222. Explanations

Oh no, it was “Explanation Day.” I can always tell I’m in for it when C.W. appears as a faint resemblance of Thurgood Marshall. We had decided to meet for a short walk along a downtown park. He had been in hiding for a few days while we entertained out-of-state friends and I was feeling a little blue after their departure and not wanting to talk much. I had hoped he might entertain me with another of his get-rich schemes and I could just listen.

It was not to be.

“Good morning sir,” he said.

Oh no, formality. It would be especially taxing,

“Good morning. What you been up to?”

“I greet you with much new insight,” he said. Oh boy.

“And how did you gain such insight?”

“From walking to and fro upon the earth,”

When he “goes Biblical,” on me, it is going to be a long day.

“You seem to be such an intelligent species in some ways,” he said.

“Oh?”

“Yes,” he said. “Your advancement from blue algae to a species capable of mechanically escaping the gravitational force of your home planet with manned craft in a little over four billion years is remarkable, truly remarkable.”

“I had no idea.”

He looked to see if I was kidding, Satisfied I wasn’t, he said, “It took us Falloonians almost seven billion,” he said.

“It’s good to know we can excel,” I said.

“Of course,” he said, “we weren’t doing it for domination.”

“Oh? Then why?”

He cocked his head in that funny way he does when his circuits become temporarily overloaded. “Why,” he said, “for the simple love of knowledge.”

I knew the other shoe was about to drop so we walked along in silence as the birds sang and vehicles sped above us on the Interstate. A hawk suddenly appeared and landed on a tree near us, a sight that would normally have delighted my alien friend. He scarcely noticed it. I braced myself.

Finally, he spoke. “Why then?” was all he said.

“Why then what?”

“Why do you elect mendacious ignorami to public office/”

“Hey,” I said. “You got your Galactic Universal Translator fixed.”

“My GUT is fine,” he said, “and I trust it completely.”

“Only I think,” I said, “we would simply say ignoramuses.”

“You are certainly proving all over again that you are one,” he said.

 

When he goes “snippy,” I usually back off. “Want to tell me,” I said, “what brought this all on?”

“Gonasxhitoowicitasan.”

“Pardon?”

“You call it ‘Ebola’ but that isn’t the galactic name.”

“You’ve heard of it?”

“Everyone has heard of it,” he said. “It is planted on developing planets by Castasurneans.”

“By whom?”

“They have appointed themselves as purifiers of the Galaxy, They plant a deadly, but controllable virus on developing planets.”

“Why?”

“To determine if the controlling species is worthy of existing. In their view, those that are will combine their intellectual resources in a communal effort to defeat the threat, while the galaxy is best cleansed of those who don’t.”

“Did they do that to Falloonia?”

“Some five billion of what you call years ago.”

“You seem pensive today,” I said. “Is that a bad sign?”

“We had reached the commercial corridor that we call the ‘River Market’. He stopped in front of a newspaper stand and pointed. “Look,” he said.

There was a front page article in which a congressman stated that our President was spreading the virus for political gain.”

“How did he get elected?”

“The congressman?”

“Yes, the ignoramus.”

“Someone thought they should invest in him, I suppose.”

We walked on. I was the one getting pensive now.

“So …” I began, “Can you predict our chances?”

“Look,” he said, pointing at a magazine in another stand. Its front page advertised an article stating, “Governor of Louisiana says the state won’t limit the teaching of science in state schools to fact-only curriculum.”



Isn't it a little dangerous to allow grown
men to make statements like this in front
of little children? - C.W.

I was getting worried. “Any conclusions?” I said.

“Look,” he said. There was a pickup truck waiting at an intersection. A bumper sticker read, “Got a problem? Get a gun.”

“Uh …, I said, “and?”

He stopped and turned to me, His eyes grow large and black and within them I could see a vast field of eternity in which a tiny spark growing was growing dimmer as the scene turned dark.

“You haven’t started any long novels, have you?” he said.

 

Click an ad. I have to purchase a ticket home. - C.W.

