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JULY 2020
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After Dinner Conversation Magazine – November 2020 This magazine publishes fictional stories that explore ethical and philosophical questions in an informal manner. The purpose of these stories is to generate thoughtful discussion in an open and easily accessible manner. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The magazine is published monthly in electronic format. All rights reserved. After Dinner Conversation Magazine is published by After Dinner Conversation in the United States of America. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher. Abstracts and brief quotations may be used without permission for citations, critical articles, or reviews. Contact the publisher for more information at info@afterdinnerconversation.com . ISSN# 2693-8359
Vol. 1, No. 5 .
Copyright © 2020 After Dinner Conversation Editor-In-Chief: Kolby Granville | Acquisitions Editor: Viggy Parr Hampton Design, layout, and discussion questions by After Dinner Conversation Magazine. .
https://www.afterdinnerconversation.com
Table Of Contents FROM THE PUBLISHER .................................................................................... - 4 EVERYONE’S GAY IN SPACE ............................................................................ - 5 THE FORMULA .............................................................................................. - 27 EXTERNALITIES ............................................................................................. - 36 GOD IS ALIVE ................................................................................................ - 50 THE ALPHA-DYE SHIRT FACTORY .................................................................. - 64 THE TRUTH ABOUT THURMAN ..................................................................... - 73 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ........................................................................ - 80 FROM THE EDITOR ....................................................................................... - 81 -
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From the Publisher ***
After Dinner Conversation believes humanity is improved by ethics and morals grounded in philosophical truth.
Philosophical truth is discovered through
intentional reflection and respectful debate. In order to facilitate that process, we have created a growing series of short stories, audio and video podcast discussions, across genres, as accessible examples of abstract ethical and philosophical ideas intended to draw out deeper discussions with friends, family, and students. *** Enjoy these short stories?
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Everyone’s Gay In Space Julie Sondra Decker *** The resemblance was pretty weak for a clone. How old is this photo? he’d asked. And they’d said it was recent. He couldn’t make sense of that. Wasn’t a clone supposed to be a copy of him? Had this duplicate received eternal youth genes when the scientists had scienced him into existence? Your clone began as an embryo at the time you donated the tissue, they’d explained. When he didn’t get it, they’d tried again: He’s in his twenties now. He’s less like a copy and more like your son. The word “son” had made his brain sing. He needed to meet this kid. Sandy had objected. Explosively. Can’t you just be happy? he’d pleaded. We finally have our son! He’s not my son, she’d countered. His wife’s anger seemed pointless to him, though he’d learned long NOVEMBER 2020
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ago not to say such things out loud. But shouldn’t she support his enthusiasm? Sandy knew about his dream of fathering a Douglas Junior Junior. It wouldn’t be Douglas Junior Junior, his wife had squawked in mockery. Another Douglas would be Douglas the Third. He’d never realized those Roman numerals indicated generations of men giving their own names to their boys. He’d anticipated being the first Junior to Juniorify his son, but he should have known better. No matter what he did, it never turned out original. Or innovative. Or worthy. Why did those other guys have to steal his idea? How could you not know what the Roman numerals meant? his wife had clucked. History is full of King Edward the Third and King George the Fifth. He’d never really thought about the kings. Sadly, the clone was not named Douglas. The boy’s name was Patrick. But surely it’d be harmless to privately consider Patrick to be Douglas Junior Junior. And maybe if their meeting went well, he could convince him to adopt “Douglas” as a middle name. So the kid would have something familial to call his own, of course. Not because Douglas Junior needed that sort of thing. They would hit it off during their upcoming meeting at the café, and they’d find out everything they had in common. Do father/son things. Go adventuring. Maybe his clone liked camping as much as his wife didn’t. They could walk some trails. Sleep under the stars. Look up at the universe and discuss how amazing it was that humanity was finally living on other worlds. Ponder if they’d live to see recreational trips to moon restaurants and tourist traps on Mars. He wondered if his boy had ever shared the childhood dream of being an astronaut. This clone wasn’t a son, but he was the closest Douglas Junior would get. Another reason his wife didn’t like it. NOVEMBER 2020
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You should sue! They stole our DNA, she’d hollered, eyes bulging and tension lines surging in her neck. Douglas Junior called that all-toocommon configuration “the chicken neck.” He didn’t like when Sandy did the chicken neck. Sandy always did the chicken neck whenever he did something she didn’t like. Calm down, he’d said, which was another thing she didn’t like. It’s not stealing if we signed papers. We can’t sue anybody. But really, he didn’t understand what legal rights they had, even though he’d scolded Sandy in a reassuring-yet-contemptuous way so she’d stop asking questions. She should be focused on going forward, anyway, not on punishing some faceless company for a two-decade-old mistake. And she only had herself to blame, since the scientists had their DNA because of testing that had been her idea. All because she didn’t want to start a family without making sure their babies wouldn’t be born with the disease that had killed two of her teenage cousins. Douglas Junior had agreed to the testing, thinking it silly but necessary to appease his wife, but they were both carriers and stood a one-in-four chance of passing it on to their child. Sandy’s card club had offered a solution. Many solutions. Get pregnant, one woman had suggested, and then test the fetus. If it has the disease, get an abortion. Sandy objected morally to abortion. Selective abortion is eugenics, another friend had said. Why stop with disease? Abort female fetuses too since it’s so important for Douglas Junior to get his Douglas Junior Junior. But Sandy wouldn’t get an abortion, because only God should decide those things. Well maybe you should just let God give you a baby with the disease if that’s what His plan is, another card club lady had said, and Sandy hadn’t liked that very much. NOVEMBER 2020
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Her other friend had continued hollering about eugenics and disability rights. Why don’t you just adopt? Sandy wanted to experience childbirth. Why don’t you get in vitro fertilization with someone else’s zygote? Sandy was also morally opposed to that, and Douglas Junior himself had no idea what a zygote was, but he figured he was probably morally opposed to it too. Sandy had said in vitro fertilization was like playing God. Douglas Junior would never play God, even if he didn’t really believe in any deities. More opinions. You’re shooting down everyone’s ideas because you love reveling in negativity. Sandy had said she wished they could magically scrub the bad genes out of her cells. So is God opposed to science but fine with magical gene scrubbing? Sandy had responded with the chicken neck and stopped having card club at their house. After the genetic testing, Sandy and Douglas Junior had donated their tissue to the organization researching for a cure, but neither had realized that scientists would screw with their DNA. Sandy had lit up with chickeny lividness when all the pieces of the puzzle had come tumbling out, beginning with the disease research and ending in an accidental clone. What did you think we were going to do? a company representative had asked. You carry a genetic disease. We were trying to cure it. We kind of had to screw with your DNA. Douglas Junior had never thought of it that way. He’d pictured scientists dripping chemicals on strips of DNA that looked like interlinked rubber bands, nodding sagely and recording facts on their clipboards whenever certain compounds healed the broken parts. He knew DNA didn’t “heal” like skin, and he knew DNA wasn’t big enough to see draped NOVEMBER 2020
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across a Petri dish like a rubber band chain, but that was what he always pictured. Instead, it turned out to be some kind of microscopic wizardry that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up when he thought about it. But the scientists weren’t wizards, and no true cure had come from the process so far. They had, however, managed to create a healthy clone that wouldn’t grow up to pass the damaged gene on to its offspring. Patrick was the result, and since Douglas Junior and his wife had declined participating in “artificial” pregnancies, his zygote had gone to another couple. That, Douglas Junior was told, had been a mistake. But with all the projects changing hands and cloning laws shifting over the years, somehow no one had noticed that Douglas Junior had never authorized this particular use of his tissue donation. This “mistake” had been living on the planet for twenty-two years with parents who’d been told the genetic material had been donated for the purpose. Happens more often than you think, the representatives had told him. We’re scientists, but we screw up. We get tired and lazy. We miscommunicate. And sometimes, it has consequences. You remember that one time some lesbians picked a white sperm donor and got a black baby because of a label misread? It was like that. Douglas Junior didn’t remember any story about pregnant lesbians. He didn’t like thinking about that sort of thing. And he didn’t stay updated on science news anyway. He hadn’t expected any of this. He’d just initiated the query to find out whether it was safe to have a baby yet, because the window of opportunity to start their family was closing as Sandy approached the end of her fertile times. He hadn’t expected to find out his genes had already been passed on. A lawsuit was in fact possible, but he wasn’t telling Sandy that. He didn’t want to sue anyone. It would be tiring and expensive and probably really complicated, and plus it would surely sour the potential relationship NOVEMBER 2020
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with his son. Clone. Whatever. Patrick. Patrick had to be a confused young man. He surely had no feeling of roots, no understanding of where he’d come from. He would have identity issues. Patrick probably needed Douglas Junior in his life. He looked at the photo and imagined he saw vulnerability in the kid’s familiar brown eyes. The eyes were the same. Same basic facial features, color scheme, body structure. But Douglas Junior had always been a little chubbier and had never looked quite like this kid in any of his yearbook pictures; it was hard to tell if they had the same face shape. He had to pore over the photograph to pry out scraps of recognition that confirmed their relationship. Maybe meeting him would help put his finger on it. Sandy didn’t want to come. She didn’t want to meet Patrick. He’s a bastard, she’d said. Douglas Junior had no idea what she meant by that. His parents were never married, she’d said, with the blob of red hair pinned on top of her head waggling back and forth to enhance the chicken-neck look. What do you mean his parents were never married? Douglas Junior had demanded. I’m his father, sort of, and I’m married. But not to his mother! Sandy’s hands had fluttered around nervously. Like they were each individual chickens. He doesn’t have a mother, Douglas Junior had explained. I don’t really get it either, but he’s my clone, so all his genes came from me. Right! Sandy had cawed. So his father should be married to nothing! Do you want me to die? Do you want me to be nothing? Douglas Junior did not want his wife to be nothing. But he needed to meet Patrick, regardless of whether he was a bastard. It was for the kid, honestly. That poor young man must’ve felt so NOVEMBER 2020
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lost all his life. No family history, no understanding of himself. And he’d grown up knowing he was a clone! Sure, that wasn’t ridiculously uncommon in today’s world, but twenty years ago if you were a clone you were probably the only one in your school. Douglas Junior could be a good mentor. Maybe help him with his career. Dispense fatherly advice. Give him some shoes to fill. Maybe even literally, since they probably wore the same size shoe. On the meeting day, his wife was still complaining that he evidently wanted her to die, so he avoided her until midday, then quietly slipped out of the house. He wondered whether it would be more like having a son or more like looking back in time in a mirror. When he got to the busy café at lunchtime, the clone was already there. Patrick sat in one of the two chairs, leaning back casually with his legs stretched out under the table, crossed at the ankles. He wore black jeans that clung to his slim legs, a white shirt with an unrecognizable logo on the left side, and a silver chain around his neck that dangled into his shirt, obscuring whatever might be attached to the necklace. Douglas Junior didn’t recognize that posture of his. He’d never sat like that in his life. Patrick had short ash-blond hair--lighter than Douglas Junior’s had been as a twenty-something, so maybe it was chemically treated?--and it was cropped everywhere but in the front, where a lick of hair spiked at his forehead to form a stylish crown above his dark, arched eyebrows. The boy read a magazine and tapped his finger on the table. Douglas Junior smiled, wondering if the tapping was a nervous gesture. The poor kid had probably been awake all night wondering what it would be like to meet his only real genetic relative. His own heart raced, but he kept evidence of that fact off his face and out of his mannerisms like the true actor he knew himself to be. NOVEMBER 2020
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“Patrick,” he greeted his “son,” and the kid snapped out of his magazine to look up. “Sir,” he replied, reaching with his right hand as he laid the magazine down with his left. They shook hands, and Douglas Junior felt awkward that the boy hadn’t stood for the greeting. He was suddenly aware of the various places in which he was sweating. “No ‘sirs’ necessary,” said Douglas Junior. “Just ‘Douglas’ is fine.” Patrick nodded. His hair didn’t move. Some kind of product in there. Douglas Junior wondered if he would’ve been more popular with girls back in the day if he’d done it up like this kid. Ladies liked a groomed man. Too late now, anyway. He was too old to get away with that, and he already had a wife. Patrick was looking him over too. Douglas Junior wondered if the boy considered him a vision of his future. An inspiration? A disappointment? “What do you say we grab some coffee and pastries?” Douglas Junior asked. “Yeah.” Patrick got up and came around the table, and didn’t wince when Douglas Junior tentatively clapped him on the shoulder the way he’d always imagined he would do with a son. “Got an idea,” said Douglas Junior. “How about we get in different lines and see if we end up ordering the same thing?” The quizzical grimace that passed over Patrick’s face embarrassed Douglas Junior. Had he ever made that face at anyone himself? “Uh, not a good idea?” Douglas Junior asked. “Ya know, just thought--we might have the same tastes, wanted to see it in action. No big deal if you don’t want to.” “Yeah, uh.” Patrick ran his hand through his stiff hair from the front to the back, fingers spread like a large, clumsy comb. “If you want to know that, we can just talk about it. We don’t need to play games.” A crease NOVEMBER 2020
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appeared on one side of his lip. It might have been a smile. “All right, no games,” said Douglas Junior, nodding vigorously. So he’d pictured something a little more theatrical--big deal. He couldn’t stop imagining getting back to their table both carrying a mocha and a slice of chocolate cake, and then they’d freeze in picturesque shock, and then they’d laugh like old friends, and then they’d banter like fathers and sons should. “So what am I getting you then, boy? My treat.” “Thanks, sir. Douglas,” he said, and suddenly Douglas Junior felt ridiculous about volunteering to pay. The boy’s next words took his mind off his anxiety. “I’ll have a single-shot mocha, and one of those chocolate cake slices.” Douglas Junior waited for the order while Patrick returned to the table just in case any seat scavengers might try to claim it in spite of the magazine holding down the fort. When he returned with the goods, he dropped the bomb. “You ordered what I was gonna order,” Douglas Junior said. “No bullshit.” Patrick blew steam off his cup and took a sip. “Oh, I believe it.” Douglas Junior’s chair screeched as he pulled it out and sat. “I always wondered about stuff like this. If our tastes are hardwired, you know?” Patrick cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah. I mean it’d be weird if we were made from the same genetic blueprint and we didn’t have anything in common.” “Do you like trains?” Patrick was silent for longer than seemed necessary to think about the question. Finally: “Uh, do I...like them? I guess. What kind of trains?” “You know. The ones that take you from Point A to Point B.” He shrugged. “Oh. I like...that they exist, sure. Trains.” NOVEMBER 2020
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Douglas Junior puffed himself up. “I’m involved with trains. For work. I helped plan the entire network around here.” Patrick finally melted toward interested. Maybe impressed. “Oh, you’re an urban planner? Are you an engineer?” “No, no. But I did help with...you know, the project. Fifteen years ago. I helped the deal go through.” “Okay, so, the business side of it? Something like that?” “Exactly.”
