by Gene Brewer
I once read a B-TIKian book called The Travels of Gulliver. The author got it about right.
THE role of government officials is to make certain that their constituents fear the loss of their money-making work. This is seen in every election period, when politicians of all denominations promise more jobs (regardless of kind) than their opponents can come up with. At the same time, each promises to lower government taxes on products and wages so that there will be more money to buy even more unneeded devices.
The question you are all asking yourselves is: Why don’t those who do most of the work (for a tiny fraction of the profits) refuse to do it? Or at least vote to increase the taxes on the wealthy to pay for their society’s needs? Answer: Their leaders dangle the hope that they, too, can become rich if they work hard enough or win a state-supported gambling game.
It’s time for lunch. I hope it’s not flavored cartilage again.
ONE of the most remarkable things about B-TIK is the flowers. These are found elsewhere in the GALAXY, but not in the great variety and abundance seen here. Their purpose is to attract insects to spread their [gametes] to the receptors of others of their species. On EARTH even the plants are preoccupied with sex!
The trees are just as spectacular. We have a few on K-PAX, of course, those that don’t need much water, but not nearly so many as still cover large areas of this PLANET despite their constant diminishment by human activity. I am particularly impressed by the those of red wood, which are extremely hardy and live for thousands of years. Even the human beings are awed by them. Other varieties, though not so tall, are beautiful as well, especially in the “autumn” (the opposite of spring). At that time of year the colors of their leaves rival those of the flowers. The [holograms?] in our libraries do not convey the full intensity of the sights, sounds, and aromas of the fields and forests. I think I’ll try to re-program these when I get back.
Maybe I’ll bring a sample of the aromatic soil. Wait till you smell it!
ONE [redeeming] feature of the sapiens is that even they sometimes seem to realize how utterly foolish they are. They love to make fun of each other, and even themselves. I have seen sapiens of all countries laugh at themselves until they cried.
THE rich variety of the fauna is also astonishing, beings of every imaginable size and shape. The number of [beetle?] species alone is staggering, and they come in a million different patterns and colors. I have never seen anything like it anywhere else in the GALAXY.
Insects in general, for the sapiens, are something to be despised, to be swatted, poisoned, and stepped on at every opportunity. Otherwise the humans, for the most part, take little notice of the amazing iridescence of the beetles, or the astonishing variety of the other animal species, or the rich and vibrant colors of the spring flowers or autumn trees, the EARTH itself. Sometimes I think they don’t know what they have.
* * *
ERNIE, having overcome his fear of death, thanks to howie’s showing him what it was like, is ready for the larger WORLD. But now there’s another problem (there always is with the sapiens): despite his years locked in a hospital, he doesn’t want to leave. Not because he’s afraid of what’s outside the walls—he wants to stay and help the other patients.
You never know what these humans are going to do next!
THOUGH they pretend otherwise, most sapiens love war. This is seen in their “national anthems,” in the preservation of old battlefields and implements of destruction, and in their enjoyment of films depicting what they call “the blood and guts” of military campaigns. Statues are erected, and even peaceful holidays call for military parades. But the propaganda is far more subtle than that. War and combat are ingrained into the human way of thinking like deep roots in fertile soil. They “fight” everything from tooth decay to cancer, “declare war” on poverty and certain drugs, “battle” their opponents in all types of contests and games, where their anthems are played and their flags (painted cloths representing one or another country) guarded by armed soldiers. People even fight for the right to carry weapons!
The religions are a key part of the program, the sapiens’ literature recording the driving out of this or that foe from various territories. But the funniest, or saddest, element of all this is that every religious and government leader promises his [constituents] that a particular deity is on their side in the largest and smallest encounters. Think about that—all two hundred countries of EARTH have one or another god (sometimes the same one!) protecting its soldiers from harm and ensuring ultimate “victory.” And it has been this way since the beginning of time.
Here comes patient chuck...
Chuck wanted to [unload] on me again. This seems to make him feel better, as it does with all the other patients. It must be something like lancing a boil.
A kind of economic segregation has arisen all around B-TIK. Those different from the majority are allowed to secure only the lowest-paying jobs, the ones most humans find exhausting or distasteful. Anger and frustration build, and those at the bottom of the scale try to correct the imbalance by taking what they need from the wealthier sapiens. The result is that many of the former are placed in locked cubes, out of sight of the more prosperous majorities.
The cycle returns again to the elected officials, who promise the voters they will be “tough on crime” (criminals). Rarely does one of them indicate a desire to look into the causes of the frustration and, if he does so, is usually defeated in the succeeding election. In any case, his constituents already know the causes and have little interest in providing solutions at the cost of their own jobs or increases in their tax rates. It’s expensive enough just to live their own comfortable lives and to build the cubes into which criminals are locked, without spending even more money to eliminate the frustrations. Cubes are cheaper and, for some reason, more satisfying.
