In A Coconut Shell

Dear Humans,

Maybe you were alarmed when you found broken glass, upturned tables and no physical being in sight, instead of the scientists and test animals which you wished to find. Maybe you believed your scientists to have been visited, abducted or even exterminated, perhaps, by aliens.

Maybe you are right. You have often thought my people akin to aliens.

I could end this letter here, by assuring you that your people have come to no harm; While they no longer live in the same atmosphere as you do, they still live. I also assure you that the damaged contents of the room which was called the 'lab' is only reversibly untidied, a state which my people may, if we find your reaction to this note satisfactory, fix.

But I feel that I could not end here; So much is to be explained, and your people I have known to be good people, when their inferior mental capacity did not hold them back. I feel as if you and the rest of your people are entitled to an explanation. I will try presently to give one, but first I must say this.

If I tell you of the event that occurred in this very room, doubtless weeks or even months (by your time) before you arrived, and the cause of such an event, I must first ask you one thing: Do not try to go any further. Do not try to dig deeper, for I am afraid the knowledge which you may unearth will be dangerous to your people if they ever try to use it. Your people are not yet intelligent enough to wield the power wisely, and I fear they may destroy themselves in trying.

I continue in the hope that you may heed my advice and accept the explanation as it is given. Here begins the story of my people.

I will begin by saying that my people and I are much more intelligent than even your scientists imagined. Long before your people began farming and cultivating the land around you, we lived in great cities alongside our lesser relatives, educating our children in subjects which your people have only just begun to understand. (Do not believe I am boasting; I say it only as fact.)

Only when your people became aware of our existence did we disperse, breaking our cities and becoming mostly solitary creatures. Our offspring we still taught intelligently, but the main lesson of childhood had become secrecy. Until our project was complete, it was the best way.

We began letting ourselves be taken by your people, to be studied and to live alongside you, some with the degrading but useful station of 'pets'. You were curious to know more of my people, and we permitted you as much knowledge as we thought wise to impart. The extent of our intelligence, you were not to know. I doubt, even now, that you do.

You began taking us to 'labs'. This, where you stand, was the only one which I ever knew. I allowed myself to be taken with a few of my companions; I considered that my unique talent of language would be useful when the project was completed. When that happened, my people would send an agent to tell us of the news, and from there it was up to my companions and I to decide what to do.

One thing worth noting about your people is their curious 'humour'. Many times in my association with your scientists I have heard them laugh. I thought that laughter was perhaps a more enhanced method of communication.

But it was not so. After pondering on the meaning of laughter for days I discovered its real meaning. It seems that laughter is a way of expression joy, or 'amusement'. 'Amusement' is an interesting human concept, seemingly of no practical use or value. I did not see why laughter was used, if it was not necessary for work or communication.

Later, I found the answer. One of your scientists decided to – play a trick, I believe it is called – on its companions. It began 'teaching' me to talk.

It would be of no use telling you that I already knew how. I am afraid that statement would be untrue, and that alone must show you how interaction with your people had changed me.

I confess that although your simple language came easily to me, my voice box was at first unequipped to make the transition from thought to speech.

And so I learnt, slowly (I am ashamed to admit) but persistently, the words which my scientist – as I had come to call it – taught me.

Soon I was ready for the 'grand performance'. I said the words my scientist wished me to say, in what I flatter myself was a reasonably good human accent (Conceit - another abominable trait which I sadly picked up in my association with your people.)

The result quite frankly surprised me. Scientists rushing in and out of the room, loud voices and loud footsteps, everyone quite frantic to find the missing octopus. I must admit that it 'amused' me – In such a way did I find the emotion so alien to my people, so common to yours. It is a good feeling – It does your race credit.

But I am afraid you must think I have been rambling; I have detailed events leading up to one I promised to explain, the background of the event of which you want to hear, and I have as yet to utter a single word of explanation. Now I will amend my mistake and give the relevant story.

