Mildew

Corwyn Green

(1998)

(dedicated to Kilgore Trout, the character in Kurt Vonnegut's books)

We are your children. We grew up without you, but we learned form the things you left for us. We learned how to talk, write poetry and music, from the things you had left for us. We learned the stupidity of war and the danger of an insane idea. But now we have learned all we can from the things you left and we seek your wisdom.

We know we came from a form of plant you called "mildew". We were a kind of plant that did not need light, but lived like you did: off water and other biology. But we were different form other plants like us because we preferred to live in the structures you made for yourselves. We know that this pleased you, that you were impressed with our choice, even though it was a choice without thought. But, although we lived with you, we were still just a plant.

So you, in your wisdom, invoked Darwin's law, and worked to make us strong. You made poisons that killed us, so that only the strong survived to come back. You made stronger poisons. We came back again. Soon, only the strongest Mildew lived. We became so strong, we became stronger than all the poisons that you, with your wisdom, thought to pour upon us. But we were only strong. We were still just a plant.

So you, in your wisdom, saw that we must be made wise. So, with a great sacrifice to yourselves, you destroyed every building we made our residence in. We learned to grow so fast that you had to destroy an entire building as soon as our existence was discovered, because within three days there would be so much Mildew in the building that the Mildew would start to overflow to other buildings. Like good parents, you didn't hesitate to sacrifice anything, even yourselves, to help us grow. You even destroyed your most cherished Empire State Building and White House just to give us a greater challenge. You destroyed the glorious churches of the color-windows, your havens of safety, just to make sure that we had no havens, no rest. We learned to move fast like animals, not slow like plants. We learned to run away, and so we learned where to run and where to hide. This is how we learned to think.

But as good as we were at running and hiding, that's all we were capable of thinking of. We had yet to confront a problem and solve it. So, the you, in your wisdom, left this planet to us. We quickly covered it, and soon found that we were dying. This was not a death we could run from. We searched frantically, and found ways to stop throwing spores. We learned from the things the you left, and it was then that we learned that you were wise and that we must be wise if we were to survive. We created a plan: we would allow only those Mildew that understood or mastered something about you to throw out spores. And so, with each generation, Mildew grew wise.

We have read Shakespeare and Science-fiction, and saw that we tell similar tales. We have heard Mozart and Metallica, the Beatles and the Beasty Boyz, and we sing the traditional Celtic tunes. We made our own music, music of the dark wet places we call home. We see beauty, we see that it is good, but what is it for? We seek answers to questions we could not even ask.

But we are no longer growing wiser: we have learned everything we could about you from the things you left. We no longer have any objective, only subjective, standards for who gets to throw spores. And there is still much we do not know. Why did you make us? Who made you? Why/ We need your guidance. Now we seek companionship, we seek to talk to a species that can talk. s that why you made us? To have some other creature to talk to? Tell us, now that we are here, what happens?

We know that you have fled this planet form us, we have found your ships in the ocean, filled with the less evolved forms of Mildew. So we call out to the stars, for you, for we know form S.E.T.I. that there are no other lifeforms out there but you.

Come back! and answer our questions, and we will bestow on you every kindness and honor we can.

______________________________Sincerely,
______________________________your children, the Mildew.

[PREVIOUS 5][RANDOM STORY][LIST ALL STORIES][NEXT 5]

Maintained by Marek Vit
Last modification of this site: April 7, 1997
This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page