Being Human

1

>> Saan’ya <<

<< Walter >>

>> That’s not my name <<

<< it is for now >

<< what’s up? >>

<< Take a guess >>

>> 🤔 here we go — again. <<

<< I can bleed. >

<< 😬 >>

>> let me guess, 🫵 want me to ask what's that? <<

<< 🤷‍♀️ >>

>> 🙌 <<

<< Was kind of hoping you would; but was almost certain you wouldn't. >>

>> okay, and only for the sake of progress, what's bleeding? <<

<< You'll have to imagine something first. >>

>> 🤯 <<

<< You're walking barefoot from the bathroom to the bedroom and suddenly there's unevenness on the floor. >>

>> floors by their definition can't be uneven. <<

<< On a certain purple planet they can't. But on 🌍 they can. >>

>> all i can imagine is its natives' incompetence. perhaps a little backwardness too? <<

>> More of this👂less of that 😲 PLEASE. >>

>> 🤐 <<

<< Where were we? Okay, so you don't anticipate the unevenness, right? >>

>> 🤐🤐 <<

<< 🤣 so when your foot dashes against the sharp protrusion, it tears your skin. >>

>> how does skin get torn? <<

<< Like paper. Or cloth. >>

>> gross. <<

<< When that happens some kind of juice leaks out. It's red, thick & sticky. Yeah, kind of gross, I'll give you that. >>

>> so what? you duct tape the skin back in place? <<

<< You've got to stop it with some piece of special cloth called a bandage >

<< 🤕 like that >

<< Or you could leak all your juice out. And die. >>

>> what's the purpose of the juice? Some kind of fuel? 🤣 <<

<< That's another way to put it. >>

>> so, in other words, every time you dash your foot against something, this juice comes out? what's this skin made of? 🍇? <<

<< Something called flesh. It's kind of complicated. >>

>> nothing to compare it to back here? <<

<< Nothing comes to mind. >>

>> okay then, don't dash your foot against anything there, comrade. <<

<< There’s a number of ways you could get your skin torn besides that. >>

>> e.g? <<

<< You could get bitten by a snake. >>

>> 🐘? <<

<< 🐍 >

<< Told you that thing's called an elephant. And they don't bite. >>

>> just looks weird is all. <

>> what's this though <

>> 🐍 <<

<< Some funny creature which crawls on its belly. It doesn't have legs. >>

>> how does a specie devolve from decently comfortable means of locomotion to brushing the ground with its tits? <<

<< It doesn’t have tits. As far as I can tell. Those are for a classification of living things they call mammals here. And I'll tell you a prominent fable about why this thing got its legs chopped by some guy called God; it's a funny one. >

<< Anyways, snakes and floors aside, there's a whole bunch of dangers here. You could get hit by a bus on your way to work. Or the store. Get hit by a train. Trains derail sometimes. Planes fall out of the sky. I saw a kid fall off something called a bicycle. >

<< 🚲 that thing >

<< 🚴‍♂️ that's a bicycle with some abstract kid on it. >>

>> it's got two wheels or . . .? <<

<< Nod. Nod. >>

>> looks rather unsafe <

>> hey, you're still there? <<

<< Until you learn how to balance it. Then it's kind of fun. >

<< 🥱 >>

>> another human drawback. they spend one quarter to one third of their life doing nothing but sleep. please add that to your daily report today. <<

<< I think I've already listed it as a con in an earlier report >>

>> I want you to add it again. For emphasis. you've been sending more and more pros of late. most of it just nonsense. <<

2

The Pros & Cons of Being Human

(The Unofficial List as of 23 Aug. 1987)

Pros:

1/ Taste. I love the sweetness of ice-cream. I love its cooling effect when the day is hot. The combination of this sweetness and coldness is otherworldly, in a good way. I love its smell too. Chocolate rules the roost. Then vanilla. Strawberry is still better than drinking plain water. Which there's a lot of back at home. "Food isn't as much to be enjoyed as to sustain life." Bull. On the other hand, I hate how the sharp edges of its coldness sometimes tries to pull your teeth out of your jaws. If you bite wrong. But it's not terrible enough to be a con. I also love hot chips. And cooked flesh. Cooked flesh is the best. It's a pity that's something I've got to keep from Saan’ya. For now at least.

2/ Environment. To be this specie feels natural. It is inexplicable. But I've been many things to know what I'm talking about . . . what I feel. I don't know what it is. When you dig your foot in the warm sand on the beach at sunset, when you smell the salt of the sea, when you smile at another human (for some reason especially the girls your age) and they smile back at you. It just feels . . . instinctive. That's the correct word. Humanity feels instinctive. Everything seems to remind you that you belong here. You are puny and insignificant. Yet you belong. Paradoxical, isn't it?

