I stood in front of eleven of the
strangest looking people I’d ever seen. Several eyes too many. Mouths on their
chests. No hair anywhere. And not a smile in the house.
The remains of what looked like
about two dozen deceased humans lay in pieces here and there. Blood was
everywhere. A stupid quote from a Jim Carrey movie crossed my mind, and I
smiled. But as soon as it did, I forgot it. Such was the state of my mind in those
days.
The Things (as their kind had come
to be known) sat behind the table, staring. Amazing that they could talk with
their tongues like that, but the small one said in perfect English with a
strong Australian accent, “And what is YOUR explanation for what has been
going on here, on this ridiculous planet?” It seemed implied that I had better
impress them with an answer or I would be summarily disemboweled like the
bodies around me.
I was too nervous to stutter,
actually. Another Jim Carrey quote crossed my mind and I remember smiling as I
spoke the words that would save my life.
“They started it.”
I guess they had been expecting
something else; a type of response they hadn't liked before, evidenced by the
carnage all around me. The Things stared, and then looked at one another
incredulously. One of them opened its mouth to speak and then closed it again,
literally speechless. Two of them began to stand, presumably to come to me to
do whatever they had done to the people that they had interviewed before me. I
stood where I was, unafraid. Whatever they were going to do was no worse than
what I’d been through before the Things arrived. It had been a long couple
years.
It was then that the Small One (who
had, dare I say, feminine features) started to chuckle. The others all looked
at “her”, and one by one, also started to chuckle. They did this in a way that
I found completely unnerving; like I used to feel when birds would fly too
close to my head, when there were actually birds in the world, before the Great
Extinction.
“Now, I’m nervous,” I thought to
myself, with a sense of doom.
They kept chuckling, making a sound
almost like chickens.
They chuckled some more.
After they were done chuckling, they
started, you know, chuckling. All the while, they looked at me. One of them
drooled into his cavernous navel that was situated next to his third arm.
“Mr. Marley,” the Small One started
abruptly as the others ceased their inane cackle, “we have been here on your
planet disguised as humans for over a dozen years. We watched you from our
aircraft for thousands before that. By the time we finally decided it was time
to come out of disguise and take over this place two years ago, you had nearly
annihilated one another. Wars were constant. Famine rampant. Your elderly died
poor and alone, and your young squandered their youth and health on
entertainment. Your planet is polluted to the point that the bulk of the life
that started on it has either become extinct or has had to adapt to be able to
live in squalor. Your females grow breasts at age six due to poor diet, and
your males are oversexed to the point that they are uneducated about anything
but the procreative act, at which they fail miserably for lack of interest in
the actual act, preferring fantasy. The one nation on earth that had a chance
to do something remarkable had become just like all the others; ruled by those
that could gain power by whatever means were at their disposal. Since humankind
are generally governed by their own ethics above all, and since the human with
the lower moral state will always have more tools for the obtaining of power
than the one with ethics in a system such as this, eventually only those with
low ethics were successful. This occurred until there were none of the original
freedoms left, for unethical rulers always have the removal of the freedoms
their subjects once enjoyed as their top priority. It makes them easier to
rule.”
Small One looked at her colleagues,
who looked back and opened their mouths large in agreement, as is their custom.
She continued.
“So, when we ask, ‘what happened
here,’ and you say, “They started it…”
Again with the chuckling. I swear it
went on for 35 minutes as they stared at me with all those eyeballs. "Things", in
general, have no appreciation for time. This may have gone on for hours if one
of the severed legs that had been balanced precariously on a torso against a
wall suddenly fell over. At this they all stopped, as if they simultaneously
remembered something.
“Explain, please,” said the Small
One, with a hint of impatience.
Another Jim Carrey quote. I swear.
Something from The Mask, I think.
“What I meant was…well, I don’t know
who started it. Well, kinda I do. You’re right, you know, about the powerful
people. Looking back – and I used to really study this stuff – it seemed that
really bad people took the things that all people love the most and figured out
how to use it against the weaker ones. So you had, for instance, the
institution of Religion using the natural love that people have of a Creator
from the earliest stages of their lives, against them. So, a long time ago,
maybe even before you guys started watching what was going on here, some bad
people found out that they could use this love of Creator to rule over people.
They made up lies that the people would believe, put it in books they called
“sacred” and taught them as truth. They made them so believable! They mixed
some truth in so they could fool even the smart ones of us: all this so that
they could take away the freedoms of the people that believed the lies.
Eventually, the people forgot most of their original freedoms and the religious
rulers became very powerful. By the time the dark ages hit you had to be considered “righteous” to count for anything, to
count as “human”. This was not only in America, but all over. While this sentiment ebbed and flowed, by the time you showed yourselves, it was pretty much the reigning philosophy among the "righteous" ones.
“Yes,” the Small One said, “we saw
that happen. Continue.”
I paused, not really knowing what to say, but I knew I'd better say something. So I decided to talk about one of my own observations. “Well, the strange thing
was what was considered ‘righteous’. Although the main guy in the holy book for
the religion in America taught and lived Compassion very effectively, the
‘righteous’ taught that compassion had to be earned in order to be given. Not
only by their God, but by themselves towards other people. So in the end, if it
was determined that you were too different from the ‘righteous’ ones, you were
simply out. You were outcast from their society. They didn’t want you
polluting their ‘righteous’ children, or making them doubt their ‘righteous’
lives. In the end, if the outcasts, for instance, blocked a road with their
bodies that was being used by their own country’s military to invade other
countries, and take away the freedoms of people in foreign lands, the
‘righteous ones’ would get upset. They would make fun of the appearance of the
outcasts, call them names, and even look on with satisfaction as they were
beaten. Compassion went away. The question, “what would make them block that
road like that?” was not asked any more by the ‘righteous’. It was assumed that
only ‘unrighteousness’ would make the outcasts question the military. The same
was true, of course, of their religion. To the ‘righteous’, even asking a
question about the validity of a statement made by a religious leader was an
act of spiritual treason, especially if it were not easily answerable, even
though that’s what the main guy in the holy book the Americans carried did. He
always asked questions of the corrupt or confused spiritual leaders in his own
day, and in the end they destroyed him, just like the 'righteous' really wanted
to do to the outcasts they saw, one way or another. In the end, it was all
turned around. The outcasts, when they tried to preserve freedom, were called
“traitors”. The ‘righteous’, when they tried to preserve the corrupt government
in power, called themselves “patriots”. It wasn’t until just before you arrived
that the outcasts refused to be ruled any longer and became true patriots and
did what patriots always do - tried to take back the freedoms that
people are born with; the right to love whom they want to, the right to choose
their own government in a way that is not influenced by people with money or
other types of power, the right to build their own lives without undue pressure
from organizations – including the government and organized religion – in
whatever way they want, the right to a planet that is not polluted. And that’s
what started the final war, really. So when I say ‘they started it’, that’s
what I meant.”
The Small One opened her mouth wide
and solemnly took off her hat with one of her ears. The others all did the same
(except the one with the cigar, who seemed unsure of me still). They regarded me.
“You are free to go, dude,” was all
she said.
And I walked out into the
silent world.
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