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Writer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Washington, DC
Gender: Male
Posts: 38
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The History of Earthlings
The History of Earthlings
Sir Nathews Nielevotuo, an ancient man who was revered as the country’s best story teller, sat as a group of school children gathered in a half-moon in front of him. It was a custom that the younger children learned wisdom and virtue from the elders; it had been so for centuries, and would remain so for centuries.
His lecture was clear to him, but was harder to tell the more he gave it, because the children were constantly getting more obnoxiously self-assertive and arrogant as the generations progressed.
“Let me tell you all a story,” he began, “a story about history.”
He paused as the typical sighs and groans took over, this time littered with more arrogance than the previous generational group.
“Ah, but don’t sigh yet, little children. This is a story that you haven’t learned in history class. Neither have your parents told it to you. This is a story that was saved for you, so that I could tell it to you. From this story, you will gain a different perspective of the universe.
“In the beginning of time, there was a giant explosion of sorts. There was nothing, and then there was everything. Some say God pulled the trigger, some have even joked that I pulled the trigger, being that I am almost as old as God is.” He paused again for the muffled sounds of childhood laughter.
“Our planet was created among the first of them, seeing as our galaxy was among the first to explode out of the mass of matter. Over billions of years, there was nothing on our planet, except for a multitude of gases, and the bases of matter which would, in time, become life. Slowly, and I mean incredibly slowly, life emerged, and changed and adapted and changed and adapted, until you have us, sitting here. Some say we’ve stopped adapting, some say this is as far as we’re going to evolve.”
A small red-headed girl sitting cross-legged raised her tiny hand carefully in the air, as if expecting Sir Nathews to silence her immediately.
“What is it, my dear?” Nathews said, nodding his head in the direction of the timid girl.
“Sir? We know all this. We learned about this in grade school. I mean, I don’t want to be a bother.” She put her head down and stared at the ground, sensing that it was not a good question to ask.
“Oh, you’re definitely not a bother, my dear. Just sit patiently for the rest of my story!” He chortled, happily.
“But what you haven’t been told,” he continued, “is the history of the Earthlings. There is another planet in a different galaxy that mirrors ours, only is behind us by about fifty million years. Yet they’re convinced they’re at the height of their civilization! Their history is a different story of evolution. They are behind us because instead of emerging out of the cesspool as an infinitely-ordered creature like us, they emerged out of the cesspool as a single cell. From there, they began to evolve senses one at a time.”
“One at a time!” interrupted a freckled boy with a backwards cap. “Wow! For each of the 15 senses, each one at a time, well that must have taken…”
“Ah, but that’s the thing, my boy,” resumed the old man. “They are still in the process of acquiring their senses. As of now, they only have five.
"You see, on their planet, which they aptly named Earth, life began without the senses that they have right now: sight, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling. Throughout time, they began to acquire each sense slowly, and were proud of each one.
"Yet before they could see, there was something to be seen. Before they could hear, there was something to be heard. Before they could feel, there was something to be felt, and so on. Each time a sense was acquired, they began to fill with pride, thinking they were at the height of their dominance. They are so incredibly proud of the senses they have, they don’t realize that they are still acquiring them. They cannot adapt, because of their pride. They feel they have conquered their surroundings, instead of allowing themselves to assimilate to them.
"This has led to them being far behind our planet, who revels in each of the senses we have. The more we revel, the more we adjust to our surroundings, the more we evolve and adapt and acquire more senses.”
“They don’t even have the ability to love?” The delicate red-headed girl questioned.
“Oh, that’s one sense that they are just starting to discover, within the past two thousand years. The mental, emotional, and physical connection that one can have with any other,” replied the old man.
“I don’t know,” said the freckled boy, with a frustrated face, “How do you know all this?”
“That’s a different story, for a later lecture. That lecture is entitled ‘My Trip from Earth to Nielevotuo,’” he concluded. He rose and walked away, as the children, speechlessly, arose and followed after him.
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why should a world be
bigger than what a man
can reach
and taste and strike &
burn & hunt & hold?
-A.R. Ammons
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