Douglas
Junior
considered
this
his
crowning
achievement. He’d managed a team that created the proposal to win transit planning work for an engineering firm, and ever since then, he felt a swell of pride when he saw the trains. They were, in some sense, his trains. “I’m in engineering,” Patrick volunteered. “Almost done with the degree.” “Oh.” Douglas Junior wondered if there was a train connection. “I don’t suppose you do transit planning?” “Nah. Aerospace.” Patrick grinned. “I’m gonna leave the planet one day.” His boy wanted to be an astronaut. Just like he’d fantasized about in the old days. “Space training, huh,” Douglas Junior rumbled. “That’s a rough path. Challenging.” “I’ll make it. I’m at the top of my class.” Douglas Junior suppressed resentment. He’d really never been at the top of anything, and hadn’t even come close to the science grades necessary. What was with this kid? Here he’d been picturing a bright-eyed younger version of himself who might need a leg up in the world--he’d been thinking of offering him an opportunity to intern at his firm if he needed a job--but apparently this boy was about to tackle a dream Douglas Junior had only managed to chase while asleep. Envy wasn’t appropriate NOVEMBER 2020
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to feel toward one’s offspring, though, surely. A real father should feel proud, not jealous. Still, did they have anything in common? “So we like chocolate,” Douglas Junior said, stirring the coffee and setting the spoon on his paper napkin. “Just something we were born to like, I guess. How ’bout this--what’s your, you know, your type?” This was bound to be a father-son bonding activity: talking guy things. “I always had a thing for redheads, myself. What kind of ladies you like?” “Hah. I’m gay.” Douglas Junior’s mind froze for approximately two and a half seconds. “But,” he said. “But?” Patrick snorted obnoxiously. “I’m guessing you’re straight, then.” Douglas Junior blinked. “Well yeah.” “I’m a little surprised.” Douglas Junior blinked again. “Wait, you thought I was gonna be gay?” “You apparently thought I would be straight, so I guess we’re even.” Douglas Junior’s forehead furrowed. “Why would you think I was gay?” “The community’s pretty supportive of cloning. Lots of the biological donations are from gay folks.” Patrick flashed a genuine smile. “How else are we supposed to take over the universe?” “But if you were copied from me, how can you be gay? I have a wife,” said Douglas Junior, surprised by his dismay. “And I was never gay when I was your age either.” The smile dropped off of Patrick’s face. “So is this a problem, Douglas?” He suddenly wished he’d allowed the kid to stick to “sir.” NOVEMBER 2020
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“I mean I guess it’s not a problem. It’s your life. But.” Patrick folded his arms. Douglas Junior took a bite of his cake and wondered what he was supposed to say now. He couldn’t explain why it bothered him so much that this kid had inherited his chocolate-loving taste buds and then he went around using that mouth to kiss men. “All right, listen,” he said, wiping his mouth with the coffee-stained napkin. “You’ve done better than me with whatever we started from-you’re a nice lookin’ kid, good hair, good job prospects, in good shape. I’m sure you could get a girlfriend. Why’d you choose men?” Patrick’s eyes widened. “A choice? Exactly what century are you from, anyway?” Douglas Junior put his fork down, lip curling in response to the rudeness. “It has to be a choice, because the other possibility is you’re born that way, and I’m living proof it’s not in your genes.” “Really? Then how do we know you didn’t choose to be straight?” Douglas Junior had honestly never thought of that. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. “That came out wrong. Sorry. It’s not as simple as choosing,” Patrick added. “This stuff is complicated--it’s not just a dichotomy of choice versus genes. We don’t have to both be straight or both be gay just because we have the same genome. Sometimes identical twins are different orientations, so why not us?” Douglas Junior loosened up and managed to sip his coffee. He wanted to chug it, but thought his heart might explode if he got a caffeine rush. “You sound like you know a lot about science, boy. Is there a gay gene?” Patrick rolled his eyes. “I do know a lot about science. I’m a scientist. And no, there’s not exactly a gay gene. Though there are genetic markers that correlate positively with homosexuality.” NOVEMBER 2020
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Douglas Junior wished Patrick wouldn’t say “homosexuality” so loudly in this crowded café. “So if you have the markers,” he said, mentally stumbling, “does that mean you’re...more likely to be gay?” “On an individual basis, no. You can really only think about it as a trend for the overall population. There are gay people who don’t have the markers and straight people who have them. Other aspects of a person’s life and environment influence their orientation too. It’s not a building block you just add or delete from someone’s code.” Douglas Junior shook his head. He couldn’t follow the clone’s scientific talk. But he thought he might have just said some people’s genes were gayer than others. “Do we have the gay markers?” “I have no idea.” Patrick’s brown eyes were turned off into the distance now, dull and unfocused, like he was bored. “Why didn’t you get tested?” Patrick faced forward again. “Because who cares? You can’t get diagnosed straight or fail a gay test. If I didn’t have the markers, I’d still be just as gay.” “If you’re a scientist I’d have thought you’d be interested in testing something like that.” Patrick sighed. “I’m an engineer, not a biologist. There’s more than one kind of scientist.” Douglas Junior felt the dismay sinking in his guts. Patrick didn’t respect him at all. All his fantasies were evaporating--being a provider of guidance, a role model, a successful father figure. Instead, the boy was mocking Douglas Junior, judging him. He hadn’t anticipated chasing some twenty-something’s approval, but the insecurity galloped through him. Miserably leaving the topic behind despite his fixation, Douglas Junior stepped into the opening Patrick had left him. NOVEMBER 2020
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“So what kind of science do you do in your school?” Patrick eased into discussing his studies as an engineer and physicist, and Douglas Junior nodded along numbly as he described the upcoming completion of his bachelor’s degree and his plans to pursue higher education and astronaut training. He planned to be living in one of the moon colonies within the next ten years. “The colonies, huh,” said Douglas Junior. “That’s something. So they’re okay with...accepting you, then?” “They who?” “The people in charge of who gets to go.” “When I finish my education and enter the candidacy, I’ll still have to pass some physical tests, but probably.” “But they let....” Douglas Junior decided to just say it. “The colonies are mostly men. Are they okay with you being gay around all those other guys?” There was that eye-roll again. “Are you kidding? Everyone’s gay in space.” “What? I never heard that.” Patrick launched into another jargon-laced explanation, claiming moon colony membership required a seven-year commitment during what was likely to be a large chunk of a person’s childbearing years, but couples were forbidden from reproducing on the moon. Applicants willing to spend that long away from their families were overwhelmingly male, and anyone with a functioning uterus had to undergo temporary chemical sterilization before acceptance. Straight guys faced a long stint without many single women around, and seven years was a long time. “So as you might imagine, gay cis guys are ideal candidates for moon men. All the ‘relations’ we want, which makes for way better morale, and no chance of space babies. You never know; I might just come back with a husband.” NOVEMBER 2020
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Douglas Junior just kept shaking his head. He didn’t know what a “cis guy” was, and now he wouldn’t be able to look at the moon without imagining all the gay sex that must be happening up there. Wait, was he imagining gay sex in a gay way now? Or was there a non-gay way to imagine gay sex? “So,” said Patrick, “should I ask more about your field, or should we cut to the chase and talk about what your problem is with gay people?” Douglas Junior, finding himself on the defense again, hunched his shoulders and cut a square around the line of frosting in his cake. “I don’t think I do have a problem with gay people.” “Well I think you do. What, is it a religious thing?” “No. I’m not religious. My wife is, though.” “Then let me guess. You’re worried I couldn’t have turned out gay if there wasn’t some secret gay code in your body too.” “It’s not about me.” Maybe it was, though. Douglas Junior honestly didn’t know anymore. Wasn’t an identity crisis supposed to be the clone’s job? He winced as he thought about gay sex on the moon again. “I guess I just don’t see how a man could want to do...that. It doesn’t seem natural.” That weird crinkle-grin lifted the corner of Patrick’s mouth again. Douglas Junior didn’t have a crinkle-grin. “Natural, huh?” He leaned back. “If it was up to Nature, I sure wouldn’t be here.” “Well, it’s clear we evolved to have tab A fit into slot B. You don’t get babies if you do it other ways.” “Ahh.” Patrick waved his spoon around thoughtfully, temporarily resembling an orchestra conductor. “So, let’s get this straight. No pun intended.” Douglas Junior stumbled over the pun, but listened as the clone went on. “Any sex that doesn’t produce babies is unnatural. Lack of babies NOVEMBER 2020
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is what makes gay people’s sex bad. Therefore, straight people’s sex becomes natural through babies. Following?” Douglas Junior was not following. But he did know he was being led. “I don’t know,” he muttered into his cake. “What it means, Douglas,” said Patrick, “is that straight people love calling gay people’s sex ‘unnatural’ because of babies, but it’s a bunch of hypocritical bullcrap. You’re applying different rules to us than you apply to yourselves. Unless you people stopped using birth control or nonprocreative positions when I wasn’t looking, or you’re only having sex with infertile partners.” “I don’t think every time you have sex has to lead to a baby, though. Sometimes it’s just to feel good with someone you love.” “And now we’re on the same page, ’cause that’s why I do it, too.” Douglas Junior squinted in annoyance. “I mean it’s for feeling good with the person I want to be the mother of my child, even if she isn’t.” Patrick shrugged, sipping his mocha and leaning back all the way like he had been when Douglas Junior had seen him for the first time. “Yeah, well I’ve done that too.” “Done what?” “Felt good with the mother of my child.” “What child?” “A lesbian couple I know didn’t want the hassle or expense of the alt methods, so I helped them out. I’m the biological father of a two-yearold girl, but they made it clear I’m not in the picture for parenting.” Douglas Junior dimly recollected hearing a different “pregnant lesbian” story recently, but couldn’t remember the context. Why were gay people insidiously seeping into his life? “So,” Patrick finished, waving his spoon with the conductor’s flourish again, “if you judge whose sex is natural based on how many babies NOVEMBER 2020
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got made, I’d say I’m ahead of you there.” Douglas Junior scowled. “You had sex with a woman,” he said flatly. “Doesn’t that at least make you bisexual?” “No, and you know what? I didn’t sign up to teach Queer 101.” “Well you sure acted like you just wanted to talk about gay stuff.” “Because you kept bringing it up!” Patrick no longer oozed with smug composure; he gestured with both hands, frustrated. “I’m sorry,” said Douglas Junior. “I guess I just expected to see more of myself in you.” As they eased into less contentious subject matter, they did find a few more commonalities, but most were superficial. They had the same favorite color. They’d both had electrolysis because they couldn’t stand shaving. They both hated onions and high-pitched noises. Neither had ever kept pets. But those spots of similarity felt like isolated coincidences in the sea of disharmony. Douglas Junior’s mechanical skills were limited to fixing the occasional appliance, but Patrick had excelled at building and engineering from a young age. Douglas Junior had started his career at the bottom as a document scanner and worked his way up to middle management, while Patrick’s professional experience included an internship at an aerospace organization. Douglas Junior enjoyed watching sports, but Patrick had no interest in competition unless it was a chess game. He couldn’t help feeling that his “son” was practically a caricature of nerdiness. He was the kind of guy Douglas Junior would have looked down on in school, not the kind he would have hung out with. This kid was no Douglas Junior Junior. How the hell had he developed into this from an identical seed? Douglas Junior knew he should try harder to connect. He should ask about Patrick’s parents. Learn more about his past and present. Tell him about his redhead wife while trying not to wonder if Patrick had any NOVEMBER 2020
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special preference for redhead boys. Ask if he saw his daughter often and what was her name. Figure out if either of them wanted to try this again. Instead, they shuffled around an exit point in mutual discomfort for about five minutes before mumbling their better get goin’ excuses and shaking hands. Douglas Junior didn’t go home after their rendezvous. He went straight to a triple-X theater and bought a ticket for an individual booth. He sat in the private theater, shut the closet-like door, unwrapped the plastic-packaged headphones, and sat in front of the screen. He chose a guy-on-guy flick. Watched the whole porn without any reaction--not even, to his surprise, disgust. Was he supposed to be disgusted by this if he was really straight, or was it just what it seemed on the surface: complete disinterest? He chose a second film. This one featured a girl-on-girl couple. He only watched a few minutes before it was clear naked ladies were just as appealing to him as they’d always seemed. The experiment was over, but Douglas Junior stayed and enjoyed the rest of the film anyway. Why was Patrick smart, successful, and gay? Why wasn’t Douglas Junior any of those things? Was his grandclone gay? She ought to be double gay, with a gay dad and a lesbian mom. Or did that much gay cancel itself out and make a straight person? Or maybe that’s where bisexual people came from? How gay was gay? Douglas Junior wanted a son. He didn’t want it to be Patrick. Patrick was something that had been taken from him and warped by scientists. Scientists were thieves and liars. They couldn’t even keep genetic samples organized without accidentally creating snotty protoscientists with great hair who were growing up to dominate the moon with their weird lifestyle. Given all the incompetence he’d been witness to, Douglas Junior NOVEMBER 2020