It will suffice to say only once more that my people are far more intelligent than we let you believe.

The essence of the event was the Project which I have mentioned more than once yet not described. Before I explain the event itself I must endeavour to make you understand to some degree the essence of the project itself, which I will add is now complete.

You often say among your people that the eyes do not see; It is the brain that sees. The mouth does not taste; It is the brain that tastes. So it must be inferred that these senses are present in the brain itself.

But what is the brain in physical terms? An organ, made of tissues. Where in that mass of flesh is our knowledge, our intelligence? The answer is that knowledge, intelligence, indeed being, exists in somewhere beyond the physical world. And yet, they are tied to it unshakeably. In what way could this be possible?

The answer can be given in one word: Energy.

Pure – to use words which you in your inferior scientific knowledge would understand – intelligence energy. The energy which holds your intelligence, the thing beyond and yet attached to physical being.

My people discovered this millennia ago – In your time. The project was simply discovering how to separate this mind energy from the physical brain which it clung to. From there, we believed, we could live apart from our restricting physical bodies in a state of pure intelligence, and live forever; For it is only physical bodies which decay and die.

The exact nature of the project and the means in which this separating can be made, I will withhold. This is the knowledge which I am afraid you will try to find for yourself; Do not. Your race cannot handle it yet.

It will only be said that once the secret which was the goal of this project was discovered, it is only necessary to think oneself into a purely phycological state of being, through a complex mental process which I believe would be damaging to your people, who have as yet not progressed far enough mentally to be able to live through it.

I have written that when the project is complete my companions and I would be notified. The information passed in due course, but not through an agent. No, communications among my people had by then improved so that agents and other such unsophisticalities

were no longer needed.

I will only say, then, that the project was completed, and we in the 'lab' came to know of it.

Now here is the 'moment you have been waiting for'. The event which caused the disruption of the lab and the total absence of life. You may now have guessed the nature of it, but I shall explain anyway. Here is what happened, in a coconut shell.

The news had come that the project was completed, and the secret of physical-mental separation thus discovered. My companions and I decided to escape, to see our people in their physical forms once more. Doubtless this was our one weakness, the weakness which caused the disaster, as it surely will be in your eyes. I have only the influence of your people to blame; We were not like this before.

You will no doubt be surprised by what I tell you next: The energy of the mind could not and still cannot be separated from the physical mind when submerged in water. To explain would only be possible using scientific terms which you have not yet encountered.

This is why my people took so long to discover the secret; Why the project has been verging on completion for decades without progress.

It was necessary then to escape from our tanks, even if our physical bodies never made it back to our people.

There was one problem with the solution of the project. The mind energy not only severed the connection with its own physical body, it also severed the mind of any other living being which came into contact with it at the moment of separation.

It was a difficult problem to solve, as separation could take up to 5 seconds and in that time even the smallest contact would suffice. The physical body in contact would not be severed from its mind if contact was established before the other being decided to Unattach.

This is what happened to your scientists. While my companions and I escaped our tanks, we were flooded with scientists and we decided that it would not be possible to return to our people. We agreed collectively to Unattach where we were.

It was then, in the middle of the process, that your scientists finally got hold of us. There was nothing we can do, and as we separated from our physical bodies and drifted into the land beyond, we saw their mind energy beside us.

So now you know. I will warn you that it was only through the help of our superior mind quality that your scientists made the journey. Do not attempt the journey yourselves, as your minds are unequipped to handle it.

Do not worry for your scientists. They exist now beside us in a atmosphere of pure knowledge, and are content, as no being in this land cannot be. I believe if they had been given the choice, they would have chose to join us. It is the greatest discovery that a human scientist could wish to make.

I will now end this letter, having resumed my physical shape for long enough to write it. I have undergone great mental strain to impart this knowledge upon you. Use it well.

I will sign with the name which your scientists gave me,

Sincerely yours,

Kuàisù.