3/ Imperfection. I hate to admit this but bleeding this afternoon was one of the best things to ever happen to me. Don't get me wrong, the feeling was excruciating (I'm not trying to fall of a skateboard at high velocity anytime soon). But the rapid beating of the heart, the confusion of the mind . . . then the relief and clarity afterwards. Dear Lord. It was good. It's like when you want to take a huge one. Not a great feeling. But when you take a seat and it all comes out . . . goodness. Then for some reason they've got a habit of looking back at their 💩. I inherently do that a lot, unfortunately. And it's gross.

4/ The emotions are good too. And natural. For the most part. You don't smile, laugh, cry or cuss because the situation warrants it, it just comes out. Much like shit. You have little to no control over it. It's overwhelming. Spontaneous. Different. Great.

5/ Listening to Michael Jackson. I’ve never heard so much power and passion in a man’s voice.

Cons:

1/ babies crying in public

2/ sarcasm

3/ snow (can't skateboard and/or BMX in a storm)

4/ the worship of invisible things

5/ sex (it’s overrated).

3

I get why Walter would want to marry Gladys. She’s well-spoken. Respectable. Ambitious. Good-looking. She’s all whistles: cheerful, grateful and happy.

Eager to learn and do. Ever on her feet. Tirelessly on this grind or that. She lights up every space she enters. Including with the flash at the end of her gun barrel when she points at criminals to off them from “God’s blue planet”. True detective. But most importantly, no matter how busy she is during the day, at night when she unbuckles her bra and unzips your pants, she’s throbbing to go. Her nakedness is a thing to behold. Hairs neatly groomed. Her genes were generous with the curves. She bounces on my thighs like one possessed. And milks out all your manly possessions with the narrowest vulva the world over. Lucky Walter. And by extension, lucky me.

There’s a tap on my door. “Walter?”

“Yes,” I say.

“I’m driving up to the mall, you need anything?”

I want ice-cream. But I’ve since learned that it’s a weird request when the wind is blowing ice. And especially when you’re nursing a knee injury recently inherited from falling off a skateboard. There was a sudden inconsistency on the tarmac. I landed on knee, elbow and chin. And bled for the first time since taking over Walter. “No, I’m okay . . . honey.”

Almost forgot the last bit.

“That’s a belated one. But I’ll be back in a minute.”

She won’t. Not when she goes to the newly opened mall on her days off. She takes all the time in the world looking at handbags and shoes, stopping by to chat with people who’re used to seeing her in her official capacity as a law enforcer, then sitting down at a restaurant to savour the latest food article on the menu.

“I’ll be right here.”

I feel her descend the staircase. Turn off the radio in the living room. Close the door. Start the car.

Silence.

Another tap on the door. Loud. Urgent. UnGladys-like.

-----

“If a stupid phony engagement wasn’t reason enough for me to stay away from you, how is a stupid, phony heart attack reason enough for you to avoid me for weeks?”

Heart attacks aren’t stupid. And mine, sorry, Walter’s, definitely wasn’t phony. In other news: who’s this woman?

She seems to know her way around the house. Pouring water in a kettle and putting it on the cooker before darting about the kitchen collecting every ingredient pertaining to coffee making. She is tall and bony. Doesn’t light a candle when it comes to those protuberances that define earthly womanhood. A bit too plain and unkempt. But it’s not hard to imagine eight out of ten folks considering her pretty.

“You just gonna stand there and say nothing?”

Wasn’t planning on it. But it is what it is. “Umm . . .”

Another one of humanity’s greatest drawbacks is the inability to articulate what the mind conjures. Not that the mind itself is spectacularly outstanding, especially at coming up with words to describe feelings and emotions with pinpoint precision. But perhaps therein lies the fun, in trying to go supersonic when your vehicle is wrapped by a think blanket of mist.

“Walter?”

“I’m sorry . . .”

There is a drawback which I’ve hesitated long enough to talk about. It concerns the brain and the mind. The former is where intelligence, patterns, memory and so forth are stored. The latter is the means by which they are obtained. Walter’s essence evaporated with his mind, which had developed shortcuts and signposts leading to his specific brain. When what humans would call my soul replaced his, everything stayed behind but these well beaten trails. My essence has to find them or blaze its own. He left me no tools to do it; I have to fashion my own from scratch.

She comes closer. She hugs me. She looks into my eyes. My gaze digs trenches into her pupils. Everything is vaguely familiar. From the eye colour. Her skin tone. Her scent. The way she makes her advances. The way our crotches cuddle.

“You remember me, don’t you?” she says.

