Martin Auer
The Strange War
Copyright Martin Auer 2000 – 2011
All stories translated by Kim Martin
Metzger
except:When the Soldiers Came, At Your Own Doorstep,
Justice, Money, Story of a Good King, which were written in English
by the author
Cover illustration by Verena Ballhaus
Smashwords edition
First published by Beltz & Gelberg 2000
The Strange War by Martin Auer is licensed under a
Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
In more than 20 languages on http://www.peaceculture.net
Contents
The Strange People from Planet Hortus
The Farmers who Were Good at Numbers
Report to the United Solar Systems' Council
The Dreamer
There once was a man who was a dreamer. He believed, for instance, that there must be a way to see things ten thousand miles away. Or he figured there must be a way to eat soup with a fork. He thought there must be a way for people to stand on their own heads, and he was sure there must be a way for people to live without fear.
The people told him, “None of those things can be done; you're a dreamer!” And they said, “You've got to open your eyes and accept reality!” And they said, “There are laws of nature, and you can't just change them!”
But the man said, “I don't know . there must be a way to breathe under water. And there must be a way to give everybody something to eat. There must be a way for everybody to learn what he or she wants to know. There must be a way to look inside your own belly.”
And the people said, “Pull yourself together, mister; those things will never happen. You can't simply say you want something and then just expect it to happen. The world is the way it is, and that's all there is to it!”
When television was invented and x-ray machines, the man was able to see ten thousand miles away and he could see inside his own belly. But no one said to him, “Okay, I guess you weren't so wrong, after all.” And they said nothing after someone invented diving suits that allowed people to breathe easily under water. But the man said to himself: that's what I thought. Maybe one day it will even be possible to get along without wars.
The Blue Boy
Far, far away behind the stars, everything is very different from here. And even farther out there, everything is even more different from there, where everything is very different from here. But if you flew far away, very far away into the distance, to the place where everything is completely different from everywhere else, maybe there it would be almost exactly like here.
Maybe, in this faraway region, there’s a planet as big as our Earth, and maybe people live on this planet, people who look almost exactly like us, except that they’re blue and can fold up their ears when they don’t want to hear anything.
And perhaps a war broke out on this faraway planet, and ever so many blue people died. A lot of orphans had been left behind, and in the ruins of one of the houses that the bombs had destroyed, sat a little blue boy who was crying because he had lost his father and his mother. For a long time he sat there like that and cried, but then he stopped because he had cried all the tears that were in him. He pulled up his collar, put his hands in his pockets, and went away. When he saw a rock, he kicked at it, and when he saw a flower, he stepped on it.
A little dog came up to him, looked at him, and started wagging its tail. Then it turned around and began walking alongside the boy, as though it had decided to keep him company.
“Go away!” said the boy to the dog. “You have to go away. If you stay with me, I’ll have to love you, and I never want to love anyone again in my whole life.”
The dog looked at him and wagged its tail cheerfully. Then the boy found a gun that was lying next to a dead soldier. He picked up the gun and showed it to the dog. “This gun can shoot you to death!” he said angrily. So the dog ran away.
“I’m going to take you with me!” the boy said to the gun. “You’ll be my good friend.” And with his gun he fired a shot at a dead tree.
Then he found a flying scooter that had just been left lying around in a field. He got on it and tried to start it. The flying scooter worked.
“Now I have a gun and a flying scooter,” said the boy. “They will be my family. I could have had a dog too, but he might be killed, and then I would have to die from crying.”
He flew around on his flying scooter until he saw a house with smoke coming out of it. “Someone’s still living there,” said the boy. He circled around the house and looked through the windows. Inside, there was only an old woman, who was cooking something.
The boy parked his flying scooter in front of the house, took his gun and went inside. “I have a gun!” he said to the old woman. “You’ve got to give me something to eat!”
“Come on, I would give you something anyway,” said the old woman. “You can go ahead and put your gun away.”
“I don’t want you to be nice to me!” the boy said crossly. “My gun can kill you!”
So the old woman gave him something to eat, and he flew off.
That’s how the boy was living now. He set up a hiding place in an abandoned house. When he got hungry, he flew somewhere where there were people, and with his gun he forced them to give him something to eat.
At other times he flew over the deserted battlefields and collected parts from weapons and tanks and trucks that had been left there. He took all of these things to his hiding place.
“I’ll build a giant armored robot!” he said to himself. “It’ll be a hundred yards tall, and it’ll weigh a hundred thousand tons, and way up in its head I’ll have my controls in a cab. Then I’ll have power and no one can do anything to me.”
One day a girl came by his hiding place. The boy went outside with his gun and said: “You’ve got to go away! My gun can shoot you!”
“I don’t want to bother you,” said the girl. “I’m just looking to see if the mushrooms have started growing again.”