Check out www.wattensawpress.com

198. Crimes

We were fishing, C.W. and I. That man. Uh, that thing. That … whatever … loves to fish. He says they have nothing like it on Falloonia. He tends to take on the appearance of a character straight out of a Steinbeck novel when we go, slouch hat, grizzled beard, patched work clothes—the full image. He once even tried to smoke a cigarette, with disastrous results.

On this day, he was ecstatic. “Just read,” he said as he watched his bobber intensely, “that a state in your country is doing something extremely wise.”

“Oh really,” I said. “Which one?”

“The one just south of here. The one where they like to party so much and make hot sauce. Loo, Loozi …”

“Louisiana?”

“That’s the one.”

I said, “They did something wise?”

“Yes. Real sensible, in my rough calculation of the value, number, quantity, or extent of something.”

“Just what, in your estimation, did they do that was so wise?”

“They voted on a law to prohibit crimes against nature.”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Seems I read something about that.”

“That’s one of the first sensible things I’ve seen in a long time.” He raised his line, checked the bait, and swung it to a new location.

I was intrigued. “Why do you say that?

He looked at me as if I had just asked him if the sun came up that morning. “Your species spends so much time enacting laws protecting things like the wealthy, fertilized eggs, and mythology cults, don’t you think it is time nature deserved some protection?”

“Uh ...”

He interrupted. “Just think,” he said. “No more clear cutting of forests, removal of mountaintops, polluting of rivers, exhaustion of sea life, … it could be the start of what you call ‘governing by the rational model.’”

“Uh, C.W.”

“No more extinction of other species.”

“C.W.,” I said forcefully.

“Burning of fossil fuels …” He stopped. “What?”

“That’s not what they meant.”

“What who meant?”

“The legislators in Louisiana.”

“What they meant by what?”

“Crimes against nature.”

He looked at me in disbelief. “Of course it is.”

“No. Afraid not.”

“What then?”

I told him. At least I began to tell him before he broke in. “You mean like they do in those …, I mean like I’ve heard they do on those internet videos?”

“Yes. Afraid so.

Your methods of governing are best considered
during moments of peace and solitude. - C.W.

I now know what is meant by the description “stunned disbelief.”

“That’s insane,” he said. “completely contrary to nature, reason, or common sense.”

“I think you mean ‘preposterous,’” I said, “and I suspect the folks in Louisiana would be quite proud to hear you say it.”

He looked me in the eyes. “How on earth,” he said, “would you enforce such law?”

“That, my friend, is something you will have to talk to them about,” I said.

“I’d rather talk to a mountain goat,” he said as his bobber began to bounce.

 

 

Also see: www.wattensawpress.com

Capitalism

Dear Friends and Followers:

Big Dope made me sit through a political speech recently in which a candidate hinted that, if elected, he would work to eliminate any regulation of the environment. Today I ran across this photo of the public drinking water in Charleston, West Virginia—a result of what you call “unfettered capitalism,” in which those of the libertarian faith so strongly believe.

 

I was confused.

So, I sought out the advice of some of your great thinkers (and some not so great, perhaps). Anyway, a sampling:

“I certainly have some very strong libertarian leanings, yes.” – Clarence Thomas

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” – James Madison

“To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.” ―Theodore Roosevelt

"… if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." – Albert Einstein

“Capitalism actually encourages morality because capitalism can't function well if people can't trust each other and people aren't honest, if a deal isn't a deal.” - Rick Santorum

“This American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it what you will, gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it.” – Al Capone

I am more confused than ever. Can someone help?

Your friend,

C.W.

Don't forget to check out Big Dope's book, The Charmed Time.

153. Worries

“Your species sure has a lot of things to worry about. I’m compiling a list for the Falloonian Elders. What a mess.”

I couldn’t disagree, although this was coming from the mouth of a comely young lady who appeared to be on the verge of childbirth. That is to say, it was the Alien himself, or herself, in this case, it having joined me on my walk through the park.

“You are right,” I said. It is disturbing if you think about it.”

“Oh, I do,” she said. “I think about it even more now.” She patted her belly.

“One would think so,” I said, playing along with the scenario.