I may have given the impression that all humans are “a piece of shit” (yet another colorful B-TIKian term). This is not true. Some sapiens are virtually K-PAXian in their pacific nature and empathy. On our travels we came across people who shared everything they had with rob and me. Others have devoted most of their lives to righting the injustices perpetrated on their fellow humans by the more ruthless among them. There are growing numbers of sapiens concerned about the plight of nonhuman beings and of the EARTH itself. These beings would be welcome on K-PAX, or any other PLANET. Here, unfortunately, they are still in the fractional minority.
In fact, most humans are quite friendly and likeable as individuals. It’s when they band together that the trouble starts. Their worst attributes are reinforced in the larger communities, where selfish desires always seem to prevail. Again, I think this may be related to fear. The dominant tend to intimidate the weak and the caring, who are afraid to lose what little they have. It’s a paradox unique to homo sapiens.
Another mystery for the next visitor to solve.
ON level four are sapiens who feel the need to harm others of their own species. Yet there are many more such beings outside these walls who produce tobacco or meat products or weapons of all kinds, which kill thousands of people every day. [Untranslatable K-PAXian expression]
SAPIENS love to justify their behavior toward the other beings by invoking their “superior” brainpower. I thought I would die laughing when I first heard that one. What could be dumber than beings who destroy their own home for the sake of cheap and easy short-time gains, especially when they have nowhere else to go?
IN fact, most people seem to have a serious and compelling need to feel superior to someone—anyone—else. For a hundred millennia the males of the species have considered themselves superior to the females, and the lighter-skinned humans decreed they were better (in what way?) than those with darker coverings. These fallacies have diminished more recently, though they are still in evidence throughout their tiny WORLD. But the superiority felt by the sapiens over their fellow inhabitants of the EARTH has been relentlessly maintained to the present time.
Human children
are nurtured with the milk of other animals, sometimes from the first moments of their lives. As soon as they are able to eat solid food, it comes to them in little jars of flesh. Later, they are fed muscles and organs of all kinds, often disguised by euphemistic names (for example, “hamburger” or “hot dog” for ground-up parts). It is only after many years that the children realize what they have been eating, and by then it is difficult to change, especially when fleshy food is continually put before them and there seems to be no alternative. To ease their consciences and [assuage] their guilt, they rationalize the practice and pass it on to the next generation. And so it goes from millennium to millennium.
THIS day I watched a television program. Then another one on a different wavelength. And a third. All of them were about a wife “cheating” (having sexual relations with another person) on her legalized companion, or the opposite way. Same story, different “actors.” I thought maybe the countless female viewers chose which one to stare at because of the commercial messages. But they, too, were all the same.
The sports programs, on the other side, allow a male human to live his otherwise dull life [vicariously].
The nonhuman animals of B-TIK are relegated to lower-class standing in a variety of clever ways:
if a person is base, callous, cruel, or gross, he is an “animal”—never mind that human beings are the only species who exhibit these traits
human animals eat, nonhumans “feed”
humans conceive children; other animals “breed”
nonhumans don’t even have children; they produce “cubs”, “kids”, “foals”, “lambs”, “joeys”, and the like
people don’t kill nonhuman animals. They merely “hunt”, “catch”, “harvest”, “manage”, “cull”, “slaughter”, and “sacrifice” them
sapiens make love; all other animals “mate”
etc., etc., etc.
ANOTHER subtle method of indoctrination, but quite effective. It has even been used to justify the enslavement and extermination of various “unfeeling, animal-like” races of homo sapiens themselves! One of the most recent of these [purges] is called the “holocaust.”
If you’re a chicken (a non-flying bird) on B-TIK, every day is a holocaust.
IN country botswana we came across a cow farm surrounded by fences so that other animals couldn’t enter. Many of the wildebeests had died of thirst. The survivors told me they could smell the water but couldn’t get to it. I made a hole in the fence and let them drink. The farmer came at us with a knife. When I reappeared behind him, he dropped it and fell to his knees. I explained the situation to him and he bowed many times and promised not to close the hole.
Another time, in Switzerland, I saw a woman with her face pressed against the window of a restaurant (a place to eat for money). I told the proprietor about K-PAX and he let her in.
THAT’S how it is with the sapiens. It seems that they can be re-educated, but only one at a time. And there are so many of them!
SOME humans blame technology for all their problems. Others expect it to solve them all. They remind me of the blind giants on E-FAP, who put out their eyes so they won’t see the beings nibbling on their feet.
IN recent times, a few astute sapiens have begun to notice that the wholesale destruction of nonhuman beings has driven many of these species to extinction. The disregard for the individual worth of nonsapiens is only one of the reasons for this mass specieside. The other is the vast overpopulation of the EARTH with the humans themselves.
Again, this is closely tied to their manifold religions, none of which seem to be concerned about the choking of their PLANET by incredible numbers of homo sapiens. In fact, many of their books encourage people to “multiply and subdue the EARTH.” This is a clear case of getting the message wrong. What their gods must have said, if they said anything, was, “DO NOT MULTIPLY AND SUBDUE THE EARTH—THIS CAN ONLY MEAN TROUBLE!”
And get this: to ostensibly save a few of the nonhuman species from extinction, they put them in prisons. This practice is for whose benefit, one wonders.
