This is Fern!
Fern is playing the human game!
She is running with human legs! Other people are doing that too!
Go, humans, go! Look at them go!
They are all playing the human game very well!
This is Letty!
Letty is playing the human game!
She is picking flowers! This kills them, but it makes them easier to enjoy!
She is adding something wonderful to the human game!
This is Alice!
Alice is playing the human game!
She creates the dishwasher! This is a testament to the boundless creativity of the humans playing the human game! It is very impressive, especially since there are no dishes to wash yet! What foresight!
She is playing the human game very well!
She isn’t quite sure when it will be useful, but she has ideas.
Alice sits down with a scowl. She’s working on figuring out what its for! Don’t worry, Alice! You’ll figure it out!
This is Red!
Red is playing the human game! He is giving names to all the stars! That one is Aldebaran, which means “the follower!” Wow! That one is HD 17925, which is a weird name for a star!
“All names are weird for stars,” says Zoe, who has a different way of seeing some things.
“This isn’t about stars. This is about the human game,” says Sarah, and Red agrees!
“I’m playing the human game,” said Letty, who was drawing in the mud with a stick.
“You are making art,” declared Sarah. Wow! Art is now a part of the human game.
“Humans are important, because they can make art,” says Sarah, who knows these things.
“Then why is art important?,” asks Zoe, who didn’t know those things.
“Because art expresses human emotions!” said Sarah, who loved human emotions.
“And why are those important?”, asked Zoe, who didn’t.
“Because humans are important!”
“And why are humans important?”
“Because they can make art,” said Sarah, triumphantly.
That’s how it goes when you play the human game!
This is Josh!
Josh is playing the human game! He is eating food, and enjoying it!
“Wow!,” says Sarah, impressed. “Look at him enjoy food! I told you the human game was good! We should play it more often!”
Zoe is not impressed.
“That fish is enjoying food,” she said, pointing to a fish, which wasn’t playing the human game. Perhaps it was playing some sort of mysterious fish-game.
“That fish is not enjoying its food,” claimed Sarah.
She’s right!
The fish is actually undergoing terrible intestinal pains, but it doesn’t show from the outside!
“And even if it did enjoy it, it’s not playing the human game,” said Sarah, critically.
Alice is playing the human game! She has invented the traffic light! Wow!
She isn’t quite sure when it will be useful, but she has ideas.
One day, she says, people will get out of houses in long rows to go into houses in long stacks, and they will do so on short vehicles on wide roads and on long vehicles on narrow tracks! Then they will do various tasks for each other!
And then the traffic light will be necessary!
Alice has an incredible imagination! Sarah is proud of her and all the things she has done, but is slightly worried that Alice isn’t that concerned about the human game!
But she’d never say that, because Alice is very good at it.
This is Zach! He doesn’t play the human game! That means he isn’t a human! He might be a bug or something. Sarah is suspicious of him, but tends to forget that he exists.
Letty is playing the human game! She is sitting still and enjoying nature!
That is an important part of the human game!
Actually, she’s asleep! That’s fine! That’s also an important part of the human game, for some reason!
Sarah is playing the human game!
She discovers a beautiful fire within the souls of all!
Yay! How wonderful!
Zoe is playing the human game!
She discovers that there is no fire in the souls of all, just a kind of mildly warm spot!
Wow! Go Zoe! Undoing dogma is fun!
Fern is playing the human game! She is doing so by crying!
Fern is crying! This is part of the human game, Sarah thinks, but she somehow doesn’t like it.
Fern is still crying! Salty water is coming out of her eyes! Alice is fascinated and licks some of it off.
That’s the kind of thing that happens in the human game!
This is Dean!
Dean is playing the human game! He has discovered how to make other people cry!
“Did you make Fern cry, Dean?,” asked Sarah, who was displeased with Dean.
“Of course,” said Dean. This, too, was playing the human game.
“Don’t say that, Dean!,” said Sarah, angrily.
“Okay.”
“Did you make Fern cry, Dean?,” asked Alice, who hadn’t heard the previous deal of the conversation due to her aforementioned examination of Fern.
“No,” said Dean.
“Don’t say that, Dean!,” said Sarah, aghast.
“Okay,” said Dean, who was rather confused about this.
With Alice’s help, Sarah was able to make Dean cry.
Sarah felt very bad about this afterwards.
