PEDESTRIAN 1: I…what? That’s ridiculous!
PEDESTRIAN 2: Oh come on man, don’t be disgusting.
PEDESTRIAN 3: Holovision is really running out of ideas, huh?
PEDESTRIAN 4: Oh, wow, ew, gross, I’m shocked. …Are y’all gonna pay me for this?
Audience laughs. Camera pans to MIKE CATMAN, SHOW HOST
MIKE CATMAN: Those were just a few of the reactions we got on the street when we showed people the subject of today’s episode of CATMAN’S CRITTERS.
CATMAN’S CRITTERS theme song plays. [CATMAN’S CRITTERS and CATMAN’S CRITTERS JINGLE are registered trademarks of HELIX HOLOVISION LLC.]
MIKE CATMAN: Coming up after the break, we have a leading expert on today’s ‘Critter’ and author of the upcoming book FROM FLAGELLATES TO FOLLICLE FLAPS: THE FASCINATING FOUNDATIONS OF FLUID FEEDERS, Doctor Jacob Jacobs!
Camera pans out as audience cheers. Five minutes of advertisements play.
MIKE CATMAN: And we’re back to more CATMAN’S CRITTERS!
Audience cheers.
MIKE CATMAN: With us today is a very special guest. Doctor Jacob Jacobs is a biologist who specializes in alien anatomy and evolution. Is Jake OK, Doctor?
JACOB JACOBS: Jake is just fine, Mike. I’m happy to be on the show!
MIKE CATMAN: We’re happy to have you with us. Jake, why don’t you introduce us to today’s ‘Critter’?
JAKE JACOBS: Sure. Today’s ‘Critter’ is brand new to science, only recently discovered thanks to radio transmissions. We’ve taken to calling them “Synapsids”, after their similarities to our own synapsids, as you’ll see are abundant.
MIKE signals to an offscreen producer, and a still photograph of a SYNAPSID is projected on the screen behind the stage. The audience collectively gasps.
MIKE CATMAN: Wow, that is… I’ve seen it before, but you never really get used to this thing, do you?
JAKE JACOBS: I haven’t yet, Mike, and not for lack of trying.
MIKE CATMAN: Ahem. Anyway. Why don’t you tell us exactly what we’re looking at here. “Synapsid”, right?
JAKE JACOBS: That’s right, Mike. As you can see, it has all of the basic synapsid features: Thorax, torso, contiguous head region, and four extending limbs. There’s even fur on some of the specimens.
MIKE CATMAN: Hold on, you said…four limbs? If I remember my schooling, I thought synapsids have five?
JAKE JACOBS: You’re close, but that’s not exactly accurate. Synapsids indeed have five protrusions, but only four are fully articulated. The one extending from the hindquarters is an extension of its internal skeleton, a kind of “tail end”, if you will.
MIKE CATMAN: And this one doesn’t have a “tail”. Do the others?
JAKE JACOBS: None of the synapsid specimens appear to have tails, no.
MIKE CATMAN: Nature is truly fascinating. Now Jake, can you tell us anything else about these, uh, synapsids? How big are they, what do they eat, that kind of thing.
JAKE JACOBS: Sure. As far as size goes, they appear to be about twenty mandibles tall on average, but there’s significant variation. The transmissions have actually been very helpful in that regard; they seem to make extensive use of tools, which can be used to gauge relative size.
MIKE CATMAN: Tools. Do you think the broadcasts are from the synapsids themselves?
JAKE JACOBS: It’s the leading theory right now, Mike. I don’t know why else the footage would almost exclusively be of them.
MIKE CATMAN: Right. Of course.
MIKE pauses for several seconds, seemingly in contemplation. The focus shifts to a section of the audience, members of which are murmuring amongst themselves, then back to the stage.
MIKE CATMAN: You know what, I’m sorry, I… I just can’t get past it. I gotta ask… What’s with the uh, thing down there? Between the limbs?
JAKE JACOBS: Laughs It’s quite alright, Mike. It was my first question too. I hope this is alright to say on HV, but we think that’s the…uh… reproductive center.
MIKE CATMAN: You mean the balls?
Audience laughs.
JAKE JACOBS: That’s right. The balls are on the outside.
MIKE CATMAN: I… what purpose could that possibly serve? Wouldn't that be dangerous? How could that survive natural selection?
JAKE JACOBS: Beats me, Mike. And that’s my professional opinion: I’m as stumped as you are.
MIKE CATMAN: Truly disturbing. Pauses. I think our time's about up, unfortunately. Doctor Jacobs, a pleasure as always.
JAKE JACOBS: The pleasure's all mine, Mike. Snaps mandibles
MIKE snaps his mandibles. The camera pans out above the stage, and the audience enters the picture.
MIKE CATMAN: (Get that thing off the screen.)
The image of a SYNAPSID disappears from the screen, replaced by the HELIX HOLOVISION logo.
MIKE CATMAN: CATMAN'S CRITTERS will be back right after the break, where we've got some more… Synapsid… footage. Great.
Audience members politely snap mandibles. Picture cuts to commercials.
"Christopher is a purple one-eyed space snake!"
"Yeah, Christopher! You're a one-eyed purple space snake!"
Most days, Chris was used to the jeers of his classmates. After all, he was the new kid, and what was new was different. It was only human nature, his mother had told him. The teasing would eventually stop, and he'd start to make friends. Christopher knew that.
