Based on an Untrue Story

Based on an Untrue Story

I don't mind admitting it, we came close to giving up on the thing, so difficult had it proved to be. Many, in fact most, of our scientists had thrown up their hands in disgust and declared it impossible before Jahulaba Menshius Monomarchus Grebodan Elemengaribat Fon (usually referred to as Fon for short) made the necessary breakthrough. Contrary to logic and common sense it may have been but Fon's Mutability Theorem opened the way for interstellar travel.

As it turned out, the actual space travel took no longer than, for instance, a delivery from your local Mooto's Rimbun (and many were the rimbuns consumed in Fon's laboratory before he formulated his stunning thesis, no doubt). What really took time was the bending and manipulation of the space time continuum that preceded departure. It is just as well that we Garoochans are a long-lived species.

Then there was the design of the ships to be considered. Fon had the final word, it being agreed that he should have the honor as the one who made it all possible and he chose the shape of something dear to us all - a vessel in the shape of a vessel (probably filled with iturban, knowing Fon's fondness for the steaming brew). The motor housing was very small and was sited at the top of the ship where it would be least noticed, the better to impress any life out there with our ability to move things by magic.

Anyway, we spent a few centuries (Garoochan centuries, you understand - all the above was ancient history by the time we were ready for our first flight) in exploring our galaxy and then reaching out to others. We were a bit disappointed to find no life in those early voyages so the discovery of a little blue planet in the Pong system created quite a lot of excitement (four hundred years after the event - it took that long to unravel space time before we learned the momentous news). A great expedition was planned and sent off.

And now we have the report from that exploratory visit to the planet we named Pong Three. It seems our intrepid explorers went all that way, landed, met primitive inhabitants, were received as gods, learned the unearthly language and proceeded to teach the poor blighters how to build enormous structures out of stone. Huge buildings of incredibly weighty and carefully-shaped rock were constructed, enormous creations that served no useful purpose apart from being aligned rather cleverly north and south. These took years, of course, and just about destroyed the economies of the proto-nations our explorers persuaded to the task.

And then, when they were finished and every continent had been scarred with these edifices of useless stone, our expedition members went back to the ship and left. Just like that, no word of explanation to the bemused and baffled inhabitants, no fancy goodbye ceremonies, not even a "Ta ta and thanks for all the fish." The mind boggles (well, mine does anyway).

The entire expedition is being held for psychiatric examination at the Grutch Institute and we hope to hear the results soon. Most of us are praying that they were the victims of some unidentified space disease that induces temporary insanity but it is too early to say as yet. In the meantime, I have to be alone for a while. I need to still the question that nags incessantly at my brain. Why, oh why, did it have to be stone? Anything else would have been better, bolburate, for instance, or plastic or brick or even sticks and mud, for Potaluma's sake. But stone, I ask you. Can you think of a heavier substance to build in? Anything more awkward to move and harder to shape? We go all that way and then teach the buggers to build in stone?

Leave me now. I think I may scream...

Word Count: 654
Note: Resurrected from oblivion after its first existence in this portfolio and subsequent deletion to make way for others. This brief return allows me to refer to it for argumentative purposes.