Alice added punishment to her list of inventions. She wasn’t quite sure when it would be useful, but she had ideas.
Red is playing the human game! He is doing this by rewriting the human game!
That’s incredible! He’s playing the human game by rewriting the human game! Sarah believes this is a testament to the beauty of the human spirit.
Zoe is worried, because she is not sure if the human spirit is beautiful enough to be a reliable witness in this matter. That’s Zoe for you! She’s one of the odder players in the human game. It takes all types!
Sarah is full of plans and love.
Zoe is full of cynicism and muffins.
Sarah proposes that we make rules for what is and is not funny! How high-minded!
Zoe thinks that it’s maybe not a good idea to have rules concerning humor! This is interesting, seeing as Zoe is rather humorless!
Sarah and Zoe are going to argue! They are going to say things that they both think aren’t funny!
Oh no! Well, that’s all part of the human game!
Maybe!
Alice is playing the human game! She is playing the human game by inventing the gun! Wow! That’s an incredible feat of the human spirit that will not go wrong in any way!
This gun has the potential to go off at some point, but there is no guarantee that it or any other gun will be used! That’s a fact for you!
Zoe is playing the human game! She is doing this by complaining about how other people are playing the human game instead of trying to find something of value in the cosmos!
Sarah is perturbed! Finding valuable things is a part of the human game, but shouldn’t get in the way of the human game! She decides that criticism of the human game is no longer part of the human game. Wow! That’s a great solution.
Zoe is annoyed, but was never that concerned about the human game anyway!
“We’re playing the human game while being dead!”, said nobody, because they were dead. Bob was one of the people who might have said that, but he didn’t say that, because he was dead. And if he hadn’t been dead then he would have been lying! Oh no! I’m not sure if lying is against the rules of the human game anymore, or ever was, but it could be!
Alice and Letty are playing the human game!
Alice made some plastic flowers for Letty!
Sarah dislikes this, but isn’t sure why!
This is Josh! He has twelve points! Wow! Josh says that he has won the human game!
“No!”, says Sarah! You can’t win the human game until everyone has won the human game!
Wow! That’s a beautiful sentiment!
“What about dead people?”, asks Zoe, who is reasonable and pessimistic. “If they can’t win, then how can we?”
That’s a good point, Zoe! How will anyone ever win the human game?
Sarah, Zoe, and Josh argue about this for a long time. Bob doesn’t argue, because he is dead.
By the time they are done with their argument, Red has changed the rules of the human game again! That’s what you get for sitting around and arguing instead of playing the human game!
Alice and Fern are playing the human game!
Alice made a gun for Fern! Wow!
Fern has decided to kill Dean! This is part of the human game! We know this because a human is doing it!
Fern has green shoes and a sunhat and a gun! She is using these to play the human game!
Zach has a gun, too! He is not using it to play the human game! He is playing the mysterious Zach-game.
Sarah is distraught! Dean is going to be killed! Oh no!
She asks Red to make killing a human against the rules of the human game! If you do that, then you will lose!
Red and Sarah use being a human to change the rules of the human game! Surely this will make the human known as Fern listen to them!
Oh no! Fern does not want to listen to them!
“But you’ll be violating the rules of the human game!” cried Sarah, who was very invested in these things.
“But so did Dean,” Fern said. “Even after you changed the rules.”
“That’s true,” said Sarah, who didn’t really see the point of that. “But retribution is not a part of the human game except under very specific circumstances!”
Sarah had made sure of that. She had asked Red to only make changes to the rules of the human game if they helped the long-term persistence of the human game.
“Well, I’m going to do it anyway.”
Oh no! Sarah is distraught! Fern and Alice have teamed together to kill Dean!
“Actually, I’m not directly involved in this,” said Alice.
Even if they have not teamed up, things are still bad!
“I did give her the gun, though,” said Alice.
This is another reminder that things are bad!
‘Who else has a gun?,’ wonders Sarah. Red only supports her indirectly, Josh is still sore about not winning the human game, and Letty is an artist and unfit for conflict!
Sarah is very satisfied with Letty. ‘One day,’ she thinks, ‘everybody will be like Letty. But they’ll have real flowers.”
Zach has obtained a gun, but Sarah is loathe to make one of Zoe’s creations into a player of the human game. Especially since Zach probably wouldn’t even follow the rules anyway.
