A Brown Study

    The restaurant was unusually crowded that evening, considering that it was Christmas. The young man sat at a table and drummed his fingers uneasily. The waitress responded by hastening with a rather soiled menu card, but that wasn’t what he was restless about. Thanking her, he pretended to read it intently, waiting for her to pad off for other orders. His mind hovered in exasperation, muttering under his breath that she was late again, just like their first date. He glued his eyes to the entrance, with increasing disappointment as fresh crowds streamed in and looked at the occupied tables with waning hopes. It was only to natural that he wasn’t aware, indeed, no one can  be, of being closely and secretly watched. Not by any shadowy person, but by a glistening, black beetle, little more than a perfectly globular drop sticking to the rim of the table’s circumference.

     It wasn’t exactly the beetle, though, who was interested in him. Its eyes were functioning as shiny, round windows for four microbes inhabiting its head, in full control of the activities of the creature. They were by no means of any sort known to biologists. If viewed through a microscope, one would see that oblate spheres of many non-chlorophyllous hues, and rapidly pulsating nuclei, from which emerged a pair of tentacular antennae, extending their ciliary lengths to double as limbs, comprised the structure of the organisms. Their plasms were ceaselessly changing in colour like decorative lights, turning into all shades but green.

      One of the four was significantly larger, differentiated by its many lobed nucleus with rudimentary, developing antennae apart from the main ones, whereas the others simply had single globes for their nuclei. This, the leader, now addressed them in amazingly subsonic vibrations of sentience which no earthly ear or device could possibly pick up.

      “And now, at the end of all our tedious travels in order to study lifeforms of various galaxies, we  as this, though apparently beautiful. We have, quite unfortunately, landed in the most boring region of the planet which, if the mapping section of my memory serves me right, is called ‘civilisation’, by the creatures who made it. These creatures usually walk on their hind legs, and their forelegs and head, along with the rest of their bodies, have seen several complex changes, depending upon usage. For instance, the creature you see here is in a sitting position, and is blinking frequently in an effort to view what are known as ‘words’, which they put, by various instruments, upon the thing he holds, called ‘paper’. It is one of the chief ways in which they communicate, apart from what is known as ‘talking’, as you will see just now.”

      The curious microbes couldn’t restrain their delight as they heard the man thoughtfully utter ‘Coffee”. They drew their antennae up, which quivered with what ought to be, in human terms, laughter. But they were baffled to see the man hand not only the menu card but two other pieces of paper which he excavated from a somewhat tattered pouch in his side, after a long, gloomy search.

     “No, it is not part of his body, but a contrivance known as an ‘overcoat’. Ever since these creatures started changing, they lost their ability to inherently withstand heat and cold, and hence require such protection, made out of things obtained by killing other creatures.”

      “But many of these creatures here are clad in odercokes..”

“Overcoats”, corrected the leader sternly.

“Yes, overcoats.  But those of the others seem of higher quality than that of this creature. Why so?”

“I’m coming to that. Did you notice the pieces of ‘paper’, he removed from the gap in his overcoat?”

The pupils turned blue in assent.

“Those are called ‘pockets’, and the green pieces of paper, ‘money’. The creature is unable to wear a better coat for protection from weather because the other creatures, or humans as they call themselves, have more of the paper called money, in their pockets, while he has less of money.”

“Does that mean, teacher, that among these ‘humans’, the ones with more money are more resistant to natural hazards?”

“Not only that, they are resistant to hazards they create for each other as well, and the ones with the most  ‘money’, are usually, either openly or covertly, the leaders of the ‘civilisations’.”

“But what of a human who doesn’t have any money?”

“It simply dies from lack of nutrition and shelter.”

“Meaning even those depend on money?”

The teacher chameleoned into a shade of alarmingly bright cyan in approval of his pupil’s intelligence.

“Is it that like the planet Xeroblig, the creatures here are segregated by the value of how much money they have and valued on that scale, just like in the other case, the Xeroblites are valued by how many feelers they have?”

