I didn’t ask, but a man I met recently at Malaprops told me about a story he’d read called “Yzur” that helped him realize that it could be possible that other animals species had evolved and developed the consciousness that humans enjoyed, that they too are capable of speech and the “human” constructs of community organization and government and scientific inquiry, but made the choice to exist as they do in the wild. He thought they made the choice to live untethered as they did, with the clouds and stars as a roof, because it was the best choice, the one most in line with the theory of natural selection that can be applied to all matter in the universe; every dominant iota exists and maybe at the expense of another, until it must give way to some other more important speck that is more beneficial to the environ it occupies. Thusly, all animal species that are today at the tops of their respective food chains, have pretty much evolved alongside humans, give or take a millennia, and were faced with the same choices. But rather than rely heavily on their cognitive faculties for survival, they chose the most primal parts of themselves to achieve dominion over their domain.
Again, I didn’t ask, but he had read the story sitting there in the book store and he told me that he couldn’t help but to tell someone about it. “It makes so much sense,” he said. “Imagine if there was a point in the history of lion evolution when there was a variety of lions that could represent the possibilities for the creature’s future evolutionary iteration, the one that we would eventually know. There was one similar to the lion we know today; one who hobbled clumsily on his hind legs and tried hard to communicate his feelings through sounds he could squeeze from his throat; another who sat in a nearby tree for the proximity of birds he could swat to the ground; and another still who clawed at the ground and made his way to the gathering via the tunnel that raised from the ground he burrowed. They all made their cases for the future of the lion through a test of wills, various competitions that tested the various lions in situations pertinent to the species; such as gathering food, reproduction, and the like. The lion on his hind legs could not out perform the others in most physical feats; he was clumsy on two feet but had to be quick to catch his food and strong to overpower it. The lion that burrowed could not keep up with the fastest of them either and he easily veered away from the race, still way behind the others. The lion in the tree must have injured himself trying to get out of the thing, it must have been a hard time getting up there in the first place, so I can’t imagine that he would have performed well. And the victor on that day was the lion that we see today, because he was the best, undeniably. And all the other lion versions either gave up their difference or evolved into something else entirely.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked him, not meaning to sound as rude as I am just now realizing I must have.
“What if we made a bad decision? What if they’re doing it right and we’re an unnatural perversion, building all these things, all this trash, blowing everything up, polluting everything in sight. What if we’re the horrible dictators of an otherwise peaceful planet?”
“I can see that,” I said convinced, “but what’s the endgame here, man? What are you getting at?”
“I just think it’s interesting, an interesting way to think about it. Maybe everything we do, all of our morals and philosophy, is our problem. Ignorance really is bliss.”
That knowledge seemed to fuel the contentment he exuded.
“But I won’t waste any more of your time. It was nice to talk to you…” I introduced myself and we shook hands. “I’m Lloyd. If you’re ever in Union County you should come by my church.” He gave me a card and he handed me the book he had been reading there in the store. It had a hard green cover and gold lettering on the front. As he stood and left, he told me the name of the story again, “Yzur.” I put the book on the table at the chair where he’d been sitting once he walked away.
I hadn’t asked for any of it, so I guess it was a forced lesson, one that does not sit well with me. I didn’t know what to do with it, was I supposed to live like an animal or justify my existence?
PRL Serials 