only reason for being is to add to the common good of the collective.”
Mike just stared at him.
“That get the hell out of here look you have on your face speaks volumes, buddy,” Bob said. “Once you shed the burden of earthly human insanity, you can see just how beautiful what I just said really is.”
“You think that my species is just a bunch of little clown hoarders that aren’t much more than biped packrats?”
“Come on Mike, think about how much wasted time, money, energy and resource is put into stuff where you come from. You start life on your own as adults with just a little pile of stuff. Stuff from your childhood like pictures, favorite toys etc. And maybe you have a shelf made out of cement blocks and planks to hold the stuff that you want to look at every day. Then you actively start amassing more stuff, until one day you need to store some of the stuff you have to make room for your new stuff.
“There are entire businesses set up just to store stuff. The factories that puke out hundreds of thousands of plastic containers to hold clothes, books, odds and ends, and left over food that you keep long enough to not feel guilty about eventually throwing away. After you gather together enough plastic boxes of stuff, you rent an entire new room from a building full of rooms that specialize in storing your old stuff. Occasionally you see your old stuff, but that’s only when you take a box of fresh old stuff out to stack it in your stuff room.
“You install hundreds if not thousands of dollars’ worth of security equipment in your house to keep other people away that may like your new stuff so much, they want to break in and take it back to their stuff-hole, so they can look at it every day. You have police forces and courts swamped with people being cataloged and imprisoned for walking off with stuff that we all agreed wasn’t their stuff…it was your stuff.”
“I’m so glad you brought me here,” Mike said sullenly. “I could have spent the rest of my life thinking I was sane.”
“Well…you’re not,” Bob said with a hint of sad compassion, “that’s the entire reason for this trip. You need to grasp the trueness of your genetic flaw. You can’t grow, or even begin to try and bring about change unless you’re willing to do that.”
“I know you’re right Bob,” Mike said plaintively, “but you know this is like having every single screwed up thing you are, ripped out of you and paraded around the room for everyone to see.”
“I want this. I really do. And I’m ready to make the trip, but I think I’m going to need some propping up from time to time.”
“That’s what I’m here for, brother,” Bob said smiling broadly “the powers that be have decided not only do I get to take my favorite special little buddy – that would be you by the way – home with me, but I get to be your guide as well.”
“Somehow,” Mike said, “that actually makes me feel a little better.”
“Just a couple things that I’ll need to walk you through before we get there,” Bob said.
“A couple?” Mike asked.
“Yeah,” Bob said as he sat in a large comfortable easy chair that Mike could have sworn wasn’t there…ever “First, you’re going to be in quarantined for a little bit.”
“What!?” Mike exclaimed, “you mean like in a c
age, or glass prison so people can gawk at me?”
The chair that Bob was sitting in turned into a simple stone slab and suddenly Mike was in a concrete block room with no windows and a grubby floor.
“What the hell?” Mike said.
“Free your mind, brother,” Bob said calmly “and your ass will follow. Try closing your eyes and rethinking where you’ll be kept. It’s actually whatever you make it to be. Just like here. Just remember to cover up your spike.”
Mike closed his eyes tightly, and then opened them again. He was sitting in a pretty good facsimile of his apartment. The only real difference was the fairly large stuffed raccoon sitting directly in the middle of the floor.
“What the hell?” Mike said as he stared at the space the raccoon was taking up.
“The mind is a terrible thing,” Bob said “especially when you don’t have one. Self-decorating with the chip may bring out some deep darkness until you get used to working with it.”
“Lesson one,” Bob continued, “you just can’t hide from yourself anymore.”
“Anywho,” Bob said, “we all get quarantined for a little while when we get home. We’ve been subjected to a virus, that virus would be you, by the way, and we can’t take the chance of letting that virus seep out all over the rest of our population. So, we get closed up in a nice safe place for a little bit, and people that are specialized in our plight watch us for some time until they’re sure we didn’t get too much crazy on us, then we’re free to go.”
“But,” Mike asked suspiciously, “what happens to me? Obviously I’m nuts, according to you, and I can never really move about the sane people. I’ll be in a box of my own making forever. What’s the point of me going up there at all?”
Mike started laughing.
“What the hell was funny about that?” Mike asked, clearly hurt.
“I’m sorry brother, It’s just that your time and spatial references are about to be opened WAY up. Think about it, you assume that my home planet is up. What is up from your current point in space?
“Look,” Bob said as he regained his composure, “the simple fact that you so quickly absorbed your current situation and made the snap decision to carry the ball all the way to the goal line proves, in and of itself, that you have the capacity to make this work. You’ll be allowed to mingle fairly quickly, and you can go home whenever you want to.”