“You’ve got to go away!” said the boy. “I don’t want anyone around me!”
“Are you all by yourself?” asked the girl.
“No,” said the boy. “I have a gun and a flying scooter. They’re my family. And one day I’ll have a giant armored robot!”
“Don’t you have anybody real?”
“I could have had a dog. But if someone had killed it, I would have had to die from crying.”
“I don’t really have anybody either,” said the girl. “We could stay together.”
“I don’t want to have anyone who could be shot by a gun!”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to find someone who can’t be shot by a gun!” said the girl and she went away.
But the boy built a giant armored robot and got inside. He sat down way at the top in the robot’s head, where he had built the cab with the controls.
Then he set out and drove around the country in his giant armored robot.
Everywhere the people screamed when they saw him coming, and they wanted to run away. But they couldn’t escape the giant armored robot.
The boy had a microphone in his cab, and everything he said into the microphone came roaring out of the robot’s mouth. “Is there someone here who can’t be killed by a gun?” yelled the robot. But wherever he came, people just ran away from him, and he never found anyone who couldn’t be killed by a gun.
One day, however, he could see from up above in his cab where he was sitting that someone down there wasn’t running away from him but just stood there and shouted something up to him. But he was so high up that he couldn’t understand what the person was saying.
“Maybe that’s someone who can’t be killed by a gun?” the boy thought and climbed down. But it was the old woman who had cooked a meal for him a while ago. “Did you want to say something to me?” the boy asked.
“Yes,” said the old woman. “I heard about somebody who can’t be killed by a gun. I thought I should tell you about him.”
“And who is that?” asked the boy.
“He’s an old man who lives up there on the moon.”
“Then I’ll have to look for him,” said the boy, “because I don’t want to have anyone around me who can be killed by a gun.” And he pulled a switch and his giant armored robot transformed itself into a giant armored rocket and he flew in it to the moon.
Up there on the moon, the boy had to search for a long time. But finally he found the old man. He was sitting behind a telescope and looking down on the blue planet.
“Are you the man who can’t be killed by a gun?” the boy asked the old man.
“I guess so,” the old man said.
“And what are you looking at in your telescope?”
“I’m studying the people on the planet down there.”
“Do you think I could stay with you?” the boy asked.
“Maybe,” said the old man. “What’s so special about me?”
“Because I don’t want to stay with someone who can be shot to death. When my parents died, I cried all the tears that I had in me. I could have had a dog, but if someone had killed it, I would have had to die from crying. And I could have stayed with an old woman or with a little girl. But they weren’t bulletproof, and if they had been killed, I would have had to die from crying.”
“It’s all right,” said the old man, “you can stay with me. No one can shoot me dead because there aren’t any guns here.”
“Is that the only reason?” the boy asked.
“Yes, that’s it,” said the old man.
“But I brought my gun with me.”
“Too bad,” said the old man, “now you can’t stay with me. Your gun could shoot me dead.”
“Then I’ll just have to go back,” said the boy.
“Yes,” said the old man.
“Too bad,” said the boy.
“Are you sorry?” the old man asked.
“Yes,” said the boy, “I would have liked to stay here.”
“Maybe you could throw your gun away?” said the old man.
“Maybe,” said the boy.
“And then you could stay with me after all,” said the old man.
“Maybe,” said the boy. “And what would I do then?”
“You could look through this telescope. Then maybe you could find out why those people down there are always fighting wars.”
“And why do they fight wars?”
“Well, I don’t know that either. I suppose it has something to do with not knowing enough about each other. There are so many of them, and their lives are so complicated that they don’t know how their actions will affect others. I guess they don’t know where the meat that they eat comes from or where the bread goes that they bake. I suppose they don’t know whether the iron that they dig up from the earth is used to make bulldozers or cannons. Maybe they don’t know if the meat they’re eating isn’t being taken away from other people. If they could see themselves from up above, maybe they would understand many things a lot better.
“Then somebody ought to show it to them?” said the boy.
“Maybe,” said the old man, “but I’m too old and too tired for that.”
It wasn’t until then that the boy let his gun fall, and it fell down through space, down to the planet, and there it broke into pieces.
But the boy stayed a long, long time with the old man on the moon and looked through the telescope and studied the people down there. And perhaps one day he flew down there and explained to them what they were doing wrong.
Planet of the Carrots
On a tiny planet there once lived some people who were hard working and others who were not so hard working. Then there were a few who were very hard working and a few who were very lazy. In a word - it was just like everywhere else in the universe. Except that the lazy ones and the hard working ones threw everything that they grew - mainly various kinds of carrots - on a pile and then shared everything from the pile. That wasn't the way it was everywhere.
But one day a few of the hard working ones said, “We've had enough. We grunt and sweat all day, and then the others who just lie around on their backs all day and whistle at the sun come waltzing up and want to eat our carrots.” And instead of throwing their carrots on the community pile, they kept them in their homes and stuffed themselves till they were fat.