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was no longer convinced that Patrick was even related to him. Did I just disown my clone? he wondered. When he got home Sandy was waiting. He told her about the mistake. He wasn’t really my clone, Douglas Junior said confidently. Science wasn’t really science at all. They’d admitted to mistakes. When nothing worked out, what were you supposed to do--believe common sense, or believe the guy in a lab coat talking gobbledygook? The scientists were probably wrong that Patrick had come from him. The scientists were probably wrong that he and Sandy had a one-infour chance of having a sick baby. The scientists were probably wrong that they were carriers of the disorder in the first place. Nobody on his side of the family had ever been sick from it. And nobody in his family had ever become an astronaut. And nobody in his family had ever been gay. The scientists were wrong. Sandy was mad. She squawked and wobbled her head and threatened to sue. She settled down and cried when he said the corporate jerks wouldn’t admit to any wrongdoing, and that attempting to sue them would just result in getting outsmarted and cheated out of money. And then, after he’d comforted her, he decided they should celebrate by trying to have kids. After all, the scientists were wrong. Sandy got pregnant. Doctors called it a high-risk pregnancy because she was in her forties. They didn’t care, because doctors were scientists and they were never right. They didn’t bother with testing. They didn’t let them perform any intrusive procedures while she was pregnant. They just let Nature do its thing. And when the baby was born healthy, Douglas Junior felt vindicated. Except that the baby was a girl and they couldn’t name it Douglas Junior Junior. NOVEMBER 2020
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When Sandy had a complication several weeks after childbirth, it was doctors who saved her. Douglas Junior feared the worst because doctors were a type of scientist and his wife’s life was in their hands. But they did a good job. They didn’t make a mistake. He wondered which pieces of science were trustworthy. Looking at his daughter, he became ever more convinced that they had simply dodged a bullet rather than proven anything about scientists lying to them. Maybe she really had had a one-in-four chance of being born with that disease. He developed some theories. (He called them theories, anyway.) They became elaborate personal mythologies dedicated to what science was actually true. Sometimes he believed scientists were all scum and neither of them carried the flawed genes. Sometimes he believed only Sandy had it in her blood. Sometimes he believed they both did and their daughter had been lucky. Sometimes there was no clone. Sometimes Patrick really was his clone, and sometimes Patrick had been lying about his science career and his sexual orientation. And sometimes, Douglas Junior believed he really had been cloned, but that the clone wasn’t Patrick. Somewhere out there, there was a Douglas Junior Junior who wasn’t an astronaut, wasn’t gay, and wished he knew more about his real father. When his child was four years old, she started saying she wanted to be an astronaut. You can’t do that, he told her. They won’t let you in. Space is for gay men. Sandy smacked him on the head with her hairbrush and asked him where he’d gotten such a ridiculous idea. A scientist had told him that. A scientist who might have been his clone had told him that. A scientist who might have been a liar had told him that. NOVEMBER 2020
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Douglas Junior told his daughter she could be anything she wanted to be. He’d only been kidding. He wondered if genetic tests would identify him and Patrick as the fathers of each other’s daughters. Science was a liar and he was glad he wasn’t interested in it. He was glad to be on Earth, not on the moon. And he was glad that he didn’t have to lie to anyone. Except sometimes himself. And his wife, for her comfort. And his daughter, to avoid explaining things she’d never understand. Those lies didn’t really count. They were only natural. ***
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Discussion Questions 1. If you found out you had a clone, would you want to meet them? What would be your expectations (if any) about your clone? What questions would you have? 2. Would you be jealous of your clone if he/she were more successful than you? Why would you feel that way (if at all)? 3. What are the various things that cause Douglas Junior to be upset with his clone (Patrick)? Why do they make him upset instead of happy? Conversely, Patrick also seems to be rather upset with Douglas Junior. What are the various things that make Patrick upset with Douglas Junior? In this situation of dual disappointment, who would you rather be in this scenario and why? 4. Are there any traits your clone might have that would cause you to question your own traits/outcomes? 5. What assumptions about the background and upbringing of Douglas Junior and Patrick do you think explain the difference in their outcomes and sexual orientation?
What do you imagine Douglas Junior’s
upbringing was like compared to Patrick’s? ***
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The Formula Richard A. Shury *** “Birthday boys!” The shouts of the young men echoed through the small space, bouncing off hardened plastic and safety glass. “This is going to be too good, man!” “When do the girls arrive?” “Not til tomorrow afternoon. Tonight’s all about the lads!” “We’re gonna get you guys fucked up!” Laughter and noise filled the car. Brent, driving, turned around to talk to the boys in the back seat. “I heard about this bar with cheap shots, and loose women.” “You’ll be fine, you bronze Adonis,” replied Jalil, “but we’ve gotta get Sam laid. It’s his birthday, and he’s fucking hopeless.” “I do alright,” Sam sulked, underneath the boos of his companions. In the passenger seat, Ali looked at Brent, waving his hands. “I told you to watch the fucking road. I don’t want to die before we get Sam so drunk he pukes.” “Shit, we’ve done that before,” Jalil called. NOVEMBER 2020
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The car swerved a little. Around them, the motorway rushed past, wobbling and then straightening out. Up ahead, the outline of a bridge hove into view, large spokes stabbing down from a wheel in the sky to impale the concrete monolith at various points. “Fuck sakes.” Ali reached over and slapped a button next to the steering wheel. “Hey!” Brent said, as the steering wheel and pedals withdrew. “Automated driver activated,” the car said, in a soothing, feminine voice. “To change the destination, please use the control board. Enjoy your journey.” “That’s better,” Ali said, kicking the lever near the foot of his chair. There was a click, and the chair spun around; he faced Jalil and Sam. “Oh wait, what a terrible view.” Sam pulled the finger. “Why do you even bother driving?” Jalil asked, as Brent spun his chair to join them. “I like it. Aren’t you going to take the test?” “What’s the point? They’re going to ban the manual option soon anyway.” “You never know, it might not go through. Anyway, driving is cool man. It’s fun. Like, kinda zen. I like the drive down to Swanage, to my parents’ place. It’s really nice.” A beer can cracked open. “But you can’t do this when you’re driving!” Ali handed the can to Brent, cracked a few more. The boys yelled cheers, and tipped their heads back. “Yes man, this is excellent. Especially now Brent can buy us beers.” “The only thing this car needs is a pisser,” Sam said. “Piss in the can. Now that Brent’s not driving it’ll be a smooth ride.” “You sure we’ll be able to get in the clubs?” Ali asked. “Brent’s the only one who’s eighteen.” NOVEMBER 2020
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“I will be on Sunday,” Sam said, sniffing the bright blue can in his hand. He took a sip. “Sunday’s too fucking late.” “We’ve got the IDs, so quit worrying.” “But they won’t stand up to more than the local scan.” “These hick bars aren’t going to have the full connection. The national database isn’t even running properly yet,” Brent replied. Ali tipped the remains of his can into his mouth, crushed it in his hand, dropped it, and belched. “How do you know?” “Don’t you watch any news?” “Nah, fuck that. Too depressing.” “Well anyway, it’ll be fine. This is going be a good…” Brent trailed off as he saw the look on Sam and Jalil’s faces change. Their eyes went wide, and they threw their arms up in front of their faces. Ali started to turn and look; his yell was still half-formed in his throat when the semi crashed through the front of the car. “Collision war–“ the car began, then stopped abruptly. The vehicle collapsed, its glass splintering into bright beads, its metal struts compressing, folding in such a way as to provide maximum protection for the occupants. The car buckled against the side of the larger vehicle for a moment, and then was thrown clear, crashing over the side of the bridge and hanging in mid-air, a cartoon forgetting about gravity. Then it was in the river and bobbing, a crumpled mess. The displaced water reclaimed its place, crawling through the openings in what remained of the vehicle. *** From its base several kilometers away, the emergency drone was dispatched with an efficiency which easily outstripped anything human hands could have produced. The car’s alert system had broadcast an allchannel mayday microseconds after the impact detectors had sensed the NOVEMBER 2020
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erratic path of the semi. The signal was shunted to the top of the local network by virtue of its status, and the base AI began the sequence of commands which woke the drone from its sleep and propelled it to the launch platform. Seconds later, the drone was powered up and undergoing preflight checks. All equipment bays were fully loaded, battery packs were charged, and all systems registered green. The drone signaled readiness and received departure permission. All this happened as it was removed from its charging bay by mechanical hands and placed on to a large elevator, which pushed it to the top of a facility housing several others like it. It swung into the air and, once clear of the facility, spun turbines up for maximum speed. It reached the accident site two minutes nine seconds after activation, all the while processing and parsing data being provided to it by AI in the vehicles on scene and embedded in the bridge sensors. The drone came to a halt directly over the point where the car hit the water, and hatches on either side of its undercarriage opened, spilling several dozen hand-sized machines out into the river. The spider-like devices entered the water and immediately sent out echolocation pulses. By virtue of its size and composition, the vehicle was quickly found, several meters down, and the machines activated their propellers, swarming over and into the car and probing it for information. Meanwhile, the drone had accessed a weak signal from the car’s AI, which was devoting the remainder of its resources to the emergency medical procedures it was able to enact. It had placed oxygen bubbles over the faces of the boys, and the few undamaged medical machines it possessed were focused on preventing blood loss. It informed the drone that one of the occupants had been killed on impact, and sent the details of the medical status of the three remaining humans, as well as their biographical information, medical histories, and its own remaining NOVEMBER 2020
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capabilities and power reserves. The car was active for fourteen more seconds before its power failed and it went dark. In that time, the drone assessed the information stream from the car and from its spiders, and instructed them on how to proceed, including its assessment of prioritization. In the darkness underneath the water, the spiders went to work. The boys were dimly aware of the machines approaching them, climbing over them, administering drugs and clamping wounds. One boy was panicking, waving slow swings at the things he could feel but not see, but his arms were caught and pinned gently to his sides. Seconds later, he passed out. The drone spun a cable down into the water; this was attached to the vehicle which, once the spiders reported stability, was pulled from the river and deposited on the bridge, gently, like a mother cat with her cubs in her mouth. A flying ambulance arrived on scene and began communication with the other machines on site. The drone had been established as the lead intelligence, but now relinquished that role to the ambulance as protocol required. The drone sent control permission to the ambulance, allowing it to use any of the spiders it needed, and lowered itself to the bridge to recover those which were not required. The ambulance dispatched its own spiders to cut through the car, while opposite, hundreds more of the small machines clambered over the semi. The occupants of both vehicles, a mess of flesh and blood, were lifted from the wreckage and placed aboard the ambulance, which lifted easily into the air and sped away to the nearest hospital. Simultaneously, a signal was sent to their designated guardians and relatives, informing them of the incident and providing instructions for the fastest routes to the hospital. *** NOVEMBER 2020
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Bill and Alice Carruthers stood before the hospital bed clutching hands; before them lay their son, Sam. He was cocooned in an organized mess of plastic and tubes. Dermal coverings, monitoring tags, and other devices whose purpose was unclear swirled around him, over him, into him. A quiet cacophony of beeps and hums filled the air, lending a further sense of movement to the twists and turns of the smooth plastics which covered the boy. “Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers.” The pair looked up, shaken from their trance. They decoupled and turned to face the woman who’d entered the room. “Doctor…” “I’m Doctor Gireau, and I’m in charge of Sam’s care. He’s been very lucky.” “Lucky?” Bill looked at his son, and back to the doctor. “It’s really a lot better than it looks, and it could have been worse. The emergency vehicles were able to get to him very quickly. He’s stable, no major internal injuries, and no loss of any limbs. We’re going to keep him under for a few days, to give his body a chance to heal. It’s better than using the medical dots; we like to stick to non-invasive intervention wherever possible.” “So he’ll be ok?” “Yes, the prognosis is a full recovery. He may need some therapeutic work, both physical and mental, but in general he’s been fortunate.” The couple took hold once more, each leaning on and supporting the other, holding tight in an expression of shared relief. Alice looked at her son, and then back to the Doctor. A thought flashed through her mind. “But… he…” Alice started speaking, stopped, collected herself. “We heard what happened. It doesn’t bear thinking about. How did he… I mean, the other boys…” NOVEMBER 2020
