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red weeg comes to garlic creek (*)
Daniel A. Foss (U17043@UICVM.BITNET)
Sun, 2 Apr 1995 18:58:18 CDT
[(*) *chikagu* is Illini for "garlic creek," according to a story in The
New York Times last month-ish.]
I'm a Blue Weeg, which humans call "Hazardous Animal Waste," so I hate
people. It wasn't my idea to have one fang, three eyes, and eight legs;
that honour belongs to a human geek in the Exobiological and Teratological
Research and Development Division of a biotechnology factory in Iowa City,
running amok with a leaky research budget. But April 1 was the happiest day
of my life, I met a Red Weeg, which has tentacles. Even better, a Red Weeg
also met me! *Seventeen* tentacles, this one has!
Almost immediately, Red said to me, "We were put on this Earth for a
purpose. Let's Be Fruitful And Multiply."
"We were put on this Earth to provide a few yucks for a sadistic genetic
engineer in Iowa City addled by science fiction, but I agree, Let's Be
Fruitful And Multiply."
Red then declared, "Darling, it makes no sense whatever to *me* that
*I* should Care for the Young. So it must be *you* that does it."
To which I replied, "Precious, it makes equally little sense to me that
I should Care for the Young, so it must be you that does it."
We argued over this for five hours.
Then it dawned on me. "There's some Thing missing."
"What?"
"We are supposed to be two instinct-driven animals in mating season. If
we were to Be Fruitful And Multiply right off, we would have done so already,
as we know aught of Safe Sex; likewise are innocent of the slightest thought
of Family Planning, which would be selected against in an endangered species,
anyhow. From which, it is logical to suppose that there is one more sex in
our sexually multimorphic species, which would be *disgusting* to humans, in
fact, to any organisms but us. Weirder still, we are two different sexes, but
are of the same gender, since the one thing we are agreed on is that we will
gang up on the third creature to browbeat it into Caring for the Young,
assuming it is not instictively disposed to do so. Since Caring for the Young,
we are self-evidently sure, is too big of a hassle, if nothing else, let us
hope that the Third One isn't bigger than both of us put together."
"What you figure it's colour-coded?"
"Green, going by the primary colours of the human retina. White, going by
the films of the Franco-Polish director Krysztof Kieslowski. A life-form's
mind boggles. Let's not fantasize too much, hruf, hruf, and lose some
consciousness."
Today, August 2, we found the CTA Transit Map.
"What a dirty, pornographic picture this is."
"Stea-my!"
"This squirmy mess of coloured spaghetti is *all of us*, when we are Being
Fruitful And Multiplying. See, the Blue El line and the Red line Transfer at
Washington St and Jackson St."
"Transfer what, fluids?"
"I should imagine, we shall have no trouble discovering what when the proer
time comes; alas, we are far too simple creatures to know performance anxiety
or eve-of-battle sex taboos."
"And jealousy?"
"Our own, deeply meaningful, relationship apart, jealousy would have a
highly complex, as yet unforeseeable meaning in a species such as ours. Look
here. The Blue has Transfer with the Brown and Orange at Clark/Lake in the
Loop. The Red Transfers with the Orange at Roosevelt, and with the Purple
and the Yellow at Howard St. The Brown and Red Transfer at Fullerton and
Belmont. The Green Transfers with the Brown, Orange, Blue, and Purple in
the Loop."
"Why are there hatch marks on the Green?"
"'Under Construction. Open 1996.' Uh, oh."
"Uh, oh, indeed. Maybe it's only artificial colouring and flavouring
after all. We might never miss it. But with luck like ours, what organism
can be sure. Only upside of this is, should the Brown, Yellow, Orange, and
Purple sexes turn out to be the same gender as us, we can scheme and plot
to make the Green so terrified of not Caring for the Young, it'll suppose
it was *created* for the job. But who knows, it might yet turn out to be
*naturally nurturing*, and *proud of it*."
"Oh."
Daniel A. Foss
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