The really lazy ones just shrugged their shoulders and kept on eating from the big pile, and of course they ate more from the pile than they themselves brought to it.
Then the semi-hard workers and the semi-lazy ones noticed that now everybody was getting less than before because the really hard working ones had always brought especially many carrots, more than they ate themselves.
Then the semi-hardworking ones said, “So we're going to keep our own carrots too.” And they stopped throwing them on the big pile, and instead, each one made his or her own little pile at home.
And the semi-lazy ones did the same thing. “We have no other choice,” they said to the really lazy ones.
And now they all had their own piles of carrots in front of their cottages, and when they felt like eating a special variety of carrot that they didn't have in their piles, then they had to see if they could trade with someone else.
Pretty soon people were coming and going, and after work they were busy for hours trading carrots until they all had all the carrot varieties in their houses that they needed, or thought they needed.
“That's a fine how-do-you-do!” said the really lazy ones among each other. For them there was no longer a community pile that they could sponge off of. But each one of them learned a different lesson from this situation. Some of them said, “All right, then I guess I'll just have to work more.” But that wasn't quite so easy because when such a reformed lazy person found a field to plant his or her carrots, there was usually someone who said, “Hey, I've always planted carrots here. This is my field.”
But others just went to the cottages of the richer ones and took from the carrot piles whatever they happened to feel like eating. “We always took from the community pile. And if there are now many piles, instead of one, then they're all just lots of community piles. In any case, we'll take what we want from them,” they said.
Of course, the rich people didn't much like that attitude, and some of them started building fences around their carrot piles. And soon almost everybody had to build a fence around his or her pile of carrots because the more fences that were built around the piles, the more the really lazy ones, who wanted to keep to the old ways, went ahead and took what they wanted from the piles that didn't have fences around them.
Before long, everybody who had a pile, also had a fence around it. Now, after work, they not only had to deal with trading varieties, but also with the mending and improvement of their fences and with watching them to make sure nobody climbed over them.
Pretty soon some of them started grumbling, “We all used to meet after work at the big carrot pile and tell jokes and play leapfrog. Now after work, we're just stuck at home, watching our carrots and mending our fences. And the next morning we're dead tired and can't even plant our carrots properly. For some reason, we now have a lot more to do than we used to, but the carrots aren't getting any more plentiful.”
And some people suggested that everybody should go back to the old ways, with the big community pile. “It's better to feed a few really lazy moochers than constantly wear ourselves out with trading and guarding and mending fences!”
But the richest ones said, “No, if we go back to the old ways, then that means mooching is allowed. Then everybody will want to mooch, and no one will plant carrots anymore, and we'll all starve!”
“But that's not what'll happen,” said the others. “It's too boring for most people to just lie on their backs and whistle something to the sun. Believe us, there are only a few people, who are really that lazy. Actually, growing carrots is fun!”
“No,” said the richest ones, “growing carrots isn't any fun. Only having carrots is fun. You can go ahead and share your carrots with the lazy bums, if you want to. As for us, we have no intention of tearing down our fences!”
“Heck,” said some of the semi-rich, “if the really rich ones aren't going to go along, then we'd rather keep our fences too. We really don't have so much that we can share it with the lazy bums.”
And the semi-poor ones said, “Well, if we're the only ones who are going to share, then everybody's going to have too little. We can't go along with that. We're afraid we're going to have to keep our fences.”
And so this time, nothing came of it. And even though most of them actually knew that everybody now had more work to do, and no more carrots, they just couldn't manage to go back to the old ways.
But a few other interesting things happened instead. Some of those who didn't have big carrot fields went to some of the richer ones and said, “Listen, if each of you gives me a few carrots every day, in exchange I'll guard your piles.”
And others came up with a different idea and said, “I'll fix the fence of anybody, who gives me carrots!”
And still others went from house to house and said, “Give me a few of your carrots, and I'll go and trade them for you, if I can keep every fifth carrot.”
That's how it went for a while, and then some of them started scratching their heads and said, “Actually I should now have more time, but now I have to plant more carrots so that I can pay the fence mender and the night watchman and the carrot trader.”
And once again, some people proposed that they should all go back to the old ways and tear down the fences. But strangely, it wasn't just the richest ones who were against the idea, but the poorest too, “Do you want to take away our work?” yelled the fence menders.
“How are we going to make a living?” yelled the night watchmen.
“Do you want us to starve?” yelled the carrot traders.
Heck, and so they just went on doing things the new way.
Fear
Why
is that guy
looking at me like that?
Is
he afraid of me?
Why
is that guy
afraid of me?
Does he think
that I want to hurt him?
Why
does he think
that I want to hurt him?
I
never hurt anyone!
