9. THE GOOD FRIDAY LESSON

What at first seemed pretty decent as a home world is beginning to show up in its own colours...

“Today,” began Zoz, “is a special day and you can all go and holiday after you’ve been registered as present.”

“What’s so special about it?” asked Din, “and if it’s going to be a holiday why have I had to get washed, get dressed and come all the way here just to be sent back home?”

“In our examination of Ancient pre-history we must try to discover why things were as they were back on the home planet, before the Great Chaos when seas washed over the land and millions of ordinary, decent folk died in their beds and the Trumpster’s worst efforts came to fruition with a total environmental collapse. The fear is that such events might occur again if we as a species is not ultra-careful, and this time the consequences will be much worse if they do recur. Remember, we are still strangers on Terraful and the environment we find ourselves in cannot possibly support our kind of life. We and it are as different as chalk and cheese, so to speak.”

“What’s chalk?” asked Cun.

“And cheese. What’s cheese?” added Els.

Zoz sighed. “They are two very incompatible things,” he said wearily. “Chalk is a kind of soft stone and cheese is a dairy product manufactured from the milk of beasts. To compare them is to compare two items that may, under certain circumstances, look similar but which are, in fact very dissimilar. It’s an ancient saying, that’s all. What I mean is the least degradation of the ecology of Terraful will surely be disastrous. We must be vigilant.”

“So we must learn from the past or risk repeating it?” prompted Pul.

Zoz nodded. “Indeed we must, and whilst learning from the past we must remember that the ecology of Terraful is far more precarious than was the ecology of the home planet, which for millennia was abundant with all manner of living things until the Great Chaos wiped many of them away.”

“What would be the worst thing that could happen?” asked Din, his voice bordering on the sarcastic.

“Well,” began the teacher, “the air we breathe is nowhere near as rich in the vital gases that we need as was the air back on Earth, and the principle ingredient we use with every breath we take, oxygen, is only there because the blue savannah that covers over ninety-nine percent of this pretty world produces it, but in minuscule quantities. Destroy the blue grasses or reduce their fields drastically and you remove the generation of oxygen, and that is a very serious thing if it happens. We need oxygen to breathe, and for some of our more antiquated factories in Clingle to produce our necessities. And you will be aware that all of industry is on that one centre where everything is tightly vontrolled. Wipe Clingle out, say in a flood or by some other disastrous means, and you wipe out the possibility of us continuing to live on Terraful.

“That is all. Now I have registered your presence, and you are free to go. Have a good holiday, and donlt worry unnecessarily.”

The students stared at each other for a while, then jostled their way out of the small classroom to join a flood of other students from other classrooms.

“He never said what holiday this is and why it’s special,” murmured Cun to Els.

“It’s called Good Friday, but I’ve no idea what’s good about it,” said Els informatively. “It used to be a religious holiday, something to do with an execution in the horrid days when people were executed, which was legalised murder.”

“They’d get fifty thousand volts for that these days!” remarked Cun, shaking her head until her hair cascaded around it like a fluffy halo.

“And so they should!” agreed Els, “but things used to be horrible, and anyway my parents say the only things that have survived in records from pre-history are either stories originally meant to frighten children or events so horrid they must never be forgotten.”

“It’s funny how some of the things teacher Zoz explains as actual fact may, if we went back in a time machine, prove to be no more than a silly story told to nippers to shut them up,” sighed Cun, “and yet we listen to them ad even note them on our tablets. There must be whole swathes of stuff that never happened that is continually getting passed down the generations by teachers like Zoz as true history. And maybe even some that we get punished for disbelieving is a fairy story that has metamorphosed into history as fact”

“Apparently that’s why bad things continue to happen,” sighed Els, “because nobody is ever actually sure if something recorded in all the memory library is actually true. Like the Trumpster.”

“And his witch slave, the Maybot,” shuddered Cun.

“Yes, and her. It is recorded that they did terrible things and were responsible for the Great Collapse and all the millions upon millions of people who died, but were they? Did they ever actually live and do the things they’re recorded as doing, or are they just more characters from stories designed to subdue nippers?”

Cun shook her head. “I guess we’ll never know,” she said ruefully. “Have you got anyone to play with when we get back to our homes?”

“Pul said he might pop round and do something extra special with me,” sighed Els, grinning suddenly, “and I hope he does. He’s really nice, is Pul, and I get this quivery feeling inside me every time he’s anywhere near me!”

“I’m going to play with Din,” said Cun decisively, “we get up to quite a lot of things that once upon a time were quite forbidden.”

“You mean, before controls on libido were forbidden?” asked Els, “it must have been horrid living in those days! I heard that once upon a time a fem didn’t even like men looking at her chest in case they got over-excited!”

“Or touching it,” giggled Cun, “can you believe it? Bodies being forbidden? It’s not as if games lead to Michaelmas, is it?”

“Not while we drink the water,” agreed Els, “and that’s important if the number of people in the population is going to be sustainable. It’s a good thing that the water’s a one hundred percent effective contraceptive, or games would be forbidden and all sorts of restrictions would have to be put in place.”

“I’d hate it for games to be outlawed,” shuddered Cun, “because it’s games with the lads that makes life worth living.”

Els nodded. “There’s not much besides that,” she agreed, “not much at all. School and games and, I suppose, time to sleep.”

“And dream,” sighed Cun, “and certainly dream...”

© Peter Rogerson 19.04.19