“I’m having a baby, you know.”

“I had guessed as much.”

“I want to have several.”

“Good luck with that.”

“But the news worries me.”

“That seems natural. There are certainly things in our future that should concern us.”

“Oh? What’s bugging you in particular?”

I looked at her. “Well, the planet will start to run out of drinking water during that one’s lifetime.”

She stopped and turned to me with a look of total shock. “Who says so?”

“The world’s scientists,” I said.

She relaxed, “Oh them.”

“Yes them, the ones who also say our planet is in the process of frying.”

“Don’t you worry about them. That’s all just stuff they say to scare us.”

“Who told you that?”

“It’s on the news every night. You just have to watch the right channel.”

I was confused. “I thought you were worried about things.”

“Oh I am,” she said. “But real things, not that sort of stuff.”

“Like what, then?”

“You silly. No wonder everyone calls you ‘Big Dope,’ the way you act.”

“You’re the only one who calls me that,” I said. “Other than my wife. But anyway, what things are bothering you?”

“Well, for one thing, we still don’t know who killed President Kennedy.”

This time it was I who stopped. “Uh, yes we do. It was Lee Harvey Oswald.”

“Well that’s what they want you to think.”

I sighed.

“So what real things do you worry about?” She said. She looked at me with a blank look on her face.

“Well,” I said. “In addition to the ever-increasing likelihood of a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of terrorists, there is the matter of the Amazon rainforest.”

Her look changed to one of suspicion. “What about it?”

“Other than it cools the entire planet by one or two degrees, Celsius, or that one-fifth of the world’s fresh water flows through it, or that it absorbs 300 million tons of carbon dioxide per year?”

“And? What’s your point?”

“It could disappear by the year 2080, according to some estimates,” I said. I gestured toward her protruding stomach.”

“Oh, fol de rah,” she said. “Here’s what’s really got me worried.” She pointed to a newsstand where the daily posted a headline announcing that another state (not ours) had approved same-sex marriages.

“This worries you?”

“Do you think I want my little boy to marry another little boy?”

“Wouldn’t you, if it made him happy?”

“He’ll be happy about things I tell him to be happy about,” she said, snipping her words.

“Well he couldn’t be happy about the possibility that there won’t be any middle class in his America.”

“There you go again, worrying about silly things while there are real concerns.”

Don't you worry about the Amazon Rainforest.
By the time it is gone, I'll be basking in the
tropical sun at my cabin in northern Manitoba. - C.W.

“Such as?”

“Buy me this newspaper and I’ll show you.”

“Show me what?”

“Wanda Sue may have been kicked off American Idol last night.”

The Return

People had been asking so I left a message that I needed to see the Alien. No, it wasn’t like a plea in some science fiction movie. It was more like an ad in the paper but he showed up as Michael Rennie anyway. Same old C.W., cute as usual.


“You called? he said after I opened the apartment door and registered my surprise.

I ushered him in and motioned for him to have a seat. “People have been asking about you.”

“I’m flattered,” he said. “What did you tell them?”

“That you had been recalled because of that incident with the high-school girl.”

“That was blown all out of proportion,” he said. “Besides, that’s what star football players are supposed to do, isn’t it?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “So … no, that wasn’t it at all.”

“Then where have you been?”

“Making a detailed interim report.”

“To the Falloonian Elders?”

“Yes.”

“So?”

“So what?”

So how are we doing?”

“Not too good.”

“Then … are the Fallootians getting ready to wipe us out like in your movie.”

“No. You’re doing a fine job of that yourselves.”

He had me there. I had never seen him more somber. But heck, he was Michael Rennie after all. “So how much time?”

“I don’t think your species would be so obsessed about time if your planet didn’t circle your home star with such precision.”

“Say what?”

“What makes you think things occur sequentially?”

“Uh, gee, don’t they?”

“Why couldn’t they all be occurring at once and your mental state is simply drawn to whatever is shiniest?”

“Is that what happens?”