I never hurt anyone,
unless he wants to hurt me!
So if that guy thinks that I want to hurt him,
then
only because he knows:
I hurt everybody
who hurts me.
So: he must want to hurt me!
So I guess I’ll go right over there and bash him in
the mouth,
so that he can’t hurt me.
Ouch!
His fist was quicker than mine!
Now here I am on the
ground.
But did'nt I tell you right away
that he wanted to hurt
me?
Fear Again
We are
a peaceful country
and will never attack
anyone.
Unless,
someone attacked us.
Whoever doesn’t intend
to attack us,
needs have
no fear of us whatsoever.
Whoever wants to try to
protect himself from
us,
proves that he’s
afraid of us.
Whoever’s afraid of us,
thereby proves,
that he
intends
to attack us.
So you see it is clear
that we have to attack
anyone
who prepares to defend himself.
The Strange People from Planet Hortus
On the planet Hortus lived the Apple people, the Plum people, the Pear people, and the Raspberry people. The Apple people lived on applesauce, apple pie, apple jelly, and apple cake. The Plum people lived on plum sauce, plum pie, plum jelly, and plum cake. And it was pretty much the same with the Pear people and the Raspberry people.
For a while things went pretty well, but one day the Pear people felt like they were stuffed to the gills with the everlasting pear jelly. And one of the Pear people said, “You know what? We ought to become robbers!”
“Robbers? What's that?”
“Simple: at night, we'll sneak up on the Plum people, and when they're all asleep we'll bushwhack them and beat them up. Then we'll take as many plums as we can carry and run away. And then we can finally eat plum sauce, plum pie, plum jelly, and plum cake.”
“Bravo! That'll be fun!”
And they sneaked up on the village of the Plum people, and when they were all sleeping, they swooped down on the village, broke into the houses, and beat up the Plum people. Then they took as many plums as they could carry and ran away.
The Plum people were scared to death and sad. “What was that? That's never happened before.”
“Maybe the Pear people have gone crazy? We ought to send Mrs. Prunestem to them!”
You see, old Mrs. Prunestem was able to make an ointment from plum stones that could cure every sickness, except broken legs.
So Mrs. Prunestem set off with her pot full of plum stone ointment.
But in the evening she came back again. “They don't want to be cured,” she said. “They threatened to beat me and sent me away again.”
“That's bad! What're we going to do now?”
“If they don't want to be cured, then they're not sick, they're just bad. We've got to punish them!”
“Yeah, that's what we'll do! We'll descend on them and take their pears. That's only justice!”
And they all cheered and shouted willy-nilly, and only Mrs. Prunestem looked worried and just shook her head.
So the Plum people went on the warpath, and that night, they launched an attack on the Pear people and thrashed them. Then they took as many pears as they could carry and ran away.
“And what are you going to do, if they come and attack us again tomorrow? And everybody looked worried, but young Mr. Stone said, “We'll just post guards all around the village, with long poles, and if they come, we'll beat them up.”
And that's what they did, and when a few nights later the Pear people came again, they got an awful thrashing.
“Well, what did I say! We'll really gave it to them! They won't dare ambush us again so soon.”
“Fine, fine. But do you know what: we've been standing guard every night for two weeks, and we've been sleeping all day. In the meantime, we've eaten up all our plum cake and all our plum jelly, and we haven't had time to do any cooking or baking!”
“Then everybody should give you guys something! Because you've been standing guard for everybody!”
So all the Plum people gave something to the guards, and Mr. Stone got the most. “Because I've got to take care of everything! I'm carrying the responsibility!”
But after a while some of the Plum people started grumbling because before there had always been just enough for everybody, but now that all the young men were standing guard, instead of taking care of the plum trees and cooking and baking, now there wasn't enough for everybody.
“Right,” said Mr. Stone, “whose fault is it that our young men can't work but have to stand guard instead? The Pear people's! So the Pear people have to pay for that!”
And with his men he marched to the Pear people's village to rob them again. But the Pear people had posted guards too, and there was a terrible brawl midway between the two villages, and the Plum people couldn't get to the pears.
Then Mr. Stone said, “We've got to weave nets and throw them over the Pear people's guards. Then we can defeat them and loot the village!”
So all the Plum people had to weave nets, and this time the raid succeeded. Proudly Mr. Stone led the troops back, and each of the young men was carrying a sack of pears on his shoulder. Mr. Stone was carrying something too: responsibility.
In the middle of the village, Mr. Stone had everybody pour his pears onto a big pile. Then he divided the pile into three smaller piles. “So,” he said, “one pile will be divvied up among all the villagers, so that everybody has enough to eat. One pile will be divvied up among my soldiers because they fought so bravely. And one pile is for me because I carry the responsibility for everything.”
