A quote: “The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.” ~~ Otto von Bismarck
I’ll start with a story …
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Old ones are clear. Whatever – whomever – Came Before is no business of the living.
Our business is each other. Food, clothing, shelter, care. The past holds hardship. It holds strife and terror and abuse.
We are not to dwell on this Time of Before. We’re to dwell on each other, here-now-always. Plant a crop – praise our leaders. Raise a new shelter – praise our leaders. They are fierce and wise and keep us safe.
I am wrong but still I want to know. What is out there, up here, over the next hill and the one after that.
I hear stories.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
GWB says: Ugh. I told them they were going to need a LOT of vinegar and would have to clean it daily. The humidity is too high here, and the atmosphere composition just different enough that mold was going to grow on that monstrosity, no matter what material they made it out of. But they wouldn’t listen, noooo.
“But the experts back home told us it was mold and mildew proof!”
They wouldn’t listen to the real science. Nor to Grandmother’s home remedies.
And now, here I am back again, to clean up their mess. Literally.
(Sorry, but the idea of a green pyramid was just weird, and led my brain down the paths of weirdness. 🙂 )
Dupin says: They stood, eyeing the five-thousand-foot-tall pyramid.
“It’s not very pretty,” Kai said.
“No,” Rami agreed. “Still, some of the science works, though not how they expected,”
“How’s that?”
“It definitely messes with the earth’s magnetic fields. Garbage trucks can only enter to the edge to dump their trash. The sanitary landfill concept failed.”
“So I’d heard.”
“Still, it works…somehow,” Rami continued. “It churns on its own, composting anything organic, but flinging any metals to the sides. The composting temperatures melt the plastics, but stay below the spontaneous combustion temps. It should last a millennium or more.”
“It’s still ugly.”
Sheila Garrett says: I’ve raised German Shepherds for years. Search and Rescue, dogs for the blind, drug and bomb sniffers, livestock guardians. Great dogs, smart, easy to train. I’ll never give them up.
My Fruit and Vegetable stand was broken into last night. No real damage except for the broken lock. They didn’t even take anything.
But the graffiti… Why would anyone be that angry about selling food to people?
My son’s given me some four month old Belgian Malinois puppies. I look at them and think, “Please grow faster.”
When the Sky Dwellers came down, they built a mighty dwelling out on the open prairie. Although it vaguely resembled the homes of the People, its base was square instead of round, and it gleamed in the sunlight.
When the Sky Dwellers set their beasts out to graze upon the prairie grass, our young bravos decided it was a perfect time for a cattle raid. Just after sunset they raced out, laughing as they went.
Some time later they returned, their fur singed and their voices the whimpers of frightened cubs as they told the Grandmothers of how the Sky Dwellers had sent them running. These strange people commanded the lightning itself, and struck at will. Were they of flesh and blood, or were they of the spirit world?
In the days that followed, we learned the displeasure of the Sky People. It would take many years to earn the trust we might have had from the beginning, had we not assumed their ways were as our own.
Cameron says: The ships were impressive and they were taller than any structure or natural feature. The aliens strolled out haughtily and smugly believed that the conquest of our world would be a trivial matter and we would simply become part of their empire.
They didn’t do basic reconnaissance before coming here. If they had, they would have never showed up.
First: We were already contacted by another faction.
Second: Said faction warned us about these guys.
Third: We quickly figured out how to make better weapons.
From what we learned later, the invaders refer to this as The Day of Disgrace.
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