HERE is another example of human schizophrenia: many people consider their dogs and cats to be part of their families, but willingly eat any other animal that moves. What could be crazier than that?
THE sapiens’ endless production of more and more copies of themselves has endangered even their own survival. The only convenient source of materials and energy, the EARTH itself, has nearly run out of both. Here is the solution the “thinking men” have come up with for the problem of more humans and less resources: produce more resources! As an example, they vigorously investigate, with their limited methods and intellect, what they call “alternate” forms of energy, all of which have as much negative impact on their PLANET as the burning of their dead fossils. I have been coming here since 1963 (the number of years since the demise of the deity called Jesus Christ, murdered, of course, by the sapiens in power at the time), and rarely have I heard anyone in a position of authority propose that humans reduce their swollen numbers as a way to minimize their energy (and other) problems. Instead, as a result of government propaganda, they plant trees and recycle garbage. Apparently this makes them feel as if they’re doing something, and takes their minds off the real causes of their environmental problems. People!
CURIOUS thing: most sapiens put their dead relatives in the ground to rot. Who can understand these beings?
HERE is an example of how fear underlies all sapiens thoughts and actions: Rob and I stopped to rest one hot night in a cool, freshly-dug grave. A drunken sapiens, taking a shortcut to his home, fell in with us. Suddenly realizing where he was, he began clawing feverishly at the sides of the hole, trying desperately to climb out of the darkness. I said, “You’ll never make it, buddy.” But he did.
ONE of the most amazing of the EARTH beings are the whales. Far more intelligent than the sapiens, they have nonetheless been persecuted and nearly annihilated since humans took to the seas in their floating vessels. They haven’t the slightest interest in retaliation, preferring extinction to “fighting back”.
What gentle, complex minds they have! They can think on several levels at once: singing, feeding their children, performing mathematical calculations, creating poetry, contemplating their surroundings, and a dozen other mental activities all at the same time.
I helped one to escape from a place called “sea world,” where he was confined to a watery tank not much bigger than himself. In return, he described all the species of sea plants and animals within several jarts of our location in the “pacific” ocean. He even gave me a brief ride down to the depths of the sea. A unique experience, I assure you!
He said the ever-increasing noise levels were making it very difficult to communicate and to navigate the waters, or even to think. I told him it wasn’t much better on the land.
THERE is nothing like these beings on K-PAX. If I could, I would bring him home for a visit. But there’s not enough water in all the underground resources to provide him a place big enough to survive. Perhaps we should suggest that the beings of another of the watery PLANETS offer them sanctuary until such time as the humans further evolve or destroy themselves, whichever comes first.
* * *
ASIDE from the death and destruction perpetrated by the sapiens, the waste is astonishing. The time they spend on sports alone would be enough to completely rebuild their WORLD. Think what they could accomplish if they were to eliminate all the [crap] from their thoughts!
THERE are many things I’ll miss when I leave B-TIK—the wonderful fruits, the great variety and emotional warmth of the nonhuman animals, the lush vegetation, the snow-topped mountains, the wide fields of golden grains and, of course, a few of the sapiens. But one thing I won’t miss is the constant barrage of “love” and “sex” emanating from the radios, television screens, magazines (flimsy books), and almost everything else. If I stayed here a million years, I would never be able to comprehend the preoccupation these beings have with their obsessiv
e indulgences, which can only lead to loss and disaster.
Even their religious books command them to love one another (rarely any other species), as if this can be mandated by their various gods. Love (as I understand the term) stems from a mysterious delight in certain characteristics exhibited by another being. If that is the case, how can one be commanded to love someone whose attributes are repugnant to him? Or, if so, what meaning has a similar feeling toward a being you like? Surely the gods must have meant, instead, for sapiens to respect one another.
Love, for the sapiens, is often (but not always) equated with sex. How, I ask, can something allegedly beautiful be linked to something so painful and disgusting? It truly [boggles] the mind! And it’s everywhere—it seems to be the only reason males and females come together, regardless of how much they pretend otherwise. It is quite amusing to watch them dance around the subject, like a double STAR, until it finally becomes mutually desirable (if that’s the right word).
To lighten things a little, I offer this humorous [tidbit?].
There are six billion homo sapiens on B-TIK, and the numbers are increasing by the minute. So what gets its share of the money individual humans are taxed? Fertility research! I don’t think I’ve heard anything funnier anywhere else in the GALAXY.
WE accidentally attended a religious meeting once, rob and I. It was in country united states, state of alabama. The day was wonderfully warm, like on K-PAX, and we heard loud music coming from inside the little god-worshiping structure. We were drawn in. Strange relationship, music and religion. The clear rhythms seemed to get the human beings set up to hear the propaganda. One wonders what other messages are conveyed to the sapiens through the vibrations of music.
There was a lot of wailing and shouting during the speaking phase of the meeting, some of them begging to be cured of various afflictions. I detected an enormous amount of fear in these beings, yet those anxieties were almost completely [alleviated] by participation in this “service.” It must be something like gene’s hypnosis trick.