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The Doctor sighed slightly, shifted her weight. “It’s a tough thing. One of the boys was killed instantly. The others, including your son, were saved by the vehicle’s automated measures. It was able to alert an emergency drone within seconds, and it was also able to keep them alive until the drone arrived and could dispatch medical support.” “But Brent…” Alice went on, then stopped, unsure how to word her thoughts. “Brent was a victim of his age, unfortunately.” “How do you mean?” Bill asked. The Doctor looked surprised. “His age, sir. He’d turned eighteen recently. The medical machines are programmed to prioritize minors over adults. They triage on that basis. It’s not a pleasant formula to have to program, but public opinion is generally in favor of it.” Alice and Bill were stunned. Gireau allowed them a moment to take things in. Finally, Bill spoke. “You mean, if this had occurred a few days later, after Sam’s birthday, he could have been…” He broke off, unable to complete the thought. “There’s no way to tell what might have happened,” Gireau said, softly. “If I were you, I’d focus on the positives. Your son is alive and is doing well.” The couple nodded, and the Doctor continued. “You have my contact card; follow the thread for medical updates, and feel free to send any questions there. Or if you’d like to talk more, use the link and I’ll receive a notification. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.” “Yes. Thank you, Doctor,” they called as she walked from the room. They stood there some more, looking at their boy, losing track of the time. The sounds of the room swam around them. “Shall we go and get a cup of tea?” Bill said at last. Alice nodded, and Bill led her from the room. In the corridor they stopped. NOVEMBER 2020
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“Is that…” Alice asked, but didn’t need to finish the question. Further down the corridor, Brent’s parents sat, arms around each other, sobbing. Bill and Alice looked at each other, nodded, and made their way towards the couple. ***
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Discussion Questions 1. The doctor says, “The medical machines are programmed to prioritize minors over adults.” Do you agree with medical machines setting treatment priorities? If so, is prioritizing the safety of a minor over an adult appropriate? What about prioritizing younger adult patients over older ones? 2. Should AI in self-driving cars, or any other form, be programmed with human safety “prioritization” at all?
Should individual fault be
considered in the prioritization equation? (For example, a person walks in front of a car putting the occupants at risk if the car veers too quickly.) 3. If AI has priorities set for it, who should set those priorities? Government, the manufacturer, insurance companies, ethicists, the general public?) What do you think is a fair public/private process for setting AI priorities look like? 4. Should the owner of a self-driving AI car be allowed to change the priority default settings? 5. Should a human supervising the medical emergency response be allowed to override the priority default settings? Should the person who changed the settings be exposed to liability for having done so? What about in Question #4? ***
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Externalities Geoffrey Hart *** “In economics, an externality is the cost or benefit that affects a party who did not choose to incur that cost or benefit.”—James Buchanan and W. Craig Stubblebine *** The library rolled heavily into town, bearing its cargo of knowledge mundane, esoteric, and somewhere in between. Its ancient axles creaked as it slowed, executed a graceful turn through the caravanserai, and came to rest, facing the town square and the well that travelers used. The horses, dust coating their sweaty flanks, snorted in anticipation. Willem waited for his apprentice, Thomen, to descend, then leaned heavily on the youth’s shoulder as he eased himself to the ground, wincing at the pain in his hips. Once both feet were firmly on the ground, he stretched mightily, his joints emitting an alarming series of crackling noises. “Ahhh... that’s better. Fetch me some water. I’m feeling drier than Epicurus, and half as lively.” He kicked at the dust to emphasize his point. The youth grabbed the tin bucket that hung from the wagon’s bench NOVEMBER 2020
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seat, behind the buckboard, and ran to the well. By the time he’d returned, Willem had unfurled their banner, which lay limp in the motionless air. While Thomen had been away, a discreet crowd had gathered, curious to learn what the wagon had brought them. The sage took a long drink from the bucket, then poured the remainder over his head. “Thanks.” He ruffled the youth’s hair, then gestured at the banner with a cocked thumb. Thomen seized the dangling end, nimbly swarmed up the back of the wagon, and tied the banner’s end to the cord they’d attached there for this purpose. In letters two feet tall, it read: “Library”. Below, in lettering you had to approach to read, it said “Master Sage Willem, Oikonomist. Knowledge revealed, affordable rates.” Without being asked, Thomen unhitched the horses and re-hitched them to one of the many posts made available for this purpose. Then he made several back-and-forth journeys with the bucket to fill the trough. While the horses drank, he hopped into the wagon like the monkey he’d been repeatedly told he resembled, but had seen only in pictures, and returned bearing blankets to wipe the sweat from their broad backs. He also bore an assortment of brushes and combs to curry the dust of the road from their sleek hides. By the time he’d finished and gone in search of hay, Willem had unstrapped his folding chair and card table from the stowage beneath the wagon and was sitting in the shade, awaiting their first customer. That customer was not long in coming. As he pushed through the small crowd, he was preceded by a smell that parted the bystanders and made the horses seem perfumed by comparison. Willem mastered himself with the ease of long practice, only a welcoming grin showing on his face. The peasant unceremoniously piled a heap of greasy coppers on the card table, paused a moment, then knuckled his forehead. “My daughter’s gums bleed, her teeth are loose as molting feathers, and she heals slowly.” Willem pushed the man’s coins back across the table. “Seek the fruit NOVEMBER 2020
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with an orange rind that folk call SUNSWEET. Or the fruit with a yellow rind and intense sourness, known as SWEET-TART, or its green-rinded cousin BITTER-RIND, the one with the intense bitterness. Feed her one a day until the bleeding stops, then weekly thereafter.” The peasant spat upon the ground. “I can’t afford such luxuries.” “Then seek rose hips, and crush them to make a tea. You can dry them, and they’ll keep over the winter. If none grow near you, brew a tea from the leaves of either of two evergreen trees that grow in these woods. In wet areas, you’ll find the first of them, named WHITESTRIPE: the leaves are thin and lay flat, emerging individually from the branches. The sprays of leaves are broad—about twice the width of your thumb—and the leaflets are no longer than the first joint of your thumb. They’re glossy green above; below, they’re a paler green, with white stripes that run along the branchlet on the bottom. Those are the stripes that give the tree its name. The second tree grows on sandy, rocky soil, yet reaches to the sky. It’s named DUSTER, for the leaves are soft, needle-like, and long as your fingers. They emerge in dense sprays of five, bound together like the hairs in a dust brush—hence its name.” Thomen had returned, a bale of hay in his arms, and had been watching the interaction quietly. “Thomen? Fetch Farrar’s book of trees.” He waited patiently for his apprentice to return, bearing a thick book. Willem flipped through the pages, stopping about a quarter of the way through. He turned the book towards the peasant. “They look like this.” When the peasant had reclaimed his coins, he bowed and backed away, knuckling his forehead as he retreated. Thomen looked imploringly at his teacher, then spoke quietly so the onlookers wouldn’t hear. “Master, might WE afford a sunsweet or one of the others? It’s been months.” The youth licked his lips. Willem patted his apprentice’s curly hair. “If we have enough money left after buying necessaries, perhaps we can splurge on a few treats.” NOVEMBER 2020
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“We’d have more money if you didn’t give away our services.” Willem snorted. “One thing you must learn, apprentice, is when to demand an arm or a leg, and when it’s wiser to share our knowledge freely. There are consequences for any price, and they have to do with OIKONOMIKA.” He paused a moment, lost in thought. “Yes, perhaps it’s past time you began that study. Fetch the big leather book on the top shelf, the one with OIKONOMIKA in gold leaf on the spine.” Thomen climbed more grudgingly into the wagon this time. There came rustling sounds as he moved about the narrow aisle between the books. By the time he’d returned, clutching his prize, a small but exceptionally brawny man wearing a leather apron was chatting with his master. “So that, in sum, is the problem: my steel is too brittle. Which is undesirable from the perspective of repeat business, aye, but it’s worse than that: I sell the steel to knights and men at arms and others who have a nasty disposition, and are far too quick to use even that brittle steel to solve their problems—of which I’m now one. That being the case, its brittleness consoles me not, as even bad steel’s strong enough to open me from nave to chops.” Willem met the smith’s gaze. “How much charbon are you using in the steel?” “CHARBON?” “The materials like charcoal that you add to strengthen the steel.” “Ah. About 2 per hundredweight.” “Far too much. That will certainly make the steel brittle. Cut that amount in half, then in half again. Perhaps more, depending on what else is in the steel.” “You’re sure?” “In steel, as in life, moderation is best.” The smith placed a silver coin on the table, bowed somewhat dubiously, and walked away. NOVEMBER 2020
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Thomen looked up from his book. “Master? How did you know that obscure fact?” “It’s not nearly so obscure as you’d think. Smiths aren’t the only ones who make the mistake of assuming that if some is good, more is better. It rarely is. MODERATION IN EVERYTHING, INCLUDING MODERATION is my motto. You’ve found the book? Good. Keep reading, and don’t interrupt a customer with your questions.” Their next customers were a pair of minstrels, one fair-skinned as the day was bright, the other dark-skinned as the night sky. Willem and Thomen appraised them, then exchanged glances. The two men doffed their plumed hats to the sage and the apprentice, making a leg so deeply before they straightened that the feathers trailed in the dirt. The pale one wished them a good day, then, proprieties satisfied, placed a silver coin upon the table, joined by its twin from the dark one, who had paused to dust off his plume. “We seek a decision. We have different memories of the famous quote on fornication from THE TRAGEDY OF THE RICH IEVV OF MALTA.” Willem’s brows knitted a moment, and he looked to the sky. Then he smiled, and quoted from memory: “BUT THAT WAS IN ANOTHER COUNTRY, AND BESIDES, THE WENCH IS DEAD.” The pale one smiled at his companion, somewhat lasciviously, Thomen thought. But the dark one frowned, and spoke in a voice with hints of a Moorish accent. “Are you certain?” Willem sighed, and turned to Thomen. “Fetch me the tome labeled GREAT PLAYS.” He waited patiently until the youth returned, thumbed through the book, then placed the book open to the right page upon the table. Willem rotated the book towards the minstrels. “Here you go: see for yourself.” The dark minstrel blushed. “Nay, I need not. Your word suffices.” Willem made the coins disappear. “Then I wish you both a good day.” NOVEMBER 2020
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“A very good day, and mayhap a better night.” The pale minstrel kissed the dark one on the cheek as they moved off; the latter recoiled and pushed his companion to arm’s length. The sage snorted. “Some free advice, my apprentice: whenever you’re certain you know the answer, doubt that certainty. Most bets, and all provisions of knowledge, have consequences.” No other customer waited, though a few children hovered in hope of entertainment. Willem assumed a mentorish mien and cleared his throat. His apprentice looked up from where he’d been paging reluctantly through OIKONOMIKA. “Have you learned yet the origin of the book’s title?” “Aye. It comes from the great Aristotle. OIKONOMIKA is Greek, and denotes the laws that govern the management of one’s household.” “Good. And how does it relate to the word OIKOLOGIA?” Thomen’s mouth gaped a moment. “Both begin with the prefix OIKO?” Willem aimed a mock blow at his apprentice. “Aye, they do, but that’s far too glib a response to let stand. Seek and find me the real reason.” Thomen climbed reluctantly back into the wagon, which squeaked as he moved about and shifted his weight above the springs. By the time the youth emerged, clutching a well-worn tome with LEXIKO faintly visible on its spine, their next customer had arrived. He was a tall, thin man, dressed richly and accompanied by two large and thuggish-seeming men, one armed with a longsword belted at his waist, the other leaning on a staff taller than himself and thicker than Thomen’s wrist. “I bid you a good afternoon, wise sage. I have a question of a financial nature for you.” Willem raised an eyebrow, and the man placed a silver coin on the table. Willem’s eyebrow remained raised. For a long moment, there was silence. Then the thin man sighed, and replaced the silver with gold. The sage’s eyebrow relaxed. “How may I be of service?” NOVEMBER 2020
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“A caravan master has asked me for a loan to fund an expedition to the far east. There’s silk, of course, and exotic spices. But he also claims to have visited an arid land, everywhere covered with sand but for where salt lies upon the ground as far as the eye can see—free for any man to take, which strains credulity. He spoke of strange animals with cloven feet and hunched backs that carry the natives across shifting sands that would kill a horse, and of winds strong enough to carve stones—indeed, strong enough to strip a man’s flesh from his bones if he should be forced to stay, unprotected, in the open. His details make a compelling story, but we both know not to trust a skilled storyteller. Nonetheless, if true, there’s much profit to be had. But no profit comes without a price, and with that much wealth waiting to be exploited, someone must surely have taken measures to protect it for their own benefit. So, the risk of such a venture would seem high.” “Indeed. Yet his safe return from a previous voyage to those lands bodes well for his prospects.” “If he’s telling the truth, and not simply a thief repeating an overheard tavern tale and hoping to make off with my money.” “This will take some research. Please return tomorrow morning and I shall have your answer.” The merchant bowed and left. “Master?” “Yes, apprentice?” “It sounds a fanciful tale.” “And yet, like most fancies, it undoubtedly has some truth at its core. I have memories of such a tale. But he will want confirmation.” Willem named a dozen books, and Thomen went to fetch them. Some time later, as the sun began to set, their last customer of the day arrived. From his garb and the gold that gleamed in his ears and on his fingers, a prosperous merchant, and he’d waited for the bystanders to disperse before approaching. He walked with the assurance of one with NOVEMBER 2020