And everyone shouted with joy and patted Mr. Stone on the shoulder. Only old Mrs. Prunestem looked worried and shook her head, and said, “And what if the Pear people weave nets too?”
“I know! We'll build a wall around the village, so they can never again ambush us.”
And so the Plum people had to build a wall around whole the village.
But the Pear people didn't want to be stuck with the shame of their defeat. And when their scouts reported that the Plum people were building a wall around their village, the Pear people built a wall around their village too. And they weaved nets to catch the guards. And they also built themselves ladders so they could climb over the Plum people's wall. And one night, with their ladders, they invaded the Plum people's village and robbed them of everything they had.
“That's enough! We've got to teach these soft pears a lesson that they'll never recover from.” And Mr. Stone ordered the Plum people to construct a huge tower on wheels. He was going to push it up to the walls of the Pear people's village, and then throw balls of fire down on the Pear people's houses. But, in the meantime, the Pear people were building a huge catapult that they were going to use to demolish the Plum people's village wall.
And one night, the army of the Plum people crept up on the Pear people's village, and the army of the Pear people crept up on the village of the Plum people. And because the night was dark and foggy, the armies crept past each other without noticing it. When the Plum people had erected their tower in front of the wall of the Pear people, Mr. Stone climbed up to the top and yelled, “Open the gates and surrender, or we'll set fire to your whole village.”
And because the Pear people's army was away, the villagers opened the gates and let the Plum people inside.
And when the Pear people had pushed their catapult up to the wall of the Plum village, their leader wrote on a scrap of paper: “Surrender, or your whole village will be pumped full of lead! And he wrapped the note around a rock and had it fired over the wall. And the Plum people too opened their gates and let the Pear people inside.
But when the armies wanted to start plundering, there was hardly anything there. Just a few pots of apple jelly or plum jelly, a few dried up cakes, and some leftover pie, but even that was already moldy.
“There's nothing left,” said the Pear people to the Plum soldiers. “We haven't had time to cook or to tend the trees. The war took up all of our time.”
“We have nothing,” said the Plum people to the Pear soldiers. “We haven't had time to take care of the trees or to bake cakes. The war took up all of our time.”
“Rats!” said the leader of the Pear soldiers and turned back again.
“Damn! Damn!” said Mr. Stone and led his army away again.
At daybreak, both armies met midway between the two villages, and because they were so angry they started slugging each other. But the two field marshals didn't join in. Each one stood on a small hill, gave each other dirty looks, and brooded.
When they felt the two armies had been brawling long enough, they gave the command to retreat, and with their armies they marched back home.
The next day Mr. Stone called the Plum people together and said, “All right, now we've got to get busy right away and quickly bake a few plum cakes. We've got to bake faster than the enemy, so that we'll be ready quicker than they are for the next battle!”
But Mrs. Prunestem said, “We can't do that because there aren't any plums because nobody has been taking care of the trees. They all rotted on the ground. And there's also no flour for the cakes. And anyway we can't go on doing things this way. What sense does it make to rob each other? If we want to have enough to eat, every one of us is going to have to work all day; we'll have to and the Pear people too. Robbery doesn't make plums grow or pears either. We've got to make peace with the Pear people!”
And the Plum people, who finally wanted to start taking care of the plum trees and make pies again agreed with her.
The only one who was teed off was Mr. Stone. Because if there was no war, he couldn't command and carry responsibility, and there wouldn't be any loot from which he could take the lion's share.
He wandered into the village of the Raspberry people and said to them, “Listen. The Pear people don't have anything to eat anymore. They spent everything on the war. So there's a big danger that the Pear people will start robbing you next!”
The Raspberry people scratched their heads and said, “We never did anything to them!”
“That doesn't matter,” said Mr. Stone. “They're robbers and will take their loot where they can get it.”
“That's terrible!” said the Raspberry people. “What should we do? We don't understand anything about waging wars.”
“But we do!” said Mr. Stone. “I have a suggestion: give us a few bushels of raspberries - and we'll protect you from the Pear people.”
“All right,” sighed the Raspberry people. “What other choice do we have?”
And then Mr. Stone went back to the Plum people's village and told the Plum people, “It'll be almost one year before the next plum harvest! What do you expect to live on in the meantime? If we make peace, we'll be hungry for a whole year! But if we team up with the Raspberry people to fight against the Pear people, then we'll get raspberries from them right away.”
“Yeah, that's better,” shouted the young men, who had already gotten used to fighting. “We're better at fighting than at raising plums.”
The other Plum people scratched their heads and said: “To be hungry for a whole year! Who can stand that?” And they too went along with Mr. Stone.
Only Mrs. Prunestem looked worried and just shook her head.
But, in the meantime, the Pear people's field marshal had formed an alliance with the Apple people. And so everything started all over again: the Raspberry people and the Apple people had to build walls around their villages too, and weave nets, and build catapults and siege towers, and besides that they had to give their protectors half of their fruit. And when the year was up, on the whole planet there was nothing left to eat and nothing left to steal.
