Chapter 4.5

Miss Muffin's Funeral Part 2

Acceleration

Author's Notes: So sorry about putting the next installment off. I know, I'm a horrible writer. But it's because I'm so busy with classes and it's not going to get any easier. Finals are coming up and after finals there is NO summer break. Nope, not even a day! I zoom right into summer courses which will be learning Japanese, Jazz dance and some classes related to my field. Not only that I volunteer and I run around to see friends every once in a while. It's the way I do life.

This is a philosophical chapter, which I hope you will enjoy. It gives an overarching look at the state of planet Earth with humans running the show. Then in Chapter Five there will be some new characters introduced, some details are learned and it will end with a surprise that will be setting up the conflict of the story. You must read it! Oh, and Chapter 7 is when the core of the story is going to be built up.

He never thought he would see a human in such a pathetic state. A human sobbing on the floor being embraced by another, her body shaking as she gasped between sobs. Emmie was embracing Melissa as she cried for her dead cat. Alexander Jones, A.J. was baffled. How can they be so cruel to a species that was superior to them, and yet be in love with a furry piece of meat? Emmie stroked Melissa's hair and whispered kindly in her ear. Every once in a while she glared at him angrily as minutes ticked by. A.J. felt strange about the whole thing. He was trapped there because there was nowhere else he could go with his injured foot, and even now he couldn't leave even though he wanted to. And even though he killed her beloved cat he couldn't bring himself to feel guilty. How would he know that they treasured little animals? How would he know what was considered food and not? Humans were bizarrely inconsistent, how could they even tell what was right and wrong? He had no reason to feel guilty and yet he did, because he killed one of Melissa's best friends.

Minutes ticked by, and as time passed Melissa continued to cry and Emmie kept glaring. He felt remorseful about Miss Muffin and there were two other people amplifying his guilt. They were against him because he did something horrible. But how could they be mad at what he did to their pet when they treated his people so badly? As he watched the two he started getting angry. He was trapped in the apartment, and had no food. He had no idea the cat was anything more than food. And with the way humans treated them how would he know they actually cared about other species? He was fuming. He was just sitting there in their silent accusations. He could tear them apart and flee, but did he need to go that far? He decided he would speak, would turn their accusations of him against them. And if they decided to bring up hostility he would have every reason to simply tear their organs out and watch them gasp like a fish as they died.

'Hypocrites! Since when did you humans care about any other species outside of your own?' His voice was a raspy click.

Emmie looked at him, her eyes narrowed. She told Melissa she would be right back and went to the kitchen and grabbed a notebook. When she returned she said, "Say that again, will you?"

'All you humans care about is your own species. How can your friend cry over a little animal?'

Emmie started scribbling on the notebook and began the process of translating. She had to figure out how to organize the clicks coherently and then translate them into English. Ten minutes passed before she got the two sentences in English. "Oh my god this is going to be a pain in the ass to learn," she muttered. Once she was done translating she reacted unexpectedly. She snorted and shook her head.

"All you humans care about is your own species. How can your friend cry over a little animal?" She repeated. She held the paper up and said, "This is one of the biggest fallacies I've ever heard. A fallacy is an error of reasoning. Basically you've taken your own experience and the experience of your species and have blown it up to conclude that's what we do to all species. This little conclusion is so fucking off the mark I don't know where to begin. Uh, vegans are people that won't use or consume anything higher than a plant. South Africa has set aside over 11% of its land to biodiversity, and the US has 3.5% of its land in park systems for preservation. The freakin' UK has made cephalopods honorary vertebrates, granting them certain rights in the process, and let's not even start on smart animals like chimps and dolphins. People really do care about other species, like oaks. California has some very strong laws protecting Oaks from being taken down during construction. So, you're wrong about people, but I'll tell you where you're right. "

Emmie took a sigh and started in her case against entities such as MNU, "While people care about other species corporations don't. Corporations are institutions that only care about maximizing how much money they get while minimizing how much money they spend. MNU is doing whatever they can to try to figure out how to make alien weapons work so they can sell the technology to other companies and nations. British Plutonium has that huge oil spill that went from the Gulf of Mexico all the way up to Europe, and then there is the World Trade Organization that gets whole nations in debt and forces nations to give up their resources. Corporations have put a price tag on everything in existence, and has made greed a virtue. They should be…."

Melissa started laughing, "Emmie, please stop! You've gone from my poor cat to global economics!"

A.J. was simply lost by Emmie. What was biodiversity? Or … cephalopods? And what was an evil corporation? Though they really sounded evil if they could make slaves out of nations.

"But am I right? You have the oil companies, the pharmaceutical companies, large agriculture, large retail, corporate media, fast food, and those companies that hire workers at 15 cents an hour."

"Don't tell me you still think the solution is socialism."

"I don't think taxing them is socialism."

"No, taxing them isn't enough; they need to just be dismantled."

"Yes, you need to internalize the externalities they cause and that's done by hitting them with taxes. Rape them with taxes. Restore all regulatory powers that fucking Reagan took out, put up tariffs, and strip them of 14th amendment rights."

"You totally miss the point. It should be laissez faire capitalism. Corporations need to be stripped of all government protections and dismantled and the market should be free to operate itself with no protection or regulation from government."

"So you want to go back to early 19th century economics with its boom and bust cycles? Fine. How do you propose competing with China and India since they will certainly be keeping the more stable corporate model?"

"India and China rely on us for their economic growth. If we restructure our markets they have to fall in line."

"Oh, yeah? Well, China can call in the debts they're holding on us. What do you say about that?"

"We liquidize all the capital the corporations possess and pay off our debts."

"UGHHH! Stop dodging! Oh… we still have to fix AJ's foot."

AJ was lost back at the cephalopods and couldn't understand what they were arguing about. But the way Emmie reacted was unexpected. He thought she would get angry, and he wanted her to, but all she did was say he was wrong. If humans really did care about other species why were Poleepkwa treated so badly? Was it just because MNU wanted more money?

"Okay, Emmie, shut up and let me sum this up. Okay, look, this world has 6.8 billion humans, and is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050. What everyone really wants is a comfortable life where they can provide for themselves and their family and perhaps find a meaning to pursue. But there are so many people and there are 192 nations and only so much land to grow food on, so many fish to catch and there are powerful regions such as North America and Europe and growing regions such as India and China that want to keep all of the Earth's resources for themselves. We are growing in population, and need land, we are growing in demand for energy, for water, for housing and because we simply don't know the best way to manage resources and are in competition over resources we have ended up poisoning our water and land, depleting our food supply, drying out our energy supplies and ripping apart mountainsides to gain access to coal and metals. Frankly mankind is trying to progress, trying to better ourselves, and we really do care. We just really don't know what we're doing."

Then Emmie took over, "we have a billion people starving, okay. There's plenty of people that don't get enough to eat and then a million aliens showed up. Welcome to the chaos of Earth. We're wondering when it's all going to fall apart. So you're wrong."

Silence pervaded the room, the humans reflecting on the sad state of the world with no known solution in sight, and AJ was simply shocked. He really could not understand how humans could have produced such chaos. The Poleepkwa were an ancient race with the knowledge and understanding of sustaining multiple planetary systems indefinitely. Thousands of years before when they were just reaching the point of leaving their planet they reached such progress slowly and wisely, not pushing beyond their means. Why did humans have to accelerate and progress so fast?

Melissa sighed, "Well, we need to get this surgery done, and I want some sleep. I mean, I miss my cat but it really was my fault for neglecting the situation. I didn't explain pets to you and I didn't get you anything to eat. You didn't know any better."

AJ gave up. Whatever he knew about humans was wrong.

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