David Larson - The Myth of the Anal Probe

“No,” Mike said, “is it always like this or do you have seasons? Did I just luck out to get here during the summer, or is every day like this?”

“This ain’t Star Trek, brother,” Bob said.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“If you were to instantly be dropped into Bismarck North Dakota in December would you instantly assume the entire planet was a snow covered, empty soybean field?”

“Well, no,” Mike said.

“Didn’t you ever think is was odd that the assumption was made that where ever Kirk and the soon to be dead guys in the red shirts went, they would refer to their surroundings as life on the entire planet?”

“Not really,” Mike said.

Bob rolled over on his side to face Mike.

“Not one time?” Bob said. “You never thought, ‘Hey wait. Is all of this planet just like Chicago in the roaring 20s?’”

“Well no,” Mike said. I never really thought about it.”

“Well that explains why the series was so wildly popular, I guess. Not a lot of deep thinkers.”

“What does any of that have to do with weather?” Mike asked. He was sitting up now.

“This is just like any other planet, in that it gets cooler as you travel North. The geography and weather are governed by topographical phenomenon. We have deserts, and rain forests, glaciers, mountains, valleys, all of that.”

“So where is this place, planetarily?”

“Think tropical,” Bob said “Like the Caribbean, or Hawaii, or Tahiti.”

“It really is like this nearly all the time,” Mia added.

“What are the other parts of the planet like?” Mike asked.

“How do you mean that?” Bob said. “Do you mean like socially, or in some other way?”

“All of the communities on Hale are just like this,” Mia said as she sat up to join the conversation. “The only difference is geography and climate.”

“Yeah,” Bob added. “This is kind of the focal point, in a planetary kind of way. Most of the people live here, for obvious reasons, so it follows that most of the facilitating comes from this area.”

“I used to live much farther north and west of here,” Mia said. “But I find that I’m happiest in this area.”

“You see,” Bob said, “we don’t move someplace and then try to bend it to fit what our expectations are for a happy life. If you prefer it cooler then you move north. If not, you move south. We aren’t encumbered by the cost of living, or borders, or warring governments. If we like someplace we move there, and live.”

“Is that not the way it is on Earth?” Mia asked.

“Have you never been on a deep space probe there?” Mike asked her. He had totally lost the inhibition of having an intelligent conversation with a beautiful, totally naked woman.

“No,” She said. “I’ve never had the interest to be part of that.”

“Well,” Mike said, “on Earth, where you live the rest of your life depends on quite a few factors that don’t exist in any way on this planet.”

“You’re darn tootin’,” Bob said.

“How so?” Mia asked.

“Well first, you live wherever your parents decide to live, for the first 18 to 20 years of your life. Their decision is usually based on where they grew up, and on jobs they have and what the can afford.”

“Afford,” Mia said. “I’ve heard of that. It seems horrible. It seems like being strapped down with invisible chains.”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “That’s a pretty good analogy. Usually the best places to live have an incredible cost of living.”

“You might want to explain that,” Bob said.

“Well, the cost of food, and housing are usually much higher than in less sought-after places. And things like taxes, gas, utilities are higher as well.”

“Do you mean that on earth,” Mia said wide eyed “you have to pay for essential services. Like housing, and food.”

“On Earth you have to pay for everything ,” Mike said. “And I do mean everything. Nothing is free. If this pond were on Earth, eventually someone with a lot of money would buy it, and charge people to come and visit. And people would happily do that.”

“How can you own a place like this?” She asked.

“Someone owns everything there,” Mike said sadly.

“What happens if people don’t have money?” Mia asked.

“Oh,” Bob said as he laid back and put his hands behind his head “I can’t wait to hear you field this one, pard.”

“Well then they go without,” Mike said as he looked at the ground.

“Without,” Mia said, “without what? We were talking about the essentials of life. Certainly, you can’t mean they do without that.”

“I’m afraid I do,” Mike said, ashamed. “If someone can’t pay for housing they have to live on the street. If they can’t afford food then they starve, or the lucky ones can go to charitable organizations and get something to eat.”

“How can people exist like that?” Mia asked.

“Some don’t,” Bob said to the sky with his eyes closed. “Tell her.”

“People die of hunger every day on Earth,” Mike said. “And before you ask, yes there is enough food to feed them. Either they can’t pay, or they live in a place where the government is corrupt and lets them die. People freeze to death as they sit on the street homeless. People needlessly die of exposure and pestilence every day.”

“Why wouldn’t people do something to stop that?” Mia asked. “It seems horrible.”

“Sometimes nothing is done because people are apathetic,” he said. “If it’s not happening to them, then they just don’t care. Sometimes people are openly hostile to the poor, because they think that it’s their own fault for not working hard enough to get money to live.”

“Tell you what,” Bob said sitting up again to join the group, “why don’t you explain sports to her. It’s just as screwed up, but quite a bit less depressing.”

“Don’t you have anything that equates to sports here?” Mike asked. “No games, or teams or anything at all.”

“Why would we?” Bob said. I’m sure that once you get into the explanation it will become clear why we don’t have that here.”

Mia was sitting across from Mike simply waiting to hear about the seemingly innocuous idea of a sporting event.

At first Mike was at a loss, because he had no idea how to begin an explanation of competition at ground zero.

“Start from the beginning,” Bob offered to the silence.

“Well,” Mike started, “on Earth there are different kinds of sporting events…”

“Farther back,” Bob offered.

“On Earth people like to compete…”

“ Way back,” Bob said, “back, back, back, back, back. It’s a home run!”

Mike glared back at Bob’s smile.

“Everything on Earth is a competition,” Mike said to Mia. Then he glanced at Bob for approval. Bob gave him the ‘OK’ sign. “We compete for jobs, we compete for relationships, we compete with our neighbors for status symbols.”

“But…” Mia started to say. But Bob cut her off with a raised hand.

“Save all questions for the end of the lecture,” Bob said.

“It really is the only way we know to exist,” Mike went on. “All of that competition extends to our leisure time as well. Families play games for fun. Card games, board games, video games, and things like that.”

“That seems like a good time to me,” Mia said. “What’s the down side?”

“Well,” he said “until I got here I would have said there was nothing wrong with that. Games always pit one person or a group of people against each other. And they play until one side wins. All games have rules…”

“Why rules?” Mia asked.

“Yeah dude,” Bob said. Why rules?”