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too much money and the firm belief that this somehow made him important. The bodyguard who accompanied him, though considerably smaller than the two who’d guarded the banker, had a quiet confidence about him and a lithe swagger that suggested he was far more dangerous. When they reached the library, the merchant looked the sage up and down, and taking in the worn and travel-stained clothing, he snorted and frowned down the length of his long nose. “My daughter loves a GUARDSMAN.” He spoke that last word as if it tasted of ashes in his mouth, and spat messily upon the ground, some of the spittle running down his chin. He wiped his chin on his sleeve, then placed a silver coin upon the table. Willem returned a smile for the frown. “Please give her my congratulations. True love, they say, is hard to find.” “You mistake me, sirrah. I seek a grandson to whom I can pass my business when I grow too feeble to manage it myself.” He placed a second silver coin upon the table. “Guardsmen tend to be robust and lusty specimens. I doubt you’ll be disappointed. A guardsman’s son will do as well as a prince’s if he has native wit and you train him in the ways of your business. Consider this unpromising specimen, for instance.” He swatted the wagon, the thump surprising Thomen and making him jump. “If your daughter bears you no son, nor daughter neither, for that matter—well, then: there are many orphans. Perhaps you can adopt one who shows a particularly keen mind.” “For a sage, you are uncommonly slow-witted.” A third coin joined the first two. “Is it not said that any answer a man could desire can be found in your books?” Willem frowned, mirroring the merchant, and pushed back the coins, ignoring the gasp from his apprentice. “Like many of the educated, you have heard wisdom you do not understand. There is abundant truth in the library, enough to answer most questions. Though one CAN invent truth to NOVEMBER 2020
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suit one’s needs of the moment, that does not mean one SHOULD do so. For a merchant, you show an uncommon lack of understanding of value. Take my advice for free if you do not value it.” He pushed the coins back across the table. “Love your daughter and accept freely what she can give you.” The merchant spat again, and turned on his heel, spurning the dirt so that some flew back upon Willem’s worn leather boots. Without further word, he stomped off down the street. His bodyguard paused a moment, rolled his eyes, then followed. “Master? With those coins we could have bought many sunsweets. Perhaps even some bittersweets.” Willem sighed. “Thomen, have you not yet learned the great lesson of our profession?” “Which lesson is that, Master? There have been so many.” “That if we are to honor our profession, we must give our customers what they NEED. Not what they WANT.” “But Master... do we not give them what they need by giving them what they want?” Willem sighed. “Have you found the shared meanings of OIKONOMIKA and OIKOLOGIA? No? Ask me the same question once you’ve done so.” Some time later, Thomen looked up from LEXIKO. Willem had already begun the preparations for their dinner. “Master? Both words relate to management of the house. But one is more about monetary matters, and the other, about the living world that surrounds and includes the house.” “Precisely. And one can no more manage the house solely by the one discipline than one can manage it solely by the other, since the one exists within the other. And the answer to your question?” “That needs are needs, that they are objective rather than subjective, NOVEMBER 2020
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and that they are not always the same as wants.” “Bravo! And what lesson can we take from this knowledge?” Thomen remained silent. When the silence had stretched long enough, Willem sighed and answered his own question. “That knowledge and fact are invariant, but that TRUTH is often contextual—and every truth has consequences in a given context. Our real business is the sale of necessary truths, not knowledge alone. Any fool who can read can find knowledge, given enough time randomly paging through our library. It takes a special kind of fool to see how to use that knowledge without suffering its consequences.” Willem laughed, and ruffled his apprentice’s hair. “There’s hope for you yet!” As the night was clear and starry, and still warm from the summer’s day, they ate outside and watched the sky, Willem drilling his apprentice on the names of the constellations. When both were yawning and groping for names, they curled up and slept outside the wagon on piled blankets. In the morning, the banker returned. Willem had retained nearly a dozen of the books he’d consulted, which lay open upon his table. He had half-known the answer to the man’s question before he began, but had learned that customers showed a willingness to pay that was proportional to the apparent effort devoted to finding a solution—more willing, certainly, than to pay for the correct answer gained too easily. Jewelers, silversmiths, and the prosperous—including the banker—paid well for accurate and relevant knowledge, but left satisfied with their price in large part because of the time spent in search of the solution. “I have your answer: you should invest your money in the man’s expedition, but ensure that he goes well guarded into those distant lands. There are many who would take their toll, or even the whole profit. Also warn him to travel towards the end of the summer, when salt is most abundant, and to see that he always carries more water than he thinks he’ll NOVEMBER 2020
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need. Enough for weeks, not days. And one last bit of advice I offer freely: send one of your men with him, his allegiance concealed, to watch over your interests.” The banker licked his lips. “And your proof?” “Here.” The sage opened the first book. “This map shows the arid lands of which he spoke.” He opened a second book. “This traveler’s tale speaks of the abundant salt deposits to be found in these lands.” Then a third. “And here is a drawing of the ‘kamuhls’ the natives use to cross the sands.” More books were opened, more details provided. By the end, the banker’s head was nodding at each new fact, and he was so pleased, he threw several silver coins to join the gold on the table as he left. As the sun continued its relentless rise, the merchant returned, accompanied by a young woman and a member of the town watch—a willowy, dark-skinned woman with a broad nose and tightly curled hair. The young woman’s long nose made it clear she was the merchant’s daughter. The sage looked warily at the guard, who maintained an impassive expression and carefully failed to meet his gaze. The merchant touched a forefinger to the tip of his nose, winked at the sage, and deposited a gold coin upon the table. “Please tell my daughter, sir, what you told me yesterday.” The daughter turned defiant eyes upon the sage, who calmly made the coin disappear. “I told your father that true love is rare and to be cherished. If you love someone, may your love be a blessing to you and your family both.” The daughter had been prepared for a fight, and was flustered. But after a moment, she relaxed and offered a shy smile. But the watchwoman smiled broadly, laughed, and clapped a hand possessively on the daughter’s shoulder. The sage blinked, then mastered himself. The merchant sputtered, then reached to his belt and withdrew an ornate dagger better suited to opening letters than throats. “Sirrah, that is NOVEMBER 2020
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not the wisdom I paid you for. Return my coin, or I shall give you different metal in payment.” The guardsman cleared her throat, and when the merchant turned, placed a large and callused hand on the hilt of her sword. “It is the judgment of the Watch that you have received fair value for your money. Now put away your weapon, or there will be consequences.” She exchanged glances with the bodyguard, whose hand had gone to his sword hilt. Their eyes locked a moment, then the bodyguard slowly and carefully removed his hand from the hilt. The merchant paled, but put away his dagger, and the watchwoman took the daughter’s hand and walked away with her, pausing only long enough for the couple to cast radiant smiles at the sage. The merchant, face red and swollen, glared a moment at the sage, then stomped away. After a distinct pause, his bodyguard followed. “Do you know what we call those smiles, my apprentice?” Thomen blushed. “Sir, I do not.” “In OIKONOMIKA, there is the priced value of a transaction. That is the gold coin the merchant gave us so he could learn a hard lesson. But the more important point is often the consequences, expected or otherwise, that accompany the transaction. That is what we call an EXTERNALITY. Some are good, some are bad, and some are neither. But every last one must be considered before we can know the true value of knowledge and what constitutes the truth of a situation.” Willem rooted in his pouch, then handed his apprentice a handful of coins and a long list of supplies. “Go buy what’s necessary, and with what remains, buy yourself a sunsweet... and me, some bittersweet, if there’s any to be had. If there’s an externality to such treats, I intend to internalize it as soon as can be managed.” ***
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Author’s Notes Bleeding gums are often a sign of scurvy, which can be treated with vitamin C. Though we think of oranges, lemons, and limes (the origin of the name “Limey” for British sailors) as a primary source of this vitamin, many wild herbs, including rose hips, have just as much of this essential vitamin. Trees too. “Whitestripe” is one; we call it balsam fir (ABIES BALSAMEA). “Duster” is another; we call it white pine (PINUS STROBUS). I’ve included a tip of the hat to John Laird Farrar, my university tree physiology professor, who updated an older classic work on the trees of Canada, though this story is set in early-Renaissance sort-of Europe. Marlowe’s THE TRAGEDY OF THE RICH IEVV OF MALTA is better known as THE JEW OF MALTA. Externalities are usually considered to be negative, since economists often find themselves working for clients who only value profit and try to pass the costly externalities to someone else to deal with. But some are positive, and I wrote this story, in part, to remind myself of that fact. ***
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Discussion Questions 1. Willem tell his apprentice Thomen “That knowledge and fact are invariant, but that truth is often contextual…” What does that phrase mean? Do you agree with it? 2. The story of the merchant and his daughter is about externalities, “the cost or benefit put on another based on an individual’s actions.” What was the externality in the exchange between Willem and the merchant? Was it a positive or negative one? 3. Regarding the blacksmith, Willem says, “Moderation in everything, including moderation.” This sounds fine, but how do you know if you are doing something in moderation? How do you know how much TV watching, or internet use, is a “moderate” amount? 4. Regarding the two men in the bet, Willem says, “whenever you’re certain you know the answer, doubt that certainty.” Does that mean you can never be certain of anything? Is that a clever phrase, or an actual truth, in your opinion? Why or why not? 5. Thomen asks, “…do we not give them what they need by giving them what they want?” Is that true? Is what a customer wants, always the thing they need and should be given? Can you think of an example where that is not the case? ***
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God Is Alive Ville V. Kokko *** It was the strangest conversation I’ve ever had. I still don’t know what to think of it. Yet, I cannot forget it. At that time, I was getting a little worried about my friend, Thomas Cale. We used to run into each other now and then in our small town, and sometimes we would agree to go out for a drink and talk. But for a month or two now, I had barely caught a glimpse of him. I suspected the change had happened after that visit of his to the city. I didn’t know what it had been about, and though I knew he had come back, I wasn’t even sure how long he had stayed there. I was lucky to have been aware he was going in the first place. I had run into him by chance when he was going to the train station. He had almost barged into me in his hurry, even though it was a good fifteen minutes before the next train would leave. I can vividly remember the way he looked then. There was a strange expression in his eyes, opened unusually wide in a kind of awe. Probably there was fear, wonder, delight and doubt there at the same NOVEMBER 2020
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time. Or maybe this is just hindsight. In any case, I could see that he was affected. By what, that I couldn’t get out of him. When I asked where he was going, he seemed on the verge of telling me all about it, but in the end, he said he’d not say anything yet, other than that he had something in his bag that he needed to have examined by experts. It all sounded very odd, but I walked away with the impression he had found some old and valuable antique. It might have been weeks later when he got back – still too preoccupied to contact me, not even to keep his promise to tell me all about it. I gradually became aware of his presence, but he didn’t return to his old habits of being seen around town. Local gossips suggested he was getting holed up in his home and becoming an alcoholic. He still seemed to go to work, at least, but not to do much else. Now, Thomas wasn’t my best friend, and I don’t think he had one himself, at least not in our town. I missed him a little and was slightly puzzled as to what was going on with him, but I didn’t think of the matter too much at first. However, as time went past, I got worried enough to call him and ask if we could meet, and to insist a little after the initial automatic rejection I’d come to expect. I said outright that I was worried and wanted to know how he was and if he had some problem. After some hesitation, he laughed drily and said he might as well tell someone, and I might be the best one to hear it. I said I’d be glad to listen, even in spite of his curious warning. For he warned me that if he told me, I might end up like him... though, he added after a pause, probably not. I didn’t understand what he meant, so I just said I was willing to take the risk. It was a chilly autumn evening as I walked out to Thomas’s house. The sun shone without warming much, and occasional gusts of biting wind fought over the first few fallen leaves, throwing them first this way, then that. Thomas lived in the older part of town, so my feet took me over NOVEMBER 2020