“Quite right, though I hear that these creatures do not admit it, and in several cases, when they say yes, it means a no, and vice versa. This process is known as ‘lying’. It is an obsolete process which was once practised on our planet too, last observed to occur around the year 7251, when the Prime Tentacle lied to the Chief Fang about invading the planet Truga. It still persists here, so many light years away. These creatures compete to get better at ‘lying’, since the more skilled they are at it, the more money they can have. By faithfully lying to each other everyday and acting accordingly, they have been able to build such a ‘civilization’, which is a more complicated way of getting their needs than, say, hunting or foraging.”

       The pupils were thoroughly entertained to hear it, and flickered from hue to hue in uncontrollable laughter.

“But in such a life, don’t they aid each other in any way?” inquired one of the inquisitive pupils, trying hard to stop changing colour.

“They seem to, by what they call ‘love’, which in most cases is either another instance of the process of lying or an excuse for breeding. The opposite of the process is known as ‘war’. But the wars aren’t as we know them to be. They don’t concern attacking the inhabitants of other planets, which is the normal thing to do, but attacking and killing each other.”

“Each other!” glowed the students, crimson with astonishment.

“Indeed, they carry the idea a bit too far. Apart from their daily conflicts in an attempt to gather more money, they unite, apparently as an act of love, as ‘nations’, so that they may practise ‘war’ upon other such nations for more money. Then the victorious nation puts it down on paper, and displays it to its children as what they call their ‘history’, which is little more than an account of the ‘wars’, they fought for money, and what they then did with the money”.

They whipped their tentacles around feebly, in a helpless state of watery colourlessness as their plasms were curdled into laughter that threatened to lacerate their cell membranes.

“And what do they do with their money other than fulfil needs?” inquired another with much effort, stopping its pearly vacuoles from flitting about and composing itself.

“Find better ways to make more money, and better ways to destroy each other. They call it by the collective term, ‘progress’.” explained the leader, wriggling its nucleus wisely.

The pupils crinkled their tentacles in disgust.

“And now, pay attention, and you will see a practical instance of ‘love’, among these organisms.”

All of them drew their antennae close to the ‘windows’ of the insect’s eyes, and perceived that the young man had been joined at the table by a woman.

“So, how have you been? I got caught up between this and that,” said she, after the customary kiss upon meeting.

“You always get caught up between this and that,” grumbled the man, with ill-concealed chagrin.

“But honey, you know that the school...”

“Yeah, I know,” he snapped, contemptuously.

Their plates arrived, each laden with a hillock of dainties. The man winced, scratching the rotten leather of his nearly empty wallet with his dingy fingernail before fishing out his handkerchief, and wiping his forehead with it.

They munched in silence, devouringly solemn.

When the last of the food had trickled down their gasping, hiccup-stifled esophagi, and wiping hands passed over their mouths, she spoke with a sad smile-“You know what, today is a day when people are absolutely honest. And somehow, I feel I’ve wasted my time and our relationship doesn’t work at all. Please don’t be angry with me, but its all so mechanical, the calls, the meetings, the movies. I suggest we move on.”

The man stared at her, agape in a silent cry of dismay.

“Well I’ll ring you up later and talk. I’m already late for the programme, but glad I could catch up with you. Merry Christmas!” she said, in a thrillingly melodious voice and hurried off into the evening. The man gazed, dumbfounded, at the door.

The beetle scurried over to the plates in hopes of leftovers. Meanwhile, the creatures in its head were flinging their antennae and churning up their cellular contents in derisive glee at the incident.

The man’s reverie was broken by the waitress placing a silver tray before him. Engirdled by small chocolates and translucent lozenges obviously meant to put diners in a cheery frame of mind, lay a rectangular slip of paper with digits in blue meandering all over it, like a river in a valley surrounded by wrapper-enclosed mountains. He picked it up, and couldn’t restrain a shout, slamming the table with his fist, outraged. Consequently, he found his hand wet and sticky. He had squished a beetle near his plate.