‘I’ve got it!,” she thinks! ‘I will simply ask Zoe!’
Go, Sarah, go! The continued stability of the human game relies upon you!
“Zoe!” said Sarah, “As part of the human game you must help me defeat Fern, who wishes to kill Dean!”
“Wow,” said Zoe. “Dean is kind of awful, but not that bad.”
“So you’ll do it? For the sake of the human game?”
“I’m not part of the human game,” said Zoe.
“But you are, mostly! It’s just that the part of you that you value the most is deprecated by the rules and goals of the human game!”
“That is not very convincing,” said Zoe.
“Pretty please with a cherry on top?”
“In that case,” said Zoe, “I’ll help you.”
Zoe did not really agree with Sarah, but liked Sarah nonetheless.
Zach is armed. He also has weapons! Wow!
Zach only follows Zoe’s commands loosely, but does like to shoot things, especially when he knows that Sarah will not track him down to scold him. There is nothing he can do when Sarah scolds him.
Zoe has insinuated that Sarah will not be as harsh the next time she does so, if Zach goes through with this.
Alice is asleep. She is in a sleeping bag, which she has invented. It does not have a zipper, because she doesn’t know what zippers are for yet.
“Can we kill her?” asked Zach.
“No. She’s playing the human game,” said Sarah.
“She doesn’t look like she’s playing the human game. I’ve seen animals do more than that. Are they playing the human game?”
“Come along now,” said Sarah. “We have people to threaten.”
“You see, Zoe,” said Sarah, “if Dean dies, then he will cease to play the human game, making it harder for him to win!”
“Isn’t Fern going to lose automatically if she does so?”
“Yes!”
“Then isn’t that just doubling the amount of people who don’t get to win the human game?”
Oh no! Sarah hasn’t thought of that! Sarah doesn’t think about things like that very often; she thinks about the endless beauty of the human soul instead. She is sometimes grateful for Zoe, even if Zoe causes a lot of problems.
Whatever will she do? Sarah believes that death is horrible, but is torn: if the horror of it is dependent on the human game, then it would be easy enough to change the rules of the human game; if it is horrible whether or not the human game says it is, however, that makes the human game seem less important. Oh no! How will she get people to play the human game now?
The best solution, she decides, is to console people with stories about how death isn’t all that bad, while working as hard as possible to decrease the amount of deaths.
She worries that the players of the human game will not be able to juggle both of these ideas at once, but if they love themselves as much as she loves them, they shouldn’t have any problem. Yay! Go humankind! The human game is fun and worth playing and always right!
And as for this particular situation, forcing Fern to lose the human game seems like the only possible choice! Oh no! This makes Sarah sad, but Sarah is willing to be sad if it will help the human game. Some people will have to lose in order for everyone else to have fun! That’s just the way it is.
Alice is playing the human game! Alice has set up a little court, with a little trial. She’s got a new big idea; it’s going to be called “government”. She’s not sure what exactly it’s going to be used for, but Fern wanted to borrow it for this and Alice is always eager for someone to test one of her inventions!
Fern is playing the human game! She is having fun. She is playing at “having someone on trial”. Wow! While the end result may be against the rules of the human game, this specific bit isn’t, and is thus cool and special! Go Fern, but only a little bit! Go, go, and then stop!
Dean is playing the human game! He is playing at “being on trial”. He is not having fun. Wow! Let’s hope things go well for him!
Sarah has a plan.
“Zach, can you threaten to shoot Fern?”
This is a daring plan! Who knew that someone who loves humanity like Sarah could ask someone such a thing? But it’s okay, because Zach isn’t really playing the human game!
“Sure,” said Zach. “What do I do if she doesn’t listen.”
Sarah thinks for a moment.
“Make sure that she does not lose the human game.”
Zach is confused. Zoe whispers something in his ear. He smiles in understanding.
It is done.
Fern might not win, but she will never truly lose.
Sarah cries.
Letty restrains Alice, preventing her from getting too close to Sarah.
Zoe leads Zach away.
Zoe wonders at what will happen later, after these first hectic few days of the human game.
What has been done has been done according to the human game, yet the game grows more contorted and complicated each day. And, sometimes, it gets closer to the truth.
Despite herself, Zoe smiles an obscure smile. Perhaps one day the human game will be worth playing; or everyone will stop playing it in search of other, better things.