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slightly uneven square cobbles and down a winding street between houses that occasionally leaned forward as if they were trying to touch their counterparts on the opposite side. Thomas’s house stood some way apart from the rest. Aside from that, it was quite unremarkable, a little worse for the wear for all its decades and not very large, but cozy on the inside and perfectly suited for my friend’s needs. Right now, it looked grey even in the sunlight, huddled in on itself. I rang the doorbell that was the newest thing on the front of the house and waited. The door opened after a while and I saw Thomas looking out at me. His eyes caught my attention first; a complete opposite of how they had looked at the station, they were tired, weary, empty. As if there was nothing left to see in the world anymore. I had seen him in passing a few times since he returned, and he had looked tired to me then, but I hadn't realized the full extent of it until that look stared at me from the relative darkness of his door. “William. Come in. Good to see you, I suppose.” I looked at him again as my eyes adjusted to the relative gloom. His cheeks were sunken, his face unshaven by a few days; I couldn’t help but be reminded of Dr. House from the TV series, and his expression went right with that. “Tom, how are you? Is everything well?” He pondered this for a while and shrugged. It felt discouraging; as if he just didn’t care whether he was well. He turned and beckoned me to follow him as he ambled to his study, where we had sat and talked before. The lights were on here, but somehow it still looked gloomy. There was a faint, vague, unwashed smell in the room. Thomas sat down in his chair and offered me a drink from among what I observed was a rather larger collection than before of bottles of liquor, full and empty both. He noticed my glance. NOVEMBER 2020
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“Yes, I do drink more than I used to. I’m not alcoholic yet, but we’ll have to see about that. Now sit down. How have you been, Bill?” All this was said without much enthusiasm. I found myself answering in the same manner. “Oh, fine, fine. You know, the usual.” “And how’s the wife?” “She’s taken up oil painting. She seems to be having fun with it, so that’s good, but I just hope she won’t want to hang any of those paintings on our walls.” Thomas responded with the slightest smirk of amusement. “But you know I didn’t come here to talk about me,” I went on. “What about you? Like I said on the phone, you haven’t seemed yourself lately.” “Ha. Oh, I’m myself. It’s the world that’s different all of a sudden.” “I hadn’t noticed,” I said. “Would you like to enlighten me?” Thomas sighed and got up. He walked to the window and gazed up into the sky. “You were certainly always one of my smarter friends. Remember those conversations we had sometimes? About the big questions. Life, the universe, and everything. God and morality. The meaning of life.” “Yes. Those conversations are always interesting, perhaps because there are no final answers to such questions.” I have never heard anything so sardonic as Thomas’s small laugh at that point. “Oh, but you are wrong about that. We both were. Though you were more right. You had the answer all along.” “I don’t follow.” “You will. You see, I know now. I have found out all of it. It was so simple. I never knew, but now I do.” He turned to look at me, a hint of intensity in his eyes again for a change, but all I could do was look back with polite puzzlement. NOVEMBER 2020
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“I found out the answer. And it was your answer. It was... God all along.” For a moment, I thought I caught a glimpse of sense in what he was saying. The existence of God was something Thomas and I had always politely disagreed about. He saw no place or need for a higher being, seeing everything in terms of science, the world devoid of any ultimate purpose, though somehow that lack seemed not to bother him. For me, though I was skeptical of some of the teachings of the Christian church, it was natural to think in terms of a supreme being maintaining the order of the cosmos and looking after humanity. Our views had much else in common, but this difference was always at the bottom. Yet, I was sure Thomas would not become depressed if he were to start believing in God. Thomas sat down in front of me again. “Let me tell you what happened from the beginning.” Speaking as if the words felt unnatural in his mouth, he began: “God spoke to me in a dream. I saw... the heavens, clouds like mountains, the unearthly shapes of angels, like great birds made of light. And I was faced with a presence so bright I could not perceive it, yet it filled all my senses. It was God, and He spoke to me.” “And... what did He say?” “He said He wanted me to know He... was. He said He understood my disbelief, but it was time to end it. He said He... loved me and wanted me to know Him. And then, I woke up, feeling a sense of great joy and elation like I had never experienced in my life. Never.” “Many people have had experiences like this,” I tried, “And those who do know that God has spoken to them. They can’t prove it, but...” “Oh, bah, I didn’t believe then,” he interrupted me crossly. “We’ve talked about this before, and I told you, even if I had one of those experiences myself, I wouldn’t take it any more seriously, no matter how it NOVEMBER 2020
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felt. That wasn’t all. When I had clearly awoken, still dazed by the experience, and, all right, feeling great, elevated, but not believing it was real at all... once I was fully awake, I heard God’s voice again. ‘I know you need proof,’ He said, ‘and you shall have proof.’ And that was when this appeared, right in front of my eyes, out of nowhere.” Thomas turned around on his chair and opened his bottom left desk drawer. As he reached inside, I heard a brief intake of breath; looking at his eyes, I saw he was affected again, as if the mysterious ‘this’ was too powerful not to upset him even in his current apathy. Thomas’s eyes went back to a bored, slightly irritated look again when he raised up the object and looked at it. He seemed to resent it. “It was floating in the air,” he explained. “As I reached out my hand and grasped it, I felt gravity take hold of it. Not all of it, obviously. It remained like this. Go on, take a look.” I reached out gingerly and took hold of the pedestal. I was not sure what I was seeing, so I held the object in front of me and studied it. After discerning its shape, I still had no idea what it was. There was a small metal pedestal, a few centimeters high, an odd silvery white in color. Above it, there was a floating sphere with a smaller sphere orbiting around it slowly, made of the same material. I carefully turned the system of objects around in my hands. The spheres turned with the pedestal; their relative positions remained the same, save for the smaller one continuing its orbital movement. I moved my fingers between the separate parts of the object. There was nothing but air, not even a tingle of electricity. I don’t know whether I studied the object for half a minute or five minutes. It was just baffling, vaguely upsetting, though hypnotically beautiful in its simplicity. Then I remembered the context and looked up at Thomas. He’d claimed this had appeared out of nowhere? NOVEMBER 2020
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“Thomas, what is this?” “A miracle!” he said bitterly. “An unquestionable, proven miracle, a violation of the laws of physics.” “But...” “I didn’t believe it easily, of course,” he went on. “God told me to have it examined before He fell silent. I was feverish. You saw me at the station. This was something unbelievable, potentially earth-shaking. Not that I believed right away, mind you! As extraordinary as it was either way, a hoax was still more likely. But this had some potential to finally be some real proof – not that I’d been expecting or waiting for that, but it opened new possibilities that had never been open before. So I made arrangements and eventually managed to get someone at a physics lab to believe it would be worth their while to examine what I had. “Well, I went there, and they took it just as I would have had them do, an interesting puzzle they would certainly solve. They thought about magnetism, of course, and were half convinced I’d made this thing myself. They studied it and couldn’t figure it out. So they got even more scientists there, even some top names, and they all thought it was a jolly good puzzle, though most thought it wouldn’t involve any physical principles they didn’t know. And, well, they were right, weren’t they? It’s not based on any physical principles. It’s a miracle. “They kept on studying this thing and started to get more frustrated. Its chemical composition is nothing special, apparently, but the parts can’t be brought apart and it can’t be seriously damaged by any means, and there’s absolutely no physical explanation for how it defies gravity. The spheres can’t be removed from their place and the orbiting sphere can’t be stopped from moving in relation to the rest with any amount of force. It’ll go right through rock if it has to. “Some of the scientists got angry, others were fascinated. They called in even more people, and no one could figure it out. NOVEMBER 2020
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“And just when they’d officially admitted defeat, as it were, that’s when it happened. I hadn’t told them the whole truth about how I got this, because they’d have thought me crazy, and I’d resisted their interrogations. I just repeated I’d found it on my bedside and thought it was a prank. But now they could all see. We could all feel that sense of indescribable awe that I had felt in my dream. The ceiling of the room vanished and was replaced by a vision of heaven. And God spoke to all of us and said He had sent this miracle to prove Himself to me and other unbelievers present at the time.” I looked at the impossible object in my hands again, suddenly wanting to put it down to avoid some indefinable danger. “...Are you really serious?” “Look, believe me or not, I decided I’d tell you my story, so you’ll damn well listen. I’ve never been as serious.” “All right. Go on...” “Some of the scientists were atheists before that moment. Others weren’t. But afterwards, there was only one very angry man left among them who claimed still not to believe. It was ironic how irrational and emotional he acted. I mean, I’m used to thinking that’s religious people who do that. But there was no rational barrier to belief at that point. We had all witnessed a miracle, as reliably as can be conceived, and we all felt the presence of God and sat at His foot as He instructed us in the secrets of being.” I stared at Thomas for a moment. Then I stared at the thing in my hands. Thomas waved a hand. “Yes, sure, unbelievable. But suppose this is all true for the moment so that we can talk about it and I can tell you everything.” “All right...” Perhaps I could make more sense of this after some questions. “So... did you... learn the secrets of existence?” NOVEMBER 2020
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“Oh, yes.” He almost spat this. “I understand... I know it all know. All the deepest questions. For example, do you want to know what the point of our existence is?” “I... of course I would.” “The point of our existence, the purpose of human life, is to believe in God and love Him. That’s all. In faith, it is fulfilled. As long as you keep faith, your purpose is fulfilled. So you, for example, you’re already set. All you have to do is keep that faith for the rest of your life.” I stared down blankly for a moment. “Well? Come on, you were all about the deep questions before.” I racked my brain for some of them. “So... I take it there is life after death as well?” “Yes. Once we die, those who believed in God will spend an eternity in His presence in perfect happiness. Those who don’t will deny themselves this and essentially cease to exist. Nothing in this life can compare to heaven, and once we are there, we will see all our past toils and sorrows as insignificant.” “But... that’s wonderful, right?” “Oh, yes,” Thomas spat. “Nothing we do here matters save faith. Well, except of course that there are moral responsibilities. Do you want to know the secret of morality?” “Well...” “Morality is based on God’s command. Forget all that stuff I used to say about how we need to agree on rules to get along and shouldn’t harm each other just because we’re all equally valuable. Sure, that’s all true, but it’s not the ground for morality. It could never be. Only God’s command can be. We must do as God commands, and that’s all there is to it. “And we know God’s commands based on our consciences. Usually our minds are awfully muddled so we don’t always know what’s truly our NOVEMBER 2020
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inborn conscience talking. But me, I’ve looked upon the face of God, and now I hear His will clearly in my heart. I can always tell what’s right. There isn’t any rule that we can properly understand, but our conscience always tells us what’s right. “For example, abortion is sometimes right, but at some point the unborn baby becomes a person and it’s murder. The line goes at about two months. I can’t give you a rule, but show me a particular case and I’ll know.” “You always agreed you can’t draw exact lines like that,” I ventured. “Ha, well, my conscience was muddled then, wasn’t it? I was trying to figure things out by myself, see what was right based on reason and experience. Well, none of that. Besides, it’s quite clear when someone is a person or not. It starts when the soul enters the body. Oh, and you know what, there’s another mystery solved. How can there be minds as well as matter? Well, you were right about that too, although it’s even simpler. Mental properties exist besides physical ones because there are mental substances, which are our souls. Our souls control our physical brains without breaking natural laws through quantum fluctuations whose effects are strengthened by chaotic processes. I won’t try to explain what that means. It’s also how we have free will.” “What about the mind–body problem...?” “The interaction happens because God says so. It’s basically a miracle, though so is every other law of nature if you go there.” “So every law of nature...?” “Exists because God decided it should. Go on, ask me more.” It’s hard to express how different this was from our usual conversations, with their complicated twists and turns and different perspectives. But then again, if God Himself gave the answers to you, wouldn’t it all finally be clear? “So... why does the universe exist? Why is there something rather NOVEMBER 2020
