Thea Alexander - 2150 A.D.

"Yes," she agreed, "we cooperate so that we can better enjoy the fruits of conflict and competition."

Our conversation was interrupted at this point by our landing near a small town in the red state. Carol and I got out and this time walked all the way through this community of generally small unattractive houses. There were, however, a few larger homes, so we selected one of the largest and most ostentatious in the community. Before we knocked on the door Carol commented on the very few people we had seen in, the streets, which were almost deserted. Before I could knock on the door it was opened by a short middle-aged man with a large well-fed stomach and bright red skin. He welcomed us into a large and lavishly appointed living room saying that everyone was watching our progress on the TV, interspersed with the gladiator games from the capital city of Elgonia.

"Well," I said as we sat down in luxuriously comfortable form-hugging chairs, "I suppose that accounts for the absence of people outside. But tell us about the gladiator games you mentioned."

His face lit up and he grinned broadly, revealing a beautiful set of obviously false teeth. "They're great!" he said. "Our state gladiators represent us in the games. This gives us a chance to demonstrate our superiority."

"You mean red gladiators fight gladiators of other colors?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied, "but we have many types of competition besides the individual sword fights, fist fights, or wrestling that gladiators performed in the past. We have team conflicts that include football, baseball, and basketball as well as larger conflicts such as capture the flag."

"Well," I said, "I remember playing a game by that name when I was a boy. How does your version go?"

"When we practice it locally," he explained, "we use fewer gladiators, but when it involves interstate-competition the standard team size is 100 men who play on a standard size C.F. field of 1,000 square yards. The object of the conflict is to capture the other state's flag. We use both sword teams and bare-handed teams."

"You mean that you actually kill each other in these contests?" I asked.

"Of course," he replied, "but since the gladiators can wear armor in the sword contests, not very many are killed-only ten or twelve a week but they're still the most exciting contests we have."

"How often," Carol asked, "do you watch these games?"

"Since we work six days a week, and must attend church on Sunday morning, that leaves our evenings and Sunday afternoons for watching the games," he replied.

"My God!" I exclaimed. "Don't you get tired of watching that much fighting?"

He laughed, then said, "There's one thing that we red men never get tired of, and that's fighting!"

"But isn't that sort of brutality against your religion?" I inquired.

"The red religion holds that God created four races of men and was disappointed," he explained. "Then he created the red race to fight for the glory of God. We are the chosen race to lead all other races by our dedication to courage and our loyalty to our race and to God."

"Sounds strangely familiar," Carol commented quietly to me.

"Scoff if you like, decadent woman," he replied angrily, "but our women are proud to bear us warriors, and they are decently married to one man."

Sensing that it might be wise to change the subject, I asked, "As a representative of the chosen red race how do you manage to accept a leader like Elgon, whose skin is certainly not red?"

"It's true that his redness doesn't show," he explained, "but the soul of our president is red. He wears his skin white in sympathy for the weakness of the white race."

"Then how do you know his soul is red?" I asked.

"Because when we asked him, he replied that he would never deny it," was-his response.

That Elgon was a sly one, I thought to myself. Then I decided to ask one more question before leaving. "Tell me," I said, "what do you do that allows you to live in such a large home and in such luxury?"

"I was hoping that you would ask," he said, grinning proudly. "You see, on Micro Island courage, hard work, and a good head for business are rewarded. When I was young I was the most famous gladiator on the island, and I earned a great deal of money which I invested in land and various business ventures. Today I own half the houses in our village and most of the acreage surrounding it.

"Aren't you afraid," Carol asked as she glanced at the valuable articles in the room, "that you might be robbed of some of your wealth?"

He laughed rather scornfully and said, "We believe in the value of personal property, so we have law and order. Every tenth person on our island is a police official and we take great pride in our ability as crime fighters. I myself was appointed personally by President Elgon Ten as one of the ten top law officers in our Red State."

Carol couldn't help but insert, "Micro Island is the only place in the world where police are needed, because it's the only place in the world where crime exists. If you didn't place so much importance on personal properties, you wouldn't need to waste all that manpower on policing your people."

The fat red face of our host grew even redder as he glowered at her saying, "Great personal wealth has always gone to the strong, courageous, and clever people who are willing to take risks and live exciting and rewarding lives."

Now he sneered openly at Carol as he said, "Your Macro society has destroyed all sense of decency or pride in its members by encouraging every vice imaginable and by denying all the virtues-courage, loyalty to one's race, accumulation of personal wealth."

Getting to his feet and waddling furiously about the room he shouted, "Never in the history of our world has such evil, wicked, godlessness been permitted to flourish. But God is not mocked forever! You and all your godless, cowardly breed will soon perish from the face of this earth"

I figured we'd better leave before our host worked himself into some sort of apoplectic stroke. I thanked him for his time and we hastily took our leave, and arrived back at the transair feeling rather depressed at what our host had revealed to us. There was no doubt in our minds that he fervently believed the things he had told us. No one had forced us to choose his home to visit.

Once we were airborne again, Elgon began questioning me about my impressions so far. When I told him quite honestly that I had been depressed by what I had seen, he seemed genuinely sad and shook his great head of long, curly black hair back and forth a number of times before he said, "I'm sorry to hear that the Macro society has already so poisoned your mind against us that you can't see how proud and happy our people are, living free and decent lives."

"Elgon Ten," I asked, "do you really think that everyone-even the poor and unhealthy-is happy here on Micro Island?"

Elgon replied in an extremely sincere and persuasive manner saying, "What you don't understand, Jon -Ten, is that the most' important thing for man is not wealth, or health, or even fame, but personal pride-the feeling that he is better than the others."

He paused now to let this sink into my mind before continuing, "We here on Micro Island have provided man with many opportunities for personal pride; his own family, his own race, his own religion, his own language, his own property, and his own state. All of these the Macro society has denied man and, by so doing, reduced the life of its members to a state of such monumental boredom that they don't care whether they live or die. They come to Micro Island and break our laws so they can have at least the satisfaction of dying in an exciting way even if they can't live that way."

Now it was my turn to shake my head. "I'm sorry, but I just can't see it that way, Elgon."