A Patriotic Fairy Tale

"How about a glass of warm milk before we start your bedtime story? "No, Are you sure? Okay, sweetie, let's begin with tonight's story."

One fine day on the planet Nemitz, where the temperature was mild and the landscape was finely primped and trimmed, a top fuscia-green official of the very highest order was rescued by a blue-green swing-deer, when they both just happened to be at the machine shop that day. Today was inspection day and all the machines needed a careful inspection for safety and things like that, you know. The workers were slumped diligently over their machines, churning out all kinds of products. Some of them beamed with pride over their creations. Some were just automatons going through the motions and collecting their pay while trying to appear interested in what they were doing, in case the foreman came by and tried to read their thoughts as some of them were wont to do at any given moment.

"See the picture, honey?"

It seems that the fuscia-green official had got her very precious golden heart-shaped locket caught in one of the gears of the machinery while she bent over just a little too far when carrying out her inspection. Suddenly a Swingdeer appeared and expertly freed her from the gears just in time to save her, frightened, delicate face. The rescued official, who regarded herself as a patriot because she thought fuscia-greens were the very best people on Nemitz was very surprised that an off-worlder and particularly an off-worlder of the blue-green variety had come to her aid. In fact, if you asked her, she might even admit that she felt a bit queasy when the off-worlder toucher her to free her golden locket from the gears. Of course, she could not speak the Swingdeer's language, a combination of grunts and whistles to her delicate ear, but she thought the look in the Swingdeer's eyes was warm and caring. Still, she was an ugly creature in her mind, and this particular official had always thought a blue-green's appearance was off-putting to her delicate sensibilities. She forced a smile at the Swingdeer and hoped it would conceal her distaste.

"Huh, off-putting?" "I don't know why. Maybe it's because she just didn't like Swingdeers. Some people don't like anyone who is different from themselves I dare say. Many people were like that in the olden days. Today we have a higher sense of civility and acceptance of different cultures and alien races. We're much more advanced than the civilizations in this story.

"But, let's continue..."

The rescued official wondered how one Swingdeer could possibly love another. If indeed these creatures were capable of such a thing as love. In the back of her mind, she thought any sentient creature must be capable of some of the higher emotions, such as love or tenderness. But such thoughts were illegal on Nemitz, the thought police could monitor your thoughts and this official was no stranger to the rules of thought that governed her world, so the patriot casually tossed them out of her mind as if they were a bunch of wayward kittens. That should make the thought police happy, she mused to herself. After the Swingdeer had managed to free her from the machinery, the patriot simply grunted at the good samaritan, handed her a few bucks, and went on her merry way.

"What's that, honey? The fuscia-greens? We erased them centuries ago. They were too uncivilized a race and Swingdeers could not live with them any longer. "

"Huh? No, we're not patriots. We used to be slaves...it's just a story. Good night, sweetie. I'll read you another story tomorrow night."