Fun_People Archive
19 Jan
Meat Puppets!

Date: Wed, 19 Jan 94 18:23:06 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: Meat Puppets!

[This was among my first fun_people postings (back in '91).  Just recently
 someone sent it to me again.  After saying to myself "oh yes, that again,"
 I reread it and discovered it still cracks me up, so here it is again with
 apologies to all the real old-timers... -psl]

Subject: Talking meat

A dialogue by Terry Bisson.  From a series of stories entitled "Alien/Nation"
in the April [1991?] issue of Omni.


"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it.  We picked several from different parts of the
 planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through.
 They're completely meat."

"That's impossible.  What about the radio signals?
 The messages to the stars."

"They use the raido waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them.
 The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines?  That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines.  That's what I'm trying to tell you.  Meat made
 the machines."

"That's ridiculous.  How can meat make a machine?  You're asking me to
 believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I 'm telling you.  These creatures are the only
 sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the Orfolei.  You know, a carbon-based intelligence
 that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat.  We studied them for several
 of their life spans, which didn't take too long.  Do you have any idea
 the life span of meat?"

"Spare me.  Okay, maybe they're only part meat.  You know, like the
 Weddilei.  A meat head with an electron plamsa brain inside."

"Nope.  We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the
 Weddilei.  But I told you, we probed them.  They're meat all the way
 through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there is a brain all right.  It's just that the brain is made out of
 meat!"

"So... what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you?  The brain does the thinking.  The meat."

"Thinking meat!  You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat!  Conscious meat!  Loving meat.  Dreaming meat.  The
 meat is the whole deal!  Are you getting the picture?"

"Omigod.  You're serious then.  They're made out of meat."

"Finally, Yes.  They are indeed made out meat.  And they've been trying to
 get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"So what does the meat have in mind."

"First it wants to talk to us.  Then I imagine it wants to explore the
 universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat?"

"That's the idea.  That's the message they're sending out by radio.
 'Hello.  Anyone out there?  Anyone home?' That sort of thing."

"They actually do talk, then.  They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes.  Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"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."

"Omigod.  Singing meat.  This is altogether too much.  So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?" 

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all
 sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear,
 or favor.  Unofficially,  I advise that we erase the reconds and forget
 the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit.  Do we really want to make contact
 with meat?"

"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?"

"Just one.  They can travel to other planets in special meat containers,
 but they can't live on them.  And being meat, they only travel theough C
 space.  which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility
 of their ever making contact pretty slim.  Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."

"That's it."

"Cruel. But you sid it yourself, who want to meet meat?  And the ones who
 have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed?  You're sure they
 won't remember?"

"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."

"A dream to meat!  How strangely appropiate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we can marked this sector unoccupied."

"Good.  Agreed, officially and unofficially.  Case closed.  Any others?
 Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class
 nine star in G445 zone.  Was in contact two galactic rotation ago, wants
 to be friendly again."

"They always come around."

"And why not?  Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe
 would be if one were all alone.

© 1994 Peter Langston