I have been given a pad of paper and a pencil, the kind of thick pencil that makes me feel like a child. If you are reading this then these are my thoughts on the question. If there is anyone to read this, or if it makes it to someones eyes I hope it makes sense. I always find it is better to externalize internal monologue when making an important decision. Decisions don't seem to get more important than this one. Yet the question still comes down to a simple yes or no. When you scratch the surface of any question that is what they almost always boil down to.
Yes or no.
I aim to write down everything in my head. So I can answer the question. Or at least make sense of it.
I am currently pondering the question while sitting in a dimly lit room. I have a bed, single naturally, a table and chair. All single. All solitary. Much like myself. There is a plate with some crumbs from a cheese sandwich and a tea cup with staining inside and a small pool of cold tea with undissolved sugar at the bottom like syrup. Even though this is not my flat and these are not my belongings it feels very similar to home. Maybe that is the point?
I don't remember fully how I came to be here. I remember they treated me well and were very polite. Truth be told I don't even know who they are. The question though. I remember the question very well.
Yes or no.
I have taken one bite out of my apple. The apple came with my lunch, or was it dinner? I have no recollection of time. They said I could have what I needed within reason, I could take as much time as needed. If I needed something I only had to ask. I asked a question straight off.
Question 1: Why me?
They said because I was normal, a representative sample.
Brilliant. Oh to be run of the mill. TV, magazines, music, life has spent years telling me that I'm not normal. I don't do normal things. I don't live the life that other people seem to do. Yet here I am apparently I am normal. I work a dull office job, the kind of job where if I didn't do it someone else would fill my place and no one would notice. Only the manager would probably pay that person less. I have family, but my siblings all earn and seem to do more than I do. My parents seem to favour them because of this. It doesn't mean I don't love my family but, well there it is. Maybe I am normal. Centre of the bell curve. Middle height and age and weight and average looking.
Yes or no.
Average, normal and boring?
I look at my apple. It reminds me of a logo and a man. The man more so. His work led to the technology for the logo's company. He also rose to eminence because of his work during a war. Is this a test? Am i being tested to see if I am sentient like one of the mans tests? then I remember the mans latter days and the apple. It makes me sad. He was punished for loving men because it was deemed immoral at the time.
I have two columns on one of my pieces of paper.
Yes.
No.
My yes column has the mans name, my family and apples.
The no columns has a list of things which make me feel sad.
I screw up the paper. It feels like hours since I last moved. My room has lots of balls of paper everywhere. It is a strange because I don't remember starting again this much. I can't shake the feeling that this is a test. That I have been set up and recorded and the last few hours have been for nothing, or at least for the amusement of everyone watching me. Anger flares. Quickly as ever it is gone. I wander over to the door and knock. It opens before I have finished my first wrap. Obviously I am being watched.
Question 2: Can you prove I am where you said I am?
When I arrived they explained everything. where I was and what the question was. They told me I could have a room and time and left me. Eventually someone arrived and brought me food. I never questioned it. I was to dumbfounded by what they had said. Now though I don't believe them.
They are tall. These hosts of mine. They make me feel like a child. The pencil didn't help either. I ask for them to prove our location. They take me to a gantry. It's large. Multiplex cinema screen large. There are metal doors in front of it. They slide back.
I'm not prepared for what I see.
There is lots of rubbish written about space. What the rubbish doesn't prepare you for is how dark it is. Even with the Sun and the stars its bleak. My view is of the Earth. Although it's hard to make out continents really. Mostly its a big blue marble. I feel the universe narrowing down on me, that feeling of dizziness that normally comes before throwing up, clammy hands and sweaty brows. I steady myself. I hear another voice although it is my own ask if this is all the proof they have. I'm suprised that the voice I hear has some measure of strength because that can't be mine it, sounds like my voice but I'm not conscious of actually speaking. Words continue to come out steadily at first but becoming more erratic more higher pitched. Words come out my mouth that I would be ashamed to admit I knew. Eventually I hear a dull click. Then another. My escorts seem to be waiting for something.
The room bottoms out.
The first thing I am aware of is my stomach flipping. I have only had a cheese sandwich but I can feel it somersaulting in my gut. My chaperons stand unaffected. The clunking noises must have been some attachments or magnetic boots. I on the other hand am floating, spiraling, swirling, flying, feeling free.
I am in space.
I am staring down at my home.
The question.
All my family and friends, loved ones and acquaintances.
The question.
All the art, culture, science, civilization and progress.
The question.
All the hatred, anger, destruction and war.
The question.
The love, compassion, humanity and care.
The question.
The greed, the apathy, the holocausts and jihads.
The gravity is turned back on. Without meaning to I land on my knees.
I sink down.
I look up at my guides. They are so much taller than I am normally. Now from this vantage point I feel insignificant. I imagine if an ant was sentient and looked up at a gardener this is how it would feel.
The question burns. Ants burn. What about the rest of the world?
Question 3: What becomes of the rest of the Earth?
I am sat staring at my half eaten apple. I have no appetite anymore. The skin around the bite mark is starting to turn brown with age. There will be apple trees, nature the rest of the Earth would be left untouched.
The planet keeps on turning in space, animals continue to run around, to hunt and fight and survive. Plants continue to grow. Life finds a way and continues to exist.
The question still exists as well.
I sit engulfed in my own mind. Staring at nothing in particular. Looking inward rather than out, flicking through all moments in my life. I have no frame of reference for this, no inclination as to what the right or wrong thing should be. I have nothing.
Zero.
How does one man come to a decision about the fate of many. Through history how have people made those decisions? Do they weigh one group against others before deciding which will be the one to support. Or do they let some level of conscious decide? Are people guided by morals or greed? Nurture or design.
My head spins.
If I had a coin would I toss it and let the decide. Or would I re-throw until I got what I wanted? Would their be random acts at play or confirmation bias?
Do I allow my emotions to take over or do I go with calm light of day rationalism? There is so much at stake but is there. Is there really a choice at all? Is it one of those moments where life will make its own decision regardless of my actions here and now. If my actions are to have the effect my hosts claim they will.
A smarter man than I would question whether I actually make my own decisions. Is this just a situation where I am on rails. Moving steadily towards a predetermined finale. That can't be right. I am in charge of this decision, I am in charge of my own life.
The door to my room opens. The extra light makes me wince slightly. A giants silhouette fills the doorway and is cast across the room towards me. I stare at the apple. The apple going off, no longer ripe or edible. The apple with the giant human bite taken out of it. How much that represents.
The silhouette becomes a shape and enters the room. The host, the guard the alien stands before me. Asks me if I have an answer.
In that moment I do. I look at the apple. I feel like the apple is in my throat.
I speak;
'Ask me the question again.'
I wait, his voice is like the rumbling of a storm overhead. Deep and threatening. He asks the question that has become my life, part of my being, in a very short amount of time;
'Your species, should we let them live?'
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