“Tell us a story, Daddy,”
said the daughter.
The father had just created a
nice fire. He was sitting next to it with his son and daughter. They
were inside their igloo. The father and son were taking a rest after
a hard day of ice fishing out in the icy, frozen wilderness.
“Okay, I can tell you a
story,” said the father. “But this may be the strangest story you
will ever hear. It's a story I heard from your mother before she was eaten by the wolves. Sorry – I
didn't mean to remind you of that sad day.”
“Is it a true story?” asked
the son.
“I don't know,” said the
father. “Maybe it's true and maybe it's not.”
“Tell it to us, Daddy,” said
the daughter.
“All right, here goes,” said
the father. “Once upon a time, many, many years ago, the world was
a much different place. It was much warmer. It wasn't all filled with
snow and ice like our world. The ground was covered with a pleasant
green plant they called grass. And rather than being only a
few very hardy trees in the world, there were beautiful trees all
over the place. And there were giant pools of water, pools so big you
could never swim across them even if you swam all day. You could go
swimming for hours without freezing to death.”
“So it was kind of like a
paradise?” asked the son.
“Kind of,” said the father.
“But it wasn't just natural beauty. There were many big tall
buildings. They were many, many times bigger than our igloo. And the
people had many of these strange things called machines. They
were a little like one of those gizmos I carve out of bones, but much
bigger, and much more complicated. You could go inside one of the
machines, and the machine would take you from one place to another
place.”
“That's pretty hard to believe
– kind of like a fairy tale,” said the daughter.
“Well, somehow all of these
big machines and big buildings produced a lot of smoke,” continued
the father. “Just like the campfire in front of you is making
smoke. For some reason all the smoke started to make the world a
hotter place.”
“Why would that happen?' asked
the daughter.
“I have no idea,” said the
father. “Your mother explained it somehow, but I don't remember her
explanation. It was something complicated.”
“But it must have been very
good if the smoke made the world hotter,” said the son. “The
warmer the world, the better.”
“Strangely enough, it actually
became a problem,” said the father. “The world apparently became
too hot.”
“Oh come on, Daddy – how
could the world ever become too hot?” asked the daughter. She had
known only an icy, frozen planet in the grip of a perpetual winter.
“Somehow it was a problem,”
said the father. “Lots of animals started dying because the world
had got too hot. And lots of the trees started catching on fire. So
the people decided to do something to make the world a bit cooler.”
“What did they do?” asked
the son.
“They tried to make some fancy
machines that would make the world a little cooler,” said the
father. “Your mother explained it, but I don't remember the
details. What I do remember her telling me is that somehow it all
backfired. Instead of becoming just a little bit cooler, the
world started to become much colder – way too cold. All the
beautiful green grass got covered up by ice and snow. The giant pools
of water froze solid. And the big buildings got buried under huge
sheets of ice.”
“What happened to all the
people?” asked the daughter.
“Almost all of them died,”
said the father. “But a few hardy people survived. And over many,
many years the survivors started to adapt to the colder earth. They
started to gradually grow fur all over their bodies, just like the
fur on our bodies.”
“So that's why people like you
and me have fur all over our bodies?” asked the daughter.
“Exactly,” said the father.
“At least that's why according to the story. I don't know whether
it's true. I just remember your Mom telling me the story before she
died.”
The next morning the father and
the son went out again to spend the day ice fishing, once again
drilling a hole in a frozen pond.
“So who do you think was
smarter, people like us or those weird people long ago who had those
ugly bodies without any fur all over their faces?” asked the son.
“People like you and me!”
answered the father. “Building an igloo and doing ice fishing on
top of a frozen pond – something like that takes real
smarts, a lot more than building some damn fool machines.”
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