David Larson - The Myth of the Anal Probe

The light, soft folds at the corners of her mouth were the same work of perfection. Meeting in symmetrical unity and a gentle, almost imperceptible curve that rounded out to the flesh tones of her perfect cheeks.

Mike found himself constantly lost in those lips. Wondering, of course, what it would be like to actually touch them with his own. Wondering what they might taste like. Nearly certain that they would taste like the scent of frangipani blossoms drifting on a soft Hawaiian breeze. He wondered if the touch of those perfect lips to his own would be paralyzing in their perfection. If he would touch them and be unable to move or speak. If he would be struck down with a lightning bolt of ecstasy that he would almost certainly be unable… or unwilling to control.

Tawny was just looking at him with a patient smile.

“Oh,” Mike said shaking himself back into reality “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Do you think you’re about ready to begin?” She asked.

“Oh… yeah,” He stumbled with his words. “Sure… let’s do this.”

“Let’s do this indeed,” She said. The smallest curve of a smile tightened up at the corners of her mouth. She winked one perfectly beautiful deep green jeweled eye at him.

He nearly passed out….

Again.

“OK,” Tawny said, “I’ll tape an introduction piece later to splice into the beginning. Right now we’ll just start with the question and answer section.”

“Sounds good,” Mike said.

“Thank you for agreeing to be a part of this project,” Tawny said as she started the interview.

“My pleasure,” Mike said.

“First,” Tawny said, “I think it’s safe to say that people here don’t fully understand the concept of Earth and the division of people. Could you explain that for us?”

“Certainly,” Mike said “There are seven continents on Earth that are naturally separated by water. Does that translate here?”

“Of course,” Tawny answered “but people want to know about the unnatural or self-induced boundaries.”

“I guess to start from the beginning,” Mike said “there are almost 200 separate countries on earth.”

“And could you explain countries,” Tawny said “and how they are differentiated.”

“Countries,” Mike said “or sovereign nations, are separated by boundaries. Sometimes these boundaries are simply a line on a map and sometimes they’re geographical, like lakes rivers or streams. Each country has its own language. Although some countries share a language. Such as Spanish and English.”

“Are people free to move about between these boundaries ?” Tawny asked.

“I guess free is a broad concept,” Mike answered. “People can move between boundaries with the proper paper work. It’s easier to move between some, and more difficult to move between others.”

“For example, if two countries are at war, or if two countries have issues with each other. Then it could be more difficult or even impossible to cross between borders.”

We’ll get back to the war part,” Tawny said as she looked down at the clipboard. “Aren’t some of the boundaries actually manmade obstacles?”

“Yes, they are,” Mike said with a tinge of shame in his voice. “There’s a wall between my country and Mexico, for example. Also, there was a physical boundary around Russia. And there’s kind of a physical boundary between North and South Korea.”

“And what are the purposes of these physical boundaries?”

“Some are to keep people out, for example, the boundary that is between Mexico and the United States. Some are to both keep people out as well as keep people in, such as the boundaries around Russia. And in some cases, the boundary is erected to separate people that don’t trust each other or are actively at war. Such as in the case of North and South Korea.”

“Let’s go back to the war part of this,” Tawny said.

“Oh shit,” Mike thought “Let’s not.”

“OK,” he said instead.

“Could you please try to explain the concept of War on your planet,” Tawny said.

“Um, I’ll try.” Mike bit his lower lip. The explanation of war on Earth was always pretty simple. It was either this person or country did this or that thing to us and now we have to retaliate to either preserve our way of life, or just to make sure the score is always even.

“Wars,” Mike started “are fought over many, many things on our planet. They’re fought for control over another country or people, or over power, or religion, or simply because one group of people really hates the other.”

“And when you say fought, how exactly do you mean that?”

“Ummm,” Mike searched for the words. He realized he was looking for words that would make the insanity of the human concept of war seem less animalistic. Then he realized that it wasn’t going to be possible. Might as well go with just the facts ma’am. “Let’s say that one country has done something heinous to another country, or let’s say one country has something that another country wants…”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Tawny said “But what could one of these countries want that it felt it needed to take from the other one?”

“Maybe a resource,” Mike said, “like oil. That’s usually a hot commodity.”

“I should explain here,” Tawny cut in again, “oil is a liquid that’s a residual given off by decaying animals and vegetation. This substance has been under ground for millions of years. Now humans pump this substance out of the ground and burn it to produce energy.”

“That’s correct,” Mike said. “Quite a number of wars have been fought, and I’ll get back to that in a minute, over oil. No one ever admits they’re fighting over oil at the time… but that really is the driving force.”

“But to get back to the question you asked about why countries go to war. Sometimes it’s simply for the control of the land and people in that region.”

“Are you saying that large groups of people actually kill each other to be able to control other people and areas of land.”

“I’m afraid I am Tawny,” Mike said sadly.” In my recent history, and by recent, I mean in the last hundred years, two thirds of the world started killing each other to gain land or territory. Everyone on Earth put the blame of the beginning of the war on the killing of an irrelevant Arch Duke. But really the planet had been itching for a reason to fight each other for quite some time.”

“Why,” Tawny asked.

“I have no idea,” Mike said. “Hundreds of little reasons I guess. Maybe because it had been a few decades since there had been a real large bloodletting. Anyway, after that war was over one of the losing countries lost control of quite a bit of their territory. So they built up a military in secret for 10 or 20 years and then went through a series of ruses to make it look like they were in fact invaded by another country. After that they went on an all-out attack to regain all of the territory they had lost in the previous war. “

“Can I interrupt you one more time?” Tawny asked.

“Of course,” Mike said politely

“Are you saying that this group of people invaded a certain region of the planet because they once had some type of control over that area in the past, and now they wanted it back?”

“That pretty much sums it up, I guess,” Mike said more than just a little embarrassed.

“You mean that all of the people, or the majority of people in this one region, wanted to take over the other region.”

“Not exactly,” Mike said. “The people that governed that certain region kind of whipped the general population into a frenzy and made them feel as though they had been slighted by the outcome of the last war. After that, those same people started the war.”