Then Mrs. Prunestem called all of the women on the planet together - that was possible because there were only four villages - and she said to them,
“We can't go on living like this. Robbing and fighting wars don't make plums and raspberries and apples and pears grow. Somebody has to do the work or there wouldn't even be any loot. And since we only have just enough when everybody does his or her work, we just can't afford all this robbery! You can't eat nets and ladders and catapults and walls and siege towers!”
“Right!” said the women.
“So, tell your husbands that they should shake hands with each other and get back to the orchards at once! Or we'll all starve to death!”
“All right!” said the women.
And so a treaty was concluded, and the men all shook each other's hands and mumbled, “Excuse me, it won't happen again.” And then there was peace on the planet Hortus again. And after two, almost three years, everyone once again had enough to eat, and Mrs. Prunestem made gifts of pots of plum jelly to the other villages, and the women from the other villages sent apple cake and pear sauce and raspberry pie.
And because peace reigned for so long, the people also had time to reflect a little and to invent things. One person invented special tongs that you could use to pick apples without climbing up into the trees. And another person developed a variety of raspberry bushes that had no thorns. And one person invented a tool that made it easy to take the stone out of a plum. And another invented a special knife for peeling pears.
“This is fine,” said the women, “now everybody only needs to work half a day, and there's still enough for everyone.”
But one day Mr. Stone stood up and said to the Plum people, “This is no good. People are lying around doing nothing half the day just because our work has become easier with the new plum de-stoner. What if the Pear people decide to ambush us and force us to work for them the other half of the day? The Pear people invented a new pear peeler. That poses a big danger because, if they don't have to work the whole day anymore in order to have enough to eat, then they now have time to build new siege towers and catapults! So we can't waste half the day playing games and telling stories: with our new plum de-stoner we now have enough time to think about our defense. Instead of just working half the day, it would be better if half of us worked the whole day, and the other half built catapults and spent time in training exercises. Now we can afford to support a standing army. That's the only way to protect ourselves from another attack by the Pear people, who will one day enslave us!”
And so the whole thing would have almost started all over again, if . . .
. . . if Mrs. Prunestem hadn't stood up and slapped Mr. Stone in the face with everybody watching. And he sat down nice and quiet and never said a word again.
When the Soldiers Came
When the soldiers came we were hiding in a cave out in the desert. We had a goatskin full of water with us, some loaves of bread and some figs. That was all. Our two goats we had left behind and I was sad because grandfather said we would never see them again, the soldiers would kill them and eat them. Mother was weeping silently, but she let the baby suck her breasts all the time so he would not start crying and maybe give away our hiding place. I knew I must not cry because I was a big girl already and grandfather said I understood everything like a grown up person. But I could talk with grandfather very low, only from time to time he thought he heard some noise outside and I had to be quiet so he could listen better.
“Why will the soldiers kill our goats?” I said to grandfather. “Don't they like to drink milk?”
“They like to drink milk all right, but they like to eat meat even better. But most of all they don't want the soldiers of king Babak to eat the goats.”
“Is not king Babak our king?”
“That's what they say.”
“Then should we not have taken the goats with us to save them for the soldiers of king Babak?”
“The goats would have given us away. And it does not matter if the soldiers of king Babak or the soldiers of king Ubuk eat them.
“But if king Ubuk wins the war, will his soldiers not kill us all?”
“No. When the war is over, we will have to pay tribute to king Ubuk instead of king Babak. That is all the difference.”
“But is not king Babak our rightful king and the father of the country? Is he not the father of us all?”
“That's what the priests say, yes. But before him, Erek was our king and the father of the country and we had to pray for his health in the temple. Babak then was the king across the river. Then Babak and Erek had a fight because Erek had defiled Babak's honour and Babak's army defeated Erek's army and Erek was killed and Babak took his country.”
“Did not also king Ubuk defile king Babak's honour?”
“That's what they say, yes.”
“So was not king Babak right to fight for his honour?”
“This is what kings do.”
“Don't you fight for your honour, grandfather?”
“We peasants do not fight for our honour. When the priest calls me a lazy swine because I do not bring enough corn to the storehouse, I cannot defend my honour. The priests would have me flogged to death. But with kings it is different. All kings must learn to defend their honour.”
“Why kings and not peasants?”
“When a king's honour is defiled by another king he will call together his army and fight with the other king. Sometimes he loses his life in battle. And sometimes the other king is killed and the survivor will add the loser's kingdom to his own kingdom. The loser does not know that fighting for your honour can kill you, because he is dead. And the winner learns that it pays to defend one's honour. When my grandfather was young there were thirty small kingdoms in this valley. Now there are five bigger ones.”