“Let’s just say for the moment that your species’ consciousness paradigm is closer to that of a blackbird than to a logician. You won’t be able to proceed further with this inquiry as long as you linger on such things as rock stars and inconsequential politicians.”

“Like Michelle Bachman?”

“Precisely, now why don’t we go for a walk and you can convince me that your species would warrant existence?”

“Sure,” I said, grabbing a hat to protect me from the sun.

A while later we stood at my city’s statue of Harriet Tubman leading a child-slave to freedom.

“Better?” I said.

He studied the amazing sculpture, and then turned to me. “She was a great person, wasn’t she?”

“One of the greatest.”

“Indeed. I’ll maybe stick around awhile,” said he

"Don’t you mean you are here, have been here, will be here?” Now I was trying to be cute.

"Klaatu barada nikto," he said.

28. Rituals

For weeks I had begged C.W. not to follow me. I was taking my first long vacation since 1974, a cruise to Mexico. I needed some time away from his antics.

Lots of luck.

The most embarrassing thing happened this way. With some schooling in architectural history, I looked forward to a trip to Chichen Itza, the Mayan site. Little did I guess what would follow.

At the site, descendents of that great culture are reduced to selling trinkets to the tourists. They are small people, troublesome and annoying, but hey, they were there first.

Anyway, as we toured the great ball field, I didn’t notice a group of young Mayan boys playing soccer until one of them picked up the ball and wandered over to me.

“Pretty something, alright,” he said, nudging me in the side.

“Pretty something,” I said.

“Did they really chop off the head of the winning team captain?” he said in perfect English.

I looked down at a small, dark boy with black hair and a twisted smile.

Yep. It was C.W.

“Dammit,” I said, “I told you to stay home.”

“Jess,” he said. “Me at home.”

“Aw, man,” I said in exasperation.

“About this head chopping,” he said.

“There are differing opinions,” I said. Some say it was the losers who lost their heads.”

“You people do like your rituals,” he said. “Chopping off heads, eating your gods with a sip of nice Chianti, sacrificing your children. What’s the deal?”

“It makes us holy,” I said. “Now why don’t you go back home?”

“If it will make you feel any better,” he said. “By the way, did they really bounce the heads down those stairs?” He pointed toward the magnificent Castillo, or temple pyramid.

“Piss off,” I answered.

With that he kicked the soccer ball across the field and disappeared behind a temple wall. I thought no more about him until we followed the guide back to the Castillo for a discussion of the remarkable acoustics of the site. I became engrossed in the image of a great ceremony, imagining the costumes and headdresses of the priests and the huge crowds of people. I raised my camera to the uppermost section.

Then I saw it.

There was a blur at first—a figure darting between the uppermost columns. This was odd as tourists are forbidden from climbing the pyramid.

It got worse.

Down the temple stairs came bouncing—if you can believe it—a soccer ball. Not a head, but a soccer ball. I wanted to crawl under a statue, particularly as the entire crowd turned to stare at me as the last one who had been seen near such an object.


Look Closely to notice the alien's Mayan prank


Needless to say, this put a damper on the whole visit. The ball bounced all the way into the plaza and I must confess to imagining a head exploding into the crowd. I eased back toward the entrance.

I had almost made it when I heard a voice behind me. “Pretty neat, huh?”

“Get away from me,” I shouted at the top of my voice.

The young boy looked hurt as everyone turned to look. “Please Mister. You buy?” he said, thrusting a cheap plaster mask toward me.

19. Collapses

I almost missed him, being deep in thought with a deadline looming. I was imagining scenarios when he stopped to ask the time. I told him and then couldn’t help staring. Since they built the President William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library in my neighborhood, it is not unusual to see someone famous, or near famous strolling about. “Aren’t you someone?” I asked.

“Could be,” he replied. “Who did you have in mind?”

I thought, then the book cover appeared in my head.

:You’re the author,” I said. “You wrote the book Collapse. Jared Diamond. Right?”

“I did pretty well,” he laughed. “Had you fooled.”

Shit! It was C.W.

“What in the world?”

He enjoyed my discomfiture for a moment and then led me to a bench. “Did you enjoy my book?”