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than nothing?” “It exists so we can exist, so that God can love and be loved. Next.” “Umm... what about the problem of evil?” “It’s just an illusion. We shouldn’t be trying to judge God based on our limited understanding. And remember morality is determined by God’s command.” “So He can do whatever he likes?” “Oh, no. He’s omni-benevolent, after all. The objectively correct ethical theory is deontology, which means it’s all about duties. God sets himself a higher set of duties than to anyone else. And He fulfils them all completely, hence He’s omni-benevolent. He couldn’t be any more good, that’s a meaningless idea. There’s nothing beyond fulfilling all your duties.” “So what about all the suffering in the world?” “It’s not God’s duty to end all suffering. The world would be a much more terrible place if He slacked on any of His duties, and we should be grateful, but that’s not the point. The reasons we have to complain about the world being the way it is are all illusory. Actually, there is nothing left to morally demand of the world or of God, because God has done His duty perfectly. Anyway, if any of the suffering bothers you, remember that you just need to believe in God and wait a few decades and none of this will matter at all because you’ll be perfectly happy for eternity.” “Are you saying this life has no point?” “Absolutely not! I have it on the highest authority what the point of life is! It’s to love and obey God. If I were talking about feeling like there’s no point, or that there’s some other point, I’d just be talking about my subjective feelings. This is the official point, embedded in the very nature of the universe.” Thomas fell silent. I stared at him quietly. He stared back gloomily. It felt like half an hour, but in truth it was probably just a few minutes until I broke the silence. NOVEMBER 2020
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“Thomas?” “Yes.” “All of this... really?” I stared him in the eye and put all the weight I could into that question. He stared back at me and answered, in a level tone but with even more force. “Yes.” I looked down and we were silent for another few minutes. I realized I was convinced he really did believe. I stared at the impossible object, and a chill went through me. “I... think I understand,” I said finally. Thomas sighed deeply. “Really, Bill?” “Yes. I... think so. Do you feel better now? Are you ready to stop this... isolation?” I looked up at him for the first time just in time to see his shoulders sag. “Then you don’t understand. William, I... thanks for listening and being patient, but get the hell out of here now. No, I don’t feel better, and clearly you can’t help me one bit. I’m trying not to be too bitter, but I’m failing, so just shut up and get out.” *** I’m still trying to understand. My life has not been radically changed like Thomas’s was. I live on, go to work, meet friends, spend time with my family. I suppose something has changed. It’s hard for me to attend to the deep questions anymore. I only think about the answers I heard. Of course, with Thomas hiding in his house in ever deeper isolation, I don’t have anyone much to talk with anyway. Somehow, though, they sometimes keep me awake at night – not the questions but these proposed answers. NOVEMBER 2020
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And the last remaining big question – why did Thomas react like that? I may have some inkling of the answer, buried somewhere in the back of my head, perhaps in a hidden part of me that thinks like Thomas. I don’t know what it is, but I suspect it. Because I still don’t know whether I believe Thomas or not, though I believe he was sincere. And some part of me is glad I don’t know. If I accepted them, those answers would give me everything I wanted to know about the world on a deep level. At the same time, they would give me the confidence and trust I have gained from faith before. ***
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Discussion Questions 1. If God spoke to you, as happened in the story to Thomas, would that be enough to cause you to believe in God? If not, what more would you need? 2. Thomas calls the object a “miracle” because it does not obey any known laws of physics. Do you agree? Is there some bit of technical information that would cause you to believe (or not believe) the object was a miracle? 3. Thomas asserts that nothing matters save faith. Does that answer create happiness, hope, sadness, or another emotion in you? Is it motivating, or demotivating? 4. According to Thomas, the “mind-body problem” is solved because of God’s miracle. He also has solutions for the “problem of evil” (it’s an illusion) and the omni-benevolent vs. omni-powerful problem of God as outlined by Epicurus (it’s not God’s duty to end suffering). Are these answers sufficient for you? 5. What is the strongest and weakest evidence in the story to support Thomas’s belief in God? ***
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The Alpha-Dye Shirt Factory Tyler W. Kurt *** I don’t know where how I should start my story: with the fire, with the things leading up to the fire, or how I made my escape. Well, my name’s Mary and I worked at the Alpha-Dye Shirt Factory, a seven-story building in the middle of the sugar district falling apart in every which a-way. It’s a brick building, red brick, not that you’d know it on account it’s been whitewashed over, except for the fire escape, which was painted black about a hundred times to hide the rust, and more paint than fire escape. The building had just the one elevator so most of the ladies would take the fire escape if they was on one of the lower floors, but I never did that, on account of I didn’t trust it as old as it was, and mostly rusted, like I said. I should mention the smell, too. You never smelled nothing like it. The factory was right in the middle of the sugar district; cheaper rents I guess. All I know’d is something about the manufacturing process for sugar NOVEMBER 2020
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makes it so the air smells like chicken fried steak. When I was young and first started out I remember thinking it was a pretty good smell, that I’d be getting to go to work every day smelling my mama’s cooking and maybe I wouldn’t be so homesick. Of course, pretty soon that smell started getting bothersome cause it just worked its way into your clothes. I hadn’t counted on that, still smelling of chicken fried steak in my clothes when I got home at night. That smell would get into the bed sheets till the whole one-room apartment I lived in got to stinking. Now, when I smell that smell all I think of is long hours and the foreman yelling at me about production quotas. One year early on I went home over Christmas to visit my family and you know’d what my mama made for me? Chicken fried steak, and she was so proud of making it for me, but I about threw up right there at the table and had to explain to her about the factory, and about the sugar and the way it smelled. Course, I didn’t tell her everything about the factory or how I was living, cause I didn’t want her to worry about me. And here I am rambling on and on about chicken fried steak when you want to know about the fire. That’s the way it goes sometimes, a person hooks you in with the promise of a great story, then get all sideways. So, there I was, like every day, just settled in and working my sewing machine, the same two stitch lines on the shirt I sew’d every day for years, when Maria whispered across to me over the noise of the sewing. Maria was a Cuban girl who had worked across from me going on a year-and-ahalf, and we was pretty tight on account of we both liked going to the movies on our day off. “Mary,” Maria whispered across the machines, and I looked up. And when she seen me looking she nodded her head to where the bathrooms were, meaning we should go there to talk. We’d done it a few times before. She’d call over to the foreman to go the restroom, then I’d wait a bit and do the same. Restroom breaks was limited to three minutes, but if you NOVEMBER 2020
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timed it just right with someone else you could get a good minute or so of overlap to chit-chat so long as you was quick about it. And so she done it, she got the foreman over and he waved her on to use the facilities. And a minute or so later I done the same. Come to think of it, he must a known we was going into the bathroom to talk, but he didn’t seem to care much, I guess. Mostly, I think, because he didn’t care much about anything. He always had the airs of a man who felt that his position was beneath him and he was just biding his time until his real ship come along. Also, I think he keep’ed the job because he liked some of the ladies from time to time. So off I goes to the ladies room and there is Maria, just beaming from ear to ear, pretty much like she had been doing the whole morning, but even more so now that it was possible to do in earnest. And soon’s as I walked in she blurts it out, no warm ups or nothing, in her Spanish accent. “I got engaged!” Maria reached into her pocket and pushed out this tiny gold ring for me to see. She wasn’t wearing it cause you had to be a single to work at the Alpha-Dye Factory. Not all the factories had that rule no more, but Alpha-Dye had that rule, and girls would still get fired pretty regular if the bosses found out they’d got hitched. Of course, I was excited for her, but not nearly so excited as she was. She’d know’ed darned well Raul was going to ask her to get married soon enough, as she’d been going on to him about them getting married the last few months. But still, I was pretty excited for her because getting engaged ain’t something you do every day. She meant to tell me the details as quick as she could before the foreman missed us, but then we heard a bunch of noise coming from outside. We opened the door and everyone was up from their sewing machines moving around in a hurry. And that’s when I seen the smoke NOVEMBER 2020
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coming up through the floors. The floors, you see, was made a wood, like most floors in these older buildings, and smoke was coming up between the depressions of the wood floors thick and black. I seen pretty quick that a bunch of women was standing by the elevator waiting for it until two of the woman, a Russian pair, decided they was going to pull the doors open and look down and see if they could figure where the elevator was or how much longer it might be till it showed up. Well, as they was doing that the women behind them was a pushing on them pretty hard, on account of they thought the elevator had arrived and these two girls were trying to be the first ones in. So when these Russian girls pried the doors up, a thick black smoke from the shaft came billowing out, and what, with the women behind pushing, they done pushed both of them Russian girls, and one other that was next to them, into the shaft, and down they went. And that’s the last anyone saw of them, I suppose. I turned back to Maria, but she’d already assessed the situation and was to the window with one foot on the fire escape. I figured she had the right idea, so I headed that way as well, pushing through the people best I could. The smoke was getting blacker and thicker all the time, and it was already getting mighty warm from the depressed floors below. As I was pushed my way to the fire escape, everything seemed to go real quiet and real slow like and I had the time to examine the faces of every woman in the place real good. There was two women in the corner on their knees, with a Rosary, just praying as hard as could be. There was another girl just standing there with blank eyes, like she was a statue. And I seen one girl with blond hair that was dead, or near dead, on the ground, who must a got pushed over or fall’ed over and now people was just tripping and stepping on her to trying to get past her in a panic. But she ain’t moving none. NOVEMBER 2020
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The foreman, he was funny, if there could be such a thing. He was pushing past all the other girls on his way to the fire escape, saying over and over again, “Let me through, I’m in charge. I’m in charge!” But what he was really doing, of course, was trying to get to that fire escape to be one of the first ones out. And you know, in all that bedlam and screaming, you know what my first thought was at the time? It’s stupid to say it now, but it’s the God’s truth. My first thought was, “Who’s going to clean all this up?” Which of course, now, I know, was a pretty stupid thing to think. Just before I got to the window for the fire escape, I seen a girl next to me fall through the floor where the wood had saddened out so it couldn’t take the weight no more. It was like watching someone jump from the end of a dock into a lake. One second you could see them, and the next thing they were deep under water. Except, it ain’t water, it was the floor. And it ain’t them getting wet, it’s them going into the fire of misery and getting burnt up. And when I seen that, well, that woke me up plenty, and all of the sudden like, I could hear everything around me, but it was real loud now. And that’s when I heard a pop from the outside. I was at the window, you see, trying to push my way out onto to the fire escape to join Maria, and I could see her, too, when I looked down, on the sixth floor working her way down the stairs. The foreman had just pushed past her. And I was gonna try to yell to her, to tell her to wait up for me, but before I could speak I heard a pop. That pop was the steel bolts that’s holding the fire escape together. So, I heard that first pop and that gave me a pause, then I heard a bunch more, like a gun being fired a bunch of times in a row. Then the whole fire escape come crashing down on the ladies below taking all the metal and bodies with it, including Maria and her ring. The whole thing sort of folded up like an accordion, breaking up into NOVEMBER 2020
