worth an oat

[alicornucopia]

In this soup kitchen sits a nun in partial habit, sipping water and frowning at a desk. It is very irregular for adults who aren't volunteering to be at the soup kitchen. It is very irregular for expensive electronics to be in the soup kitchen. The volunteers do seem to know her; they call her "Carlotta".

Comments

[pythbox]

"Okay."

[alicornucopia]

And so on his "birthday" Oat "turns five" and receives cake and is encouraged to speak up if there is anything else he wanted to do on Earth and discovers that he is going to have a mutant power one day -

- then shortly after he is flown to another part of the world more amenable than Rotterdam for spaceship takeoff and put in a spaceship.

[pythbox]

There is not anything else he wanted to do on Earth. Cake, however, is delicious (he says solemnly).

The safety restraints on the shuttle seats do not fit him, because he is too small.

[alicornucopia]

Then he may be restrained in the company of some cushions.

There is a girl on this launch. Only one. She's next to him.

"Hi," she says, "I'm Bella."

[pythbox]

"I am Oat," he says.

[alicornucopia]

"It's nice to meet you," she says.

[pythbox]

"Is it? Why?"

[alicornucopia]

"...Well, I suppose what I mean is it might be nice, and if it turns out it isn't at least I won't have made that any likelier by insulting you, if I say it is nice."

[pythbox]

"Oh." He considers this perspective. "That's reasonable."

[alicornucopia]

"It turns out a lot of things like that people say are sort of reasonable if you think about them."

[pythbox]

"But do people normally think about the things they say in that way?"

[alicornucopia]

"No, but they still happened in the first place. People now are just saying 'nice to meet you' because that's what you say but it would have had to make sense before that was what you say."

[pythbox]

"It wouldn't have had to be reasonable. People do unreasonable things."

[alicornucopia]

"Like what?"

[pythbox]

"Murder is usually unreasonable."

[alicornucopia]

"Well, yes. But it's also pretty unusual."

[pythbox]

"Is it?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah. Not very many people murder other people."

[pythbox]

"What do you mean by not very many?"

[alicornucopia]

"I would have to look up actual statistics but I mean if you go around meeting people all day in some place that doesn't have more murderers than most places you probably won't meet any murderers."

[pythbox]

"I am not sure that's true," he says thoughtfully. "You might not meet anyone you could tell was a murderer, but that is different."

[alicornucopia]

"I mean actual murderers," she says. "So I guess maybe we should look up statistics about it if we care when we're off this shuttle. I'm hungry," she sighs.

[pythbox]

"What do you mean by hungry?"

[alicornucopia]

"...Well, they said not to eat for a while before takeoff so I skipped some meals and now my tummy's grumbly? Did you just recently start learning Common?"

[pythbox]

"Oh," he says. "Comfort-related. That makes sense."