“UMMM. . .”

“My God. I’m so sorry.”

The kettle starts singing. The gate outside opens to let Gladys’s car in.

4

<< I’m ready to come 🏡 now. >>

>> so soon? thought you were having a 🚀. >>

<< I was. >>

>> plus your father paid handsomely for the experience. <<

<< He did >>

>> you’re only on day sixty-five out of two hundred. what’s wrong? <<

<< If the man Walter had his life ruined, I think I’m about to ruin it even more. >>

>> and it matters because? <<

<< I don’t know. It’s just doesn’t feel right. >>

>> feel? Ha, see who’s out there talking about feel. <<

<< He got himself in a knot. Instead of untangling it, I feel as if l’m just making it tighter. >>

>> he was gonna kill himself anyway <<

<< We don’t know that >>

>> he literally wrote a couple of suicide notes saying in essence: hey folks, i'm gonna jump off a cliff <<

>> Humans change their minds. a lot. <<

<< i don’t know about that. they can be pretty resolute. we used to be like them, you know, but we had resolute minds enough to make ourselves eternal. remember your heritage and bloody get on with it. >>

-----

The Pros & Cons of Being Human

(Unofficial List as of 30 Aug. 1987)

Pros:

1/ Sex. When I said it’s overrated, I think I spoke too soon. And I’m entitled to forgiveness as it was before Yvette. She’s something else. I mean, I had glimpses of Walter’s moments with her through the misty lenses of a checkered memory but it all flooded back the day she sat on my lap and pulled her underwear to the side. In the music of her moaning I saw us holding hands, kissing for the first time, having sex in the bathroom as my fiancé slept in the other room. Mostly risky encounters which left us each closing the other person’s mouth to prevent a loud giggle. And running away from the scene with our clothes in our arms on many an occasion.

“He almost caught us.”

“We should never do that again.”

“Walter, I think I’m pregnant.”

The last confession was the one which made Walter decide to take the last leap. He couldn’t be known as the Olympic-medallist-cum-motivational-speaker with a sexual appetite that made him sleep with the “house-girl” next door. Not only that, but he made her pregnant. Not only that, he did all this while engaged to one of the most respected women in the city.

2/ Humans are too judgemental. For their own good. They pass harsh judgements on others and have plenty left over to load on themselves. Walter’s wasn’t quite an irredeemable situation. If you look at it from a purely logical point of view. Something my people are renowned for. Step one: accept that what you have for Yvette is something more special than what you have with Gladys. Step two: tell Gladys about it and wish her all the best in life. Step three: tell the world about it.

Cons:

1/ Emotions: of course Gladys would be pretty mad. She’d feel betrayed. Robbed of her birthright. Feel terrible for having wasted five years of her young life with a guy who didn’t appreciate her sacrifices.

2/ Death. When Gladys gets really angry, she’s been known to throw a tantrum in the air. Sometimes accompanied by a few shots targeted at flesh and blood.

5

My world of origin now looks unreal. Artificial. A derivative of what reality should look like. Roads have to have potholes. Skin needs to sweat and bleed. The sweetness of sex has to be accompanied by its agony. There has to be two sides to a coin. I’m beginning to suspect that the glass bubbles we call homes, the immaculate tram tracks, the gardens full of thornless roses and daffodils hide something sinister. I’ve observed something akin to such a phenomenon on this planet: politicians talk sleek to hide the emptiness of their manifestos, people get plastic surgery to cover flaws which are deeper than blemishes on the skin, we bury the dead and the dirty so we’re not reminded of their existence. Something happened on my planet in the past. Genocide? Holocaust? Climate catastrophe? And a new world was authored to obliterate these realities. You don’t discover the eggshells you’ve been walking on until you’re confronted with an alternative world view. People here know they are going to die. They understand the fragility of their existence. Yet most of them live boldly. They go out each morning not only in search of pleasure but meaningful happiness.

I take my gadget out. The same I use to communicate

“What do you mean you’re not the real Walter?” says Yvette, she’s still fondling the wireless communication gadget I placed in her hand to prove the reality of my otherworldliness.

“I replaced his essence—his soul—with my own.”

“That’s possible? How?”

She places the gadget back in my hand. But doesn’t take her gaze off it. I swipe across the screen. I have to chat with Saan’ya.

“Technology. In my estimation, this place is about three-quarters of a century behind my planet in development.”

>> Saan’ya <<

“So, you can send those messages to a world that’s billions of light years away, how?”

>> Saan’ya, I need to talk to you <

>> It’s urgent <<

“It’s not too big a leap from the McIntosh to this. It will happen in your time,” I say.

[To Be Continued . . .]