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different pieces as it go’ed and throwing people off it or trapping them under it. And I nearly went with it, on account of the woman behind me trying to push her way out the window, not knowing yet there was no fire escape to go down. “It’s busted!” I yelled, as loud as I could. “It’s busted, let me back! Quit pushing!” And eventually I worked my way back to the room. When I turned back to the room its soul was plumb full a black smoke. I couldn’t see no more than a few feet, and couldn’t hardly breath, but I could see the glows of red from the fire where the flooring was opening up, and where women had fallen through it into their darkness. I covered my mouth with my sleeve and tried to think as calm like as I could, but it wasn’t no doing. The fire was coming up, glowing red, and the bodies of ash-darkened women was piling up on the floor from them that couldn’t breath no more and had passed out. I knew in a few seconds I was next. And man was it hot. Not the kind of hot where you say, “Today is a really hot day.” I know you know’d it was hotter than that. But I mean it was hot! Like if you’d a put a stove on the highest temperature and grabbed a black pan that had been sitting in it all day with your bare hand. Imagine that, but all over your body. Now I know’d escaping was impossible. I know’d I ain’t got but seconds left to make a decision about just one thing; how did I want to die? Did I want to keep my mouth covered and burn up? I thought about that. Burning up alive; feeling the flesh slide off my bones. That sounded, I thought, like about the worst way a person could die. So, I’d decided I’d better do like them other girls and try and fall asleep from the smoke. So, I took my shirt away from my mouth to take a deep breath, which seemed like me making the smartest decision in the world against me getting burned up in that fire. NOVEMBER 2020
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The problem was I tried to take a breath, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t because when I breathed in it felt like someone was pouring hot coal dust down my throat and it just hurt so bad I couldn’t force myself. By instinct my shirt cloth hand went back up to my mouth to stop the coals from burning my throat. “Dear God,” I thought. “Anything but burning alive…” Then I remembered the window. Not for the fire escape, cause I know’ed it was gone, but the window where the fire escape was. There was so much smoke I couldn’t see the window, but I remembered where it was and I could kind of see the direction the smoke was going to get out of it. So, I crawled on my hands and knees over the bodies of them other girls that had given up to the sadness to get to it. When I got to the window, I don’t mind telling you, I was relieved to have gotten there on account of the heat that was all around me; it felt so my skin was getting bitten by a million of the worst bees all at the same time. I looked down out the window and could see the fire escape, crumpled on the ground. And I could see Maria’s body in the mess of black metal, along with the foreman and some others. I could also see the people on the street filling up to watch the fire, along with some of the girls that was working on the first few floors that had made it out okay. And I’d love to say I was saved, or had some miracle that kept me a living, but that ain’t true. All I could think of was that fire heating me up with them burning bee stings, and the smoke of red coals that was billowing out the window. And the depression all around. “Aim so I don’t land on somebody and bring them down too,” I thought. Then a girl came behind me, who’d had the same idea as me, and she got to pushing me to get out the window. And so, I jumped. You see, I didn’t jump out that window because I thought I was going to live. I jumped out because it was better than being burned alive. NOVEMBER 2020
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***
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Discussion Questions 1. Does Mary make the right choice by jumping out the window? 2. Does it matter if the fire is actually going to kill Mary or she only believes it will kill her? 3. The fire and heat are referred to as a “depression” and “darkness.” Is it permissible for a person to commit suicide to escape the “fire” of depression that they believe is burning them up? 4. If, moments after Mary jumped from the window to her death, the firefighters had arrived with a ladder and saved everyone left in the building, would your opinion of Mary’s choice change? Does an absolute certainty that she was going to die in the fire mean something different than having a high likelihood she was going to die? 5. If a person knows they are going to die of a terminal disease in the near future, it is acceptable for them to commit suicide to escape that “fire?” ***
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The Truth About Thurman Jenean McBrearty *** Captain Thurman drummed his fingers on the wooden bench, imagining a world with ashtrays and cigarette machines. He’d have smoked Chesterfield’s because he had British relatives, but he wouldn’t have won the Expeditionary Unit Triathlon if he’d mucked up his lungs. Health or cool? He’d made the right choice. The medal displayed in a Plexiglas cube on the mantle testified to that. But none of the women he’d tried to seduce over the years ever noticed the cube or his stamina. “Your medal belongs in a black velvet-lined jewelry case,” his mother told him. “You need to make a bigger splash, Gordon. What’s special about a coin preserved in plastic?" What indeed. He’d asked the jeweler if the medal could be extracted from its transparent casket, and could he buy a velvet-lined jewelry case? When he saw the wedding rings as he waited, he decided it was time to settle down. NOVEMBER 2020
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*** “Commander Benton will see you now.” Thurman looked up at Benton’s Admin–assistant Sergeant, and wondered why the old man didn’t promote the pretty young thing from the ranks. “Would you like me to bring coffee?” “No.” He showed her a steady hand. “No jitters.” Avoiding caffeine was another good choice. She ushered him through her part of the office. She was a plant aficionado from all the Creeping Charlie he saw. “Go right in,” she said before opening Benton’s office door. Benton was staring at the TV, watching a curvaceous blonde report on the latest attack on an American embassy followed by film clips of Iraqi streets filled with shouting crowds burning an effigy of President Sandoval. “What do you think, Thurman?” “After fifty years, I think they’d get another hobby.” “I like that. Gentle sarcasm. Sit down and fill me in on Operation Fuckup.” Thurman eased onto the sofa. “There’s not much to tell. The chopper caught an RPG round and went down. Lieutenant. Chandler and Staff Sergeant Whitcomb were captured.” “How’d the jihadists find out Whitcomb is gay?” “Whitcomb carried a photo of his wife. Husband. I don’t know who’s who, but what’s important is that the photo had a loving dedication written on the back. There was one jihadist in the group who understood English. Rachman Ali Alibi, a.k.a. Leland McKinney” “Tell me about Chandler.” Benton went to the bar and brought back two glasses and a bottle of Johnny Walker Red. “A Jew from New York.” “Damn it! I told the DOD we should take religion off the dog tags” Benton’s eyes bored through him. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” NOVEMBER 2020
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Even if he didn’t come clean, he had the feeling Benton could read his mind. “Sometimes death is sadder, but simpler some times,” he said. “This is one of those times, Thurman.” Benton led out an audible humph. “All the god-damned jihadists in the world, and our soldiers get popped by an American whack job. Where’s Alibi from?” “Atlanta.” Benton swallowed a healthy swig of bourbon. “What does he want?” “To force our hand, I’d say, Sir. He says he’ll release one of the prisoners. Our choice.” Explaining the ultimatum was more difficult than Thurman had anticipated. “The other one will be…executed.” “Christ. Can it get any worse?” Thurman looked at his shoes. Where had the dust come from? He pulled a Kleenex from his pocket and gave them a quick pass. His Uncle Mike became convinced that if he kept his hair parted in a straight line, nothing bad would happen to him. He could function outside the asylum as long as he took his meds and kept a good supply of hair gel, a comb, and checked his part every fifteen minutes. Was he becoming as obsessive about his shoes as Uncle Mike was about his hair? “It is worse, Sir. Lt. Chandler’s a woman,” Thurman said. He found a trashcan and tossed in the tissue. He thought he felt Benton’s eyes on him again. “So that’s it. Either way we offend somebody. How long do we have before we have to give an answer?” “Forty-eight hours. Well, forty-six now.” He was wrong. Benton wasn’t watching him. He was still in his recliner, staring at a wall covered with Civil War art. A portrait of Abraham Lincoln, battle scenes of Manassas and Antietam. “Sir, shouldn’t we notify the Joint Chiefs? Or the President?” “Not a chance. No publicity. That’s exactly what Alibi wants. And we’re not going to give it to him.” NOVEMBER 2020
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“But… But…a woman, Sir.” “Have you ever seen the movie Sophie’s Choice?” “No,” Thurman said. “A Nazis dog forces Sophie to choose between her son and her daughter—and she chooses the boy. But the Nazi winds up killing both children anyway. Chandler and Whitcomb are soldiers—equally brave as far as I’m concerned. They’ll comfort each other in their last minutes.” Who, Thurman wanted to ask Benton, will comfort their families? Who will comfort the nation? Somewhere Whitcomb’s spouse was feeling grief grip his guts as imaginings of torture crawled in and out of his mind and sucked at his heart. Was he screaming prayers or curses at God? No, he was on his knees pleading for a miracle, whipping himself for sending a picture of their last happy day together so Chad would have something lovely to hold onto when the desert nights froze his balls off and the days baked his California blonde hair. Was he cursing the cell phones that would send pictures of the two captured soldiers, naked, blindfolded and shackled, to their speed-dialed loved ones back home? Maybe he had a Whitcomb ringtone. Maybe their favorite song. Maybe Semper Fidelis. Always, always, always, always faithful. Unto death. Unto eternity. Forty-four hours seemed like a long time before Benton made his decision to let Chandler and Whitcomb die together if the rescue mission failed, or if time ran out as it surely would. The rescuers couldn’t find any signs of life. All the field officers reported is that what was left of the Cobra copter was somewhere near the Afghan—Pakistani border. The jihadists must have blown it up because Lt. Chandler’s last transmission said she’d made a hard but safe landing. Thurman went by the Walmart on his way home. He bought a copy of Sophie’s Choice. He’d decided not to split the cube. He’d put it on a piece of black velvet instead, and he bought six yards. Enough to cover the mantle, and the mirrors in the bathroom, bedroom, and hall because NOVEMBER 2020
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covering mirrors is what Jews do when people die. He bought a set of black bedding including a queen-sized comforter, and black accessories for the bathroom. When he got home, he took off his uniform and put on his old jeans and a T-shirt, and began painting the apartment with ten gallons of black paint he’d bought. Satin finish for the walls, semi gloss enamel for the doors, baseboards, and cabinets. He tried not to think about Paige Chandler and Chad Whitcomb being raped and tortured and having their heads hacked off as a camera recorded their last futile pleadings for their lives, their last gasps of disbelief, their screams of pain. He concentrated on other things— like not getting paint on the carpet or the miniblinds or the windowpanes— while Sophie’s Choice played out on the TV screen. He paused it at the part when Sophie is holding her daughter in her arms. He made their bed, pulling the sheets tight enough to bounce a quarter. He replaced the Kentucky Wildcats bathroom accessories with the new stuff, scrubbed the toilet and put down the seat. He watched a frantic Sophie hand over the girl to a Nazi. The child shrieked with terror. How could the woman she loved abandon her to this stranger? Benton was right. To be thought the insignificant one would be another torture. Forty-three hours and forty-five minutes later, exhausted, he sat in front of the fireplace dressed in the black suit he wore to his father’s funeral and his black well-polished shoes, staring up at Paige’s engagement ring he’d had the jeweler seal in a Plexiglas cube. He’d placed it next to his medal on the velvet and placed his black-barreled pistol next to him on the end table. He turned on the news and waited as the clock threw away the minutes of life. If only ... if only they’d told Benton that Paige was a little pregnant and they were going to be married as soon as she rotated out in three days. Three fucking lousy days after he’d left. “News Alert” — he heard the newscaster say: NOVEMBER 2020
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“Shocking video of the executions of two captured Marine pilots appeared today on youtube...not since David Pearl’s execution have we seen such barbarity...outrageous, horrendous.” Just before the night swallowed the light, Thurman went to the hall mirror, and lifted the soft black cloth just enough to see if the part in his hair was absolutely straight before he swallowed the .45 caliber bullet from his pistol. ***
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Discussion Questions 1. Did the military make the right choice by letting both of them die rather than making a choice? 2. Are certain lives “worth more?” Should the military have a pecking order of who gets saved first. If so, what should that order be? 3. Conventional wisdom is that by paying a ransom it encourages more terrorist actions. By doing nothing, does the government discourage future terrorist actions? If so, does that make their choice here the right choice? 4. If you were the family member of one of those captured, would your opinion about the right action change? If so, to what? 5. What would you want the government to do if you were one of the people captured? 6. Hobson’s choice means “a choice of taking what is available or nothing at all.” Is there a Hobson’s choice where choosing is always, or never, the correct choice? ***
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From The Editor A friend of mine who grew up on an Iowa farm once told me, “If it has a name it gets buried, not eaten.” That was the way, she said, as a kid, she knew which animals on the farm were food, and which were members of the family. Pigs didn’t get names. Cows didn’t get names. The dog and the various cats that lingered around the farm, got names. We
give
inanimate
objects
names,
like
our
car,
to
anthropomorphize it; to turn it from an object into a person. A member of the family to be cared for and loved. It occurs to be the process also works in reverse. We give humanity by giving a name, but we can take away the humanity by taking away a name. By referring to a woman as a pig, or a slut, or a whore. Or, by referring to a political candidate by a nick name. It reminds me of the Nazi propaganda movies that referred to Jewish people as rats. It’s not okay to kill people. It is okay to kill nameless rats. These are the things on my mind as I watch the political ads on TV these days. Please vote. Best Wishes, Kolby Granville
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