“So, how was your first day at middle school,” Becky called from the kitchen. She came into the living room with a plate of vegetables and a glass of milk for Faber.

“It was fucking awesome,” he replied.

She paused for a moment, her welcome-home smile having gone somewhat stiff. “I beg your pardon, young man. How awesome was your day?”

Faber put down his glass of milk and swallowed, clearing his throat so he could enunciate properly.

“Fucking.”

[ I had this all worked out in my head as I was driving and I’ve lost the words now. So I’ll just desribe the scene and rewrite later]

Faber is in his junior high science class. It’s the 1970’s. It’s spring. There’s a bank of windows. One can see green trees outside. It’s a pleasant place. The classroom in arranged in rows of small tables that seat two students each. They sit side by side, facing the front of the room. The windows are open. He’s got a cool, new teacher with lots of hip ideas. An idealist. Ida/Ideal. She’s lecturing about animals, answering the question, ‘why are animals so much stronger than people?” For example, an average man has a grip strength of about 200 pounds, while a chimpanzee has a grip strength of between 800 and 1200 pounds.

The teacher says that part of the reason is that cognition interferes with strength – that is, thinking interferes with being able to send signals to the muscles.

“Oh, that explains why people on PCP can lift up cars or break out of handcuffs.”

The teacher pauses for a moment. She does prefer students to raise their hands and wait to be called on, but his observation was really interesting. She’s glad to see students engaged.

Faber answered out of impulse and now he’s reviewing what he did. He knows that showing knowledge others lack is frowned up because he’s been carefully taught this. On the other hand, he wasn’t showing off; he was interested in the lesson, and what’s the point of school if not to learn and participate.

Into the silence, Nathan, the student sitting next to Faber, on his right, says, “You should know all about it. You look like a monkey.”

The teacher is upset. That seemed to her like a racist remark. She’s especially upset because on some level she agrees with it. She’d always thought there was something strange about Faber. Not that he looked like a monkey, but she couldn’t tell what race Faber was, and was very curious. Faber is a very tall, muscular boy. Although he’s 10, he looks older, and there is something very adult about him that she can’t place her finger on. [uh, yeah, re-word that one. Lol….an adult quality about him that she can’t quite describe. He had dark hair and hazel eyes and skin that was light in tone but had a beige or orange cast to it and seemed rather thick and hard. She wasn’t the only person to be curious. She didn’t bother asking him because she’d overheard his answers to other children. When asked his nationality, he replied that he was American. When the child asking him looked confused, he offered that his race was the 100 yard dash.

Faber turned his head slightly toward Nathan and gave him a rather adult, sardonic look with a slightly raised eyebrow and a tiny smile just at the corner of the mouth. “Monkeys have tails,” he said with a wink.

As predicted/intended Nathan reacts with childlike pique. “What the heck are you, anyway? How come you won’t tell anyone? Monkey!”

The teacher blurts out, “Nathan, that’s racist!”

The whole classroom is watching now. Faber knows he ought to look upset, but he just can’t make himself. He thinks the situation is funny. He knows that the teacher has her liberal panties in a twist, and he knows that Nathan is annoyed because Faber beat him at two-square during recess.

Faber leans over and puts his arm around Nathan’s shoulder. “That’s okay, Mrs. Hammersmith. Nathan and I are the same race.”

The teacher is confused. An ethnobiologist looking at Nathan could have seen from his medium skin tone, his high cheekbones, high forehead, oval face, broad nose with refined bridge that his ancestors primarily originated from East Africa. Mrs. Hammersmith was no ethnobiologist. But she could tell that Nathan was black.

“What do you mean, the same race, Faber?” Faber lets go of Nathan and Nathan punches him lightly on the shoulder by way of apology for calling him a monkey.

The other students are giggling because they know what’s coming.

The bell rings as Faber answers, and the teacher is chuckling as she releases the students. She’d been upset and wrapped up in social issues and ideals and worries, and Faber had brought laughter and insight – the way true humor does. He’d answered, “Human race.”

[Interestting: “The reasons for this remain poorly understood, but one contributing factor is the genes that encode myosin, the protein fibres from which muscles are made. Comparison of human and ape sequences for a myosin gene called MYH16 show that all humans have a mutant version of this gene.” – So maybe Faber will go home and discuss this gene with his mom. A good chance to talk about http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5278028/, myostatin]

Why do people write and read fiction? To explore the unknown. The mystery of life. Mystery with a capitol M.

All the (lower-case) mystery stories I’ve read center around a murder for which there was no good reason. Profit, rage, intoxication, recklessness, madness. Stupid reasons. Can I think up a mystery centering around a sensible murder? How evil would that be?

Okay, offline writing time now. Back to my to-do list.

Fact: Humans are domesticated animals. Like all domestic animals, domestication came as a bundle of genetic changes, including a smaller brain size and neoteny - perpetual childishness. Chimpanzees are not domesticated.

Fact: Donkeys and Horses can breed despite having a different number of chromosomes. Horses have 33 pairs and donkeys have 31. Mules therefore have 32.

Fact: Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Chimpanzees have 24.

Analysis: A human-chimpanzee is theoretically possible. Such a being could be stronger and more intelligent than any human, and could possess perspectives and analytical powers that could be a great advantage to any government sponsoring such a breeding program. It is possible that such a clandestine program might be created in the future.

Conjecture: Such a program has been in existence for thirty years.

Home
Feed cats
Write
Tidy
Exercise

Have I mentioned how awesome I am? To add to my awesomeness, I am now about to listen to the writing thoughts I audio-recorded on my drive home.

A Poem (I wrote it a week or so ago)

Mr. Kitten
Your fur is as cool and soft as an autumn morning
And the leaves are orange like your collar