“Because the kings had fights with each other? Because their honour had been defiled?”
“It was always something like that”, said grandfather.
“But what if a king does not want to defend his honour? What if a king does not want to fight and have his people killed and wounded and suffering?”
“Then the other kings will think he is weak and will take away his country anyway.”
“And has it always been like that? Have there always been wars to make bigger and bigger kingdoms?”
“I don't know”, said grandfather. “My grandfather said that once there were no kings, only farmers. He said they lived together in villages. And that they did not know about war. I can imagine it is true what my grandfather said. Why should they fight with the neighbouring village? Why should they want to take away their land? A farmer can only cultivate so much land. He has no use for more land than he and his family can cultivate. Oh well, maybe they had many children and after some time there would be a few more families that needed land. Would they start a fight to take away someone else's land? I doubt it. I think they would rather divide the land they had than take the risk to start a fight and maybe get killed. And even if they started a fight they would stop when they had won enough land. There would always be a limit to their greed. But to a king's greed there is never a limit.”
“Is a king a different being from a peasant?” I said. “Maybe it is a different kind of animal, like a goat is not the same as a sheep?”
“I don't think so” said grandfather. “I think if you take the son of a peasant and bring him up as a king he will do all the things that kings do.”
“Then why are kings different?”
“Because the way they make a living is different. My grandfather said, that apart from farmers there were also hunters in the old times. They were living in the woods and hunting animals. They too did not fight with each other for land. Each group had their own hunting grounds and they could not use bigger hunting grounds. But one day the weather got drier and the woods got smaller and the animals in the woods got less. And the hunters discovered a new sort of prey. They discovered the farmers with their storehouses full of seeds for next year and their goats and sheep and pigs. They would steal from the farmers, and when the farmers tried to defend themselves they would kill them. The hunters were better at using weapons, my grandfather said, because they had been using them every day. And soon they discovered it was better for them not to kill all the farmers and not to take away everything from them. Because if the farmers survived and had some seeds and some fodder left, they would plant corn again and would raise animals again and the next year they could be robbed again. And some clever chiefs made a treaty with the farmers and told them: If you pay me a tribute every year, I will defend you against other robbers. So the hunters became warriors and their chiefs became kings.
Now for a king owning land is a different thing. Because a king does not work on the land himself. He has the peasants who work and give him corn and butter and meat and wool and other things. The king does not eat or use all this himself. He uses it to feed and clothe his soldiers and his priests and the smiths who make the swords and the bow makers who make the bows and arrows for the soldiers and the builders who make palaces and temples. And all this he uses to conquer more land to get more tribute to feed more soldiers to conquer more land to get more tribute to feed more soldiers to conquer more land and so on.”
“So if there would be no kings there would be no wars?”
“If there were no people who live on the work of other people, at least the fighting would not be endless as it is now. Maybe there would be no palaces and the temples would be smaller and there would not be so many artists who make beautiful jewellery and grand statues because nobody could afford that sort of thing. The carpets would not be so colourful, but everyone would have simple carpets and not sleep on the naked floor. Maybe there would be a fight now and then, but it would end.”
“So the fighting will not end any more?” I asked grandfather.
“Maybe after many thousand years, when all the world is only one kingdom.”
“But can we not get back to the way it was before there were kings?”
“I don't think so”, said grandfather, “How could that be? The soldiers have swords and bows and arrows. And what do we have?”
“But what if all the peasants in the world would agree not to feed the kings and their soldiers any more?”
“It is not possible”, said grandfather. “Who would send the messengers to all of them?”
When the soldiers had gone, the village was empty. All the animals had been killed or taken away, all the grain had been taken from the storehouses and burned. Even our hoes and sickles were gone. Grandfather showed us how to fish in the river and how to cook some wild plants, and somehow we got through the dry season. And then some corn would grow on the fields from some seeds that had fallen to the ground at the harvest, and we would not bake a single loaf but keep it all to sow it again. Little by little we brought the fields back to life again. Mother died and then grandfather died too, and my little brother married a girl from the neighbouring village and they had a child.
And one day the soldiers came.
Two Fighters
Two fellows were giving each other a tough fight. One was big, the other was fat, one was heavy, the other tough, one was strong, the other was wild.
The strong one broke the wild one’s nose. And he felt: he’s got a nose like mine.
The wild one broke the strong one’s ribs. And he felt: these ribs crack just like mine.
The strong one gouged out one of the wild one’s eyes. And he felt: that eye is soft and delicate just like mine.
The wild one kicked the strong one in the stomach. And he felt: this stomach gives way just like mine.
The strong one choked the wild one’s throat. And he felt: he needs air to breathe just like I do.
The wild one jammed his fist into the strong one’s heart. And he felt: his heart beats just like mine. When both of them fell down and couldn’t get up again, they both thought: “He’s just like me, that guy.”