“I enjoyed his book. Why are you he?”

“Went back in time doing research,” he said.

He had been “enphasing,” as he calls it—a process by which he places himself so mentally deep in a time that he is able to visit it.

“Why Mr. Diamond?”

“To answer a question he asked in his book. It involves a matter of behavior among your species in which I am particularly interested.”

“And that is?”

“It involves Contacura++. You remember that, don’t you?”

“I think it means Literally, the act of sitting on a baby’s face, or a foolish course of action.”

“Precisely. The kind your species is famous for.”

I winced. “So what have we done now?”

“Remember the Easter Islanders?”

“Oh yes. They exhausted the timber resources on their planet with no conservation measures so that the species died out. And they left those famous giant statues as their only legacy.”

“Well, Contacura++ was their legacy as well.”

“Oh yes.”

“Remember the haunting question I asked in the book?”

“You mean that Mr. Diamond asked?”

“If you must.”

“I think he wondered what was said when the last tree was cut, spelling society’s collapse”.

“Yes. He suggested maybe: ‘Jobs, not trees’ or ‘We don’t have proof that there aren’t palms somewhere else on Easter, we need more research, your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear-mongering.’”

“So you went back to verify?”

“Yep. You want to guess what was said just before they cut the last tree?”

“It’s my property and I can do what I want to on it?”

“Nope.”

“We can’t do anything that might hurt the economy?”

“Wrong again.”

These summbitches are ugly and dumb. - C.W.

“Okay, I give up.”

“There was this big meeting and the head man spoke. It took me awhile to master their language but I think I got it right.”

“And what did he say?”

“Well he first said: ‘Facts are stupid things.’ Everyone winced. Then someone said it was the Village Council’s duty to save the society from ruin. That’s when the chief made his final pronouncement.”

“And he said?”

“Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.”

“And they cut the tree down.”

“Without another word.”

14. Extinctions

C. W. came to me in a dream last night. At least I think it was a dream. You never know about him. I was sitting on a fallen tree by a well-worn path in a tropical rain forest. I knew the place from the slightly sweet rotting smell of fecundity and the bright colors of the forest flowers flashing against the dark background of the giant trees. I remembered it all from a trip to a similar place in Puerto Rico taken long years ago courtesy of the United States Navy.

A group of children came along the path laughing and singing. One split from the group and came to me. She was six or seven years old and a throwback to a time around the end of the 19th Century. Rope-like ringlets dangled from each side of her head in blond profusion and she wore a white dress adorned with lace and embroidery. She could easily have been Carroll’s Alice.

She walked silently up to me and then spoke. “Want to see something interesting, Mister?” Then she shook the front of her dress and looked down. The small green head of a snake appeared from beneath her bodice and looked around with interest. It nuzzled her cheek, looked at me with what appeared to be a grin, and slid back into hiding.

“You do know, don’t you Jimmie,” she said. “That in the Victorian era young girls used to keep green tree-snakes in their dresses for sport and to keep cool?”

“I have read that, C. W.” I said.

“It must have kept the snakes warm as well,” he said. “You don’t see such co-dependency among the two species these days. You know that don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then you must also know that Homo Sapiens are one of the most destructive forces on the planet.”

“True that.”

“Why, do you suppose?”

“It may be that we are evolutionarily disposed to have a short-term perspective on life.”

“Hmm,” she said. “You know it means your ultimate destruction.”

“I suspect so.”

“Want to know the saddest image I will take from your planet when I leave?”

“I would hate to guess.”

Martha - The last Passenger Pigeon

“The image of Martha.”

“Martha Washington?”

“No, Martha the last Passenger Pigeon. The one who lived out a long, lonely life in a Cincinnati zoo without a mate to save her species. Just sat on a perch, staring into space and, we may hope, not thinking about being the last. I think they stuffed her when she finally died.”

The young lady straightened her blouse and felt to make sure her pet was safe and then brushed her hair from her shoulder with her hand.

“I have to leave now,” she said. “Enjoy the forest.”

She turned to leave, but then said over her shoulder: “Next year it will be a golf course.”