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Writing Workshop 9 (continued)
My Notes
A: Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they’ve been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years.
B: Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?
A: First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual.
B: We’re supposed to talk to meat.
A: That’s the idea. That’s the message they’re sending out by radio. ‘Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.’ That sort of thing.
B: They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts? A: Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat.
B: I thought you just told me they used radio.
A: They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.
B: Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise? A: Officially or unofficially?
B: Both.
A: Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing.
B: I was hoping you would say that.
A: It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?
B: I agree one hundred percent. What’s there to say? “Hello, meat. How’s it going?” But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?
A: Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can’t live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact.
B: So we just pretend there’s no one home in the Universe.
A: That’s it.
B: Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You’re sure they won’t remember?
A: They’ll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we’re just a dream to them.
B: A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat’s dream.
A: And we marked the entire sector unoccupied.
B: Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?
A: Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again.
B: They always come around.
A: And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone . . .
4 SpringBoard® Writing Workshop with Grammar Activities Grade 7
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