Most days, anyway.
Today was different. Something about their taunts struck a nerve. They were just a little too familiar, hitting just a little too close to home. Chris saw red.
"Ma'am, I understand that you're upset, but you need to realize that those kids could have been seriously hurt. Your son…"
The principal was interrupted by the indignant response of Chris's mother.
"He's just a kid! These little bastards have been harassing him for months! I try to be strong for him, but… I mean, come on! You're lucky they didn't hit first or you'd have a lawsuit on your… hands. Yeah, that's it. Lawsuit on your hands."
"Ma'am, I appreciate your discretion to this point. We all do. The school, I mean. Nobody wants a story on 'classroom xenophobia' in the next Tribune." The principal leaned back in her seat. "I'll tell you what," she started, clasping her hands together and pointing two fingers at the woman sitting across from her. "We're going to put on an assembly about cultural tolerance. Nothing flashy, maybe some older transfers talk about their experiences a bit, then maybe Chris could say a few words."
Chris's mother didn't say anything, but her brow furrowed slightly. She was listening.
"Look, I don't want to get Chris in trouble. I know he didn't mean to react that way, and between you and me, they had it coming."
"Really," came the disbelieving reply.
"Really. I'm just as fed up with the intolerance your people deal with as you are, and we both know it starts with the parents."
Chris's mother shifted up her seat.
"Bottom line is, if I don't file a report on this, which neither of us want me to do, I still need to make this right. And to make this right without a report, I need your continued…discretion."
Chris's mother went a beat without responding. The principal could tell she was a woman who considered her actions and words carefully. A defense mechanism, perhaps?
"All right," she hissed.
"Great. I can let you sign Chris out now, or…"
"He can take the bus home. No different than any other day."
The principal made good on her proposal three days later. Towards the end of the day, once classes had all but wrapped up, the final thirty minutes had been allotted towards an assembly. Four hundred students, most in the first through fifth grades, filed into the auditorium that for most of the day served as a cafeteria. Even as their teachers made efforts to shush them, there was a low murmur rumbling among the students. Most of them couldn't even spell "cross-cultural tolerance", and fewer knew precisely what it meant.
"ATTENTION, STUDENTS."
The principal's voice boomed across the auditorium, generating a visible wince across a wide swath of her visible audience.
"Whoops! Too loud!", she remarked apologetically, fiddling with a dial on the microphone to adjust its volume. "Please, stay in your seats. Today, we're going to be talking about cross-cultural tolerance. Can anyone tell me what that means?"
The principal waited. No one dared raise their hand - no surprise there. She was never the adventurous type herself when she was in their shoes.
"That's all right. Cross-cultural tolerance is when we make an effort to understand people who aren't from where we live. In other places," she elaborated, "people might look different than we do, or speak a different language, or eat different food. None of these things are bad, and if anything they make us better when we learn about them."
The principal took the moment of contemplative silence that followed to introduce a fifth grader who had emigrated from China the previous year. She said a few words about learning to fit in, followed by polite applause. Then it was the Canadian boy, the twins from Guatemala, and then the French teacher, himself a first-generation immigrant. Finally, it was Chris's turn.
At the principal's prompting, Chris uncoiled himself from his folding chair placed at the edge of the stage, dropped to the floor, and slithered over to microphone. He raised an appropriate length of his body so that his mouth was level with the input, looked out to the audience, and blinked the solitary eye in the center of his head.
"Yeah, so… My name isn't 'Christopher'. It's ChrisΣopher. With a ssssigma. I'd appreciate it if you used the right name. Thank you."
ChrisΣopher blinked his eye again, lowered his head to the ground, and slithered back to his seat.
You are now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: Hi
You: hey
Stranger: M or F
You: ?
Stranger: M or F
Stranger: im M
You: oh uh
You: Y
Stranger: Y?
You: yeah
Stranger: what's that
Stranger: rly
You: yeah
You: oh wait lol
You: where are you from
Stranger: NY
You: new york?
Stranger: yes
You: oh shit lol you're a human
Stranger: yeah what else would i be
Stranger: M or F
You: oh yeng this is funny nobody told you yet?
Stranger: told me what
Stranger: M or F dude come on
You: WeChat expanded bro
Stranger: ??
You: yeah
You: into space
Stranger: bullshit
Stranger: come on man if this is part of like a youtube video or something im not biting
Stranger: im not a pedo i just want to chat
You: lol no you're good
You: but no bullshit
Stranger: space huh
You: yeah
Stranger: where in space
You: most of the hypaxian sector, out to al-cantares
Stranger: that's not real
You: yeah it is bro i'm on l'omnor right now
Stranger: whatever ill play along im bored
Stranger: what's yenzir
You: ok so
You: humans reproduce sexually right
Stranger: sure
You: so Male inseminates and Female gestates
Stranger: i guess
You: Yenzir heravips post-gestation
Stranger: wtf
You: what's confusing about it
Stranger: wtf is heravips
You: wow are you just stupid or are all humans this dumb
Stranger: fuck off i dont watch star treck
You: sorry you're right that was uncalled for
You: is this just not translating?
You: it's cool I'll just send a picture
You: https://cdn.omnorapp.web/attachments/304061691317053553205248/yengir_diagram.png
Stranger: i cant open it
You: copy-paste it into your browser bar
You: did it work
Stranger has disconnected.
You: lol pussy
You have disconnected.