In the Milky Way Galaxy there is another planet with humanoid type beings, who also send their children to school. This is a slice of life from that planet.
There was a little boy named XV who liked to hit other children. When the other children expressed pain after being struck, or pushed, or knocked down, there was no expression on the face of XV, except for perhaps excitement. Empathy is the word I'm looking for to translate this alien experience- there was no empathy for another's pain in the little boy.
The parents of A,B, and C in the small 'neighborhood' where this is taking place, (on this planet there are not actual neighborhoods but this is as close a translation to our language and concepts as I can come) had watched XV carefully for several years. XV sometimes came to their home to play with A, B, and C. One year XV slammed a tritium gate from an interlocker against a bulkhead of a grain unit, again and again, aganst the skull of little B, then only 3 earth years of age. Little B was not quite the same afterwards. The Parents of XV were told of this, but thought it was an accident. It was an accident to them even though the distance of the action was about 13 inches from XV's face from B, but he did not 'see' little B.
Years went by and the parents of A,B,and C wondered how XV would do. Perhaps he would grow out of this violence.
One day though, the important day from whence this interstellar tale derives, XV took a metal pipe like one of our baseball bats, and struck A in the head, missing his vision unit (eye) by about a 1/16 of an inch, while at school. The Teacher interogated the victim of the incident, A, and decided XV had not meant to swing the bar, and this was an accident.
The parents of A,B, and C were alarmed. The actions of XV had not stopped with age; they were continueing and growing in proportion. The Teacher was protective of XV and refused to see anything but accidents. The Parents of A,B, and C talked to all the other parents in the school and found similar stories about their own children, accidents from XV, and something else. ON Earth when humans are sad or fearful they sometimes cry. On this planet they cry too, but it is in the form of a kind of substance that to us would look like dust. Their version of 'dust up', as you might imagine, is much different from ours, but the same thing is happening; people are sad or fearful or both.
It turns out the teacher had made every last student cry dust, and half the children had been removed from the school because of this dust up. The parents did not want their children to be in fear of the Teacher, and they did not want their children to be hurt by an accident from XV. As the Parents of A,B and C looked into this further, they realized their own children had been made to suffer also.
The little community where this took place, developed an opinion of the father of A,B and C, and the opinion was not good. You see, the Father was causing all this problem. Little XV was a nice unit, and if the father said these were not accidents, but deliberate, it meant XV was a monster. The father said that it would be best to confront and help XV now as a child, and not later as a young man of 20, where it was doubtful he would listen or be approachable any longer. Every parent who'd removed their children had a story about XV hurting their children, and in every case it was an accident. None the less, it was not the Teacher who was pressuring and making dust from the children, and not XV who hurt others; but it was the father of A, B, and C who caused this needless commotion.
The next solar pattern there will be only one family in the little school house unless something has changed. All the families but one will remove their children. The father of A, B, and C is not looking for bad units or good units, but wants behavior to change. He will have to face many authorities as he attempts to communicate this novel concept. Meanwhile, as is so often the case on this alien planet, many people misunderstand the father, and belittle or isolate his actions to make them meaningless.
But there is a bright spot. In the middle of this dark, a family from the natives of the original 'rock crushers', a kind of remnant from a past age on the planet where hunter gatherers, or those most anagolous to them in our terms, called the father to talk to him. They had a wonderful grandaughter who was very kind, the apple (or Xionate) of their eye, and they did not want any harm to come to her. Rock Crushers do not normally call the people from which the father of A, B, and C come from, because there is a division of culture and history from their respective peoples. Sponge Sitters, they are called. Anyway, the Sponge Sitter, the father was glad in his heart the Rockcrusher family called him. It turns out they knew everything he knew, about the teacher and the dangerous and troubled child, XV. They would join the approach to the authorities of the Sponge Sitter with the father. It turns out the father, who is very strange to most people, was understood by these Rockcrushers to be a good man, and one worth standing with.
"It's going to be alright." the grandmother Rockcrusher told the father, "Don't be so excited, calm down."
The Rockcrusher family could see past the cultural divide and understood the father had moments of great excitability.
Who knows where the little drama will go, on this distant planet so removed from our own, where groups of people never misunderstand an individual and isolate him, and identify those needing help early and prevent tragedy later on in life? Please have a moment of compassion for these long lost star cousins of ours, who have a difficult road to travel in their troubled world.
munk
There was a little boy named XV who liked to hit other children. When the other children expressed pain after being struck, or pushed, or knocked down, there was no expression on the face of XV, except for perhaps excitement. Empathy is the word I'm looking for to translate this alien experience- there was no empathy for another's pain in the little boy.
The parents of A,B, and C in the small 'neighborhood' where this is taking place, (on this planet there are not actual neighborhoods but this is as close a translation to our language and concepts as I can come) had watched XV carefully for several years. XV sometimes came to their home to play with A, B, and C. One year XV slammed a tritium gate from an interlocker against a bulkhead of a grain unit, again and again, aganst the skull of little B, then only 3 earth years of age. Little B was not quite the same afterwards. The Parents of XV were told of this, but thought it was an accident. It was an accident to them even though the distance of the action was about 13 inches from XV's face from B, but he did not 'see' little B.
Years went by and the parents of A,B,and C wondered how XV would do. Perhaps he would grow out of this violence.
One day though, the important day from whence this interstellar tale derives, XV took a metal pipe like one of our baseball bats, and struck A in the head, missing his vision unit (eye) by about a 1/16 of an inch, while at school. The Teacher interogated the victim of the incident, A, and decided XV had not meant to swing the bar, and this was an accident.
The parents of A,B, and C were alarmed. The actions of XV had not stopped with age; they were continueing and growing in proportion. The Teacher was protective of XV and refused to see anything but accidents. The Parents of A,B, and C talked to all the other parents in the school and found similar stories about their own children, accidents from XV, and something else. ON Earth when humans are sad or fearful they sometimes cry. On this planet they cry too, but it is in the form of a kind of substance that to us would look like dust. Their version of 'dust up', as you might imagine, is much different from ours, but the same thing is happening; people are sad or fearful or both.
It turns out the teacher had made every last student cry dust, and half the children had been removed from the school because of this dust up. The parents did not want their children to be in fear of the Teacher, and they did not want their children to be hurt by an accident from XV. As the Parents of A,B and C looked into this further, they realized their own children had been made to suffer also.
The little community where this took place, developed an opinion of the father of A,B and C, and the opinion was not good. You see, the Father was causing all this problem. Little XV was a nice unit, and if the father said these were not accidents, but deliberate, it meant XV was a monster. The father said that it would be best to confront and help XV now as a child, and not later as a young man of 20, where it was doubtful he would listen or be approachable any longer. Every parent who'd removed their children had a story about XV hurting their children, and in every case it was an accident. None the less, it was not the Teacher who was pressuring and making dust from the children, and not XV who hurt others; but it was the father of A, B, and C who caused this needless commotion.
The next solar pattern there will be only one family in the little school house unless something has changed. All the families but one will remove their children. The father of A, B, and C is not looking for bad units or good units, but wants behavior to change. He will have to face many authorities as he attempts to communicate this novel concept. Meanwhile, as is so often the case on this alien planet, many people misunderstand the father, and belittle or isolate his actions to make them meaningless.
But there is a bright spot. In the middle of this dark, a family from the natives of the original 'rock crushers', a kind of remnant from a past age on the planet where hunter gatherers, or those most anagolous to them in our terms, called the father to talk to him. They had a wonderful grandaughter who was very kind, the apple (or Xionate) of their eye, and they did not want any harm to come to her. Rock Crushers do not normally call the people from which the father of A, B, and C come from, because there is a division of culture and history from their respective peoples. Sponge Sitters, they are called. Anyway, the Sponge Sitter, the father was glad in his heart the Rockcrusher family called him. It turns out they knew everything he knew, about the teacher and the dangerous and troubled child, XV. They would join the approach to the authorities of the Sponge Sitter with the father. It turns out the father, who is very strange to most people, was understood by these Rockcrushers to be a good man, and one worth standing with.
"It's going to be alright." the grandmother Rockcrusher told the father, "Don't be so excited, calm down."
The Rockcrusher family could see past the cultural divide and understood the father had moments of great excitability.
Who knows where the little drama will go, on this distant planet so removed from our own, where groups of people never misunderstand an individual and isolate him, and identify those needing help early and prevent tragedy later on in life? Please have a moment of compassion for these long lost star cousins of ours, who have a difficult road to travel in their troubled world.
munk