But that didn’t do them much good any more.
Man Against Man
One day when they made Mr. Balaban a recruit, the drill sergeant announced, “All right, today we’re going to practice man to man fighting. That’ll be very important for you when the balloon goes up!”
“Ah,” Mr. Balaban replied, “if it really comes to man to man fighting when the balloon goes up – could you then show me my man? Maybe he and I can patch things up!”
The Great War on Mars
The Great War on Mars had come to an end.
Weary and sad of heart, the pink Gnuffs trudged home. “No more wars. Never again!” they moaned. They had lost the war.
Weary and sad, the purple Moffers also trudged home. “No more wars. Never again!” they groaned, even though they had won the war.
But on the battlefield lay almost as many dead Moffers as dead Gnuffs, and a terrible amount of green blood had been shed. The Supreme President of the Gnuffs and the High King of the Moffers met at the river that made up the border between their countries and agreed to a treaty.
“Never again shall there be a war between the Gnuffs and the Moffers,” they promised each other. And in both countries the people held huge peace celebrations.
“Let’s send our general into retirement!” the Gnuffs cried at their celebration.
“Let’s give our field marshal the pink slip!” shouted the Moffers at their celebration.
“We’ll have the soldiers plant strawberries!” yelled the Gnuffs.
“We’ll give the soldiers sewing machines!” exclaimed the Moffers.
But the general of the Gnuffs said, “You can’t do that. If we no longer have a general or soldiers, then the Moffers will immediately fall upon us. We must have a strong, alert army so that there will never be another war!”
And the field marshal of the Moffers said, “You can’t do that. When the Gnuffs see that we no longer have an army, surely they’ll immediately take revenge for the lost war. So we need soldiers and a field marshal.”
“Oh well, I guess you’re right,” the Gnuffs grumbled.
“I suppose he must be right,” muttered the Moffers.
And then everybody went home and back to work, the Gnuffs to their towers and the Moffers to their caves.
And the Gnuff general said to himself, “I don’t want another war again, but if I don’t show them that I’m an able general, they’ll send me into retirement.” And he said to the Supreme President, “Our army is in need of more swords, so we won’t be attacked anymore. Please demand higher taxes, so that we can buy more swords from the blacksmiths.” And the Supreme President did just that. And the blacksmiths said to themselves, “We don’t want another war, but if we sell lots of swords, we can afford the expensive schools for our children.” And the blacksmith journeymen said to themselves, “We don’t want another war, but if we say we don’t want to make swords, our bosses will throw us out, and then our children will have nothing to eat.”
And the field marshal of the Moffers said to himself, “I want peace, but if I don’t show them that I’m a capable field marshal, they might sack me.” And he said to the Head King of the Moffers, “I heard the Gnuffs are buying swords for their army. Please raise the taxes, so that we can attract more soldiers to the army.” And the Head King raised the taxes and more soldiers joined the army. And the Moffer farmers said to themselves, “We want peace, but if we don’t sell potatoes to the army, we won’t be able to pay the new taxes.” And the tailors said, “We want peace. But the more soldiers there are in the army, the more uniforms we can sell.” And the spear makers said, “We want peace, but the more soldiers there are, the more spears we can sell.”
And then it happened that an inventor among the Gnuffs discovered a poison, a terribly strong poison. But to the Gnuffs it was harmless; it was only deadly to Moffers. “I don’t want to do anything bad to anybody,” said the inventor to himself, “but if I keep my inventions to myself, I won’t be able to pay the milk lady.” And in a book, he wrote how to produce the poison.
And then it happened that a Moffer professor discovered how to build a bomb that could destroy everything above ground but was harmless to Moffers because they lived in caves. “I wish no one harm,” said the professor to himself, “but I have to make my discovery known, or else the people will think that I don’t know anything about my science.” And he wrote a book explaining how to build the bomb. When the Moffer field marshal heard about it, he said to the Head King, “We really have to build this bomb because I heard that the Gnuffs have a terrible poison that they can use against us.”
And the Gnuff general said to the Supreme President, “We really have to produce this poison because I heard that the Moffers have a dangerous bomb that they can use against us.”
And so the poison was mixed...
...and the bomb was built.
And the Gnuffs built a huge spray gun that could spray the poison on the Moffers.
And the Gnuffs built a huge balloon that could carry the bomb to the Moffers.
Then the Supreme President of the Gnuffs said in a speech, “Now there can never again be a war because we want peace, and the Moffers will never dare attack us because we have the terrible poison.”
And the Head King of the Moffers said in a speech, “Now there will always be peace because we don’t want war, and the Gnuffs will never dare attack us because we have the terrible bomb.”
One day the Gnuff blacksmiths said, “We don’t have enough iron anymore for all the swords and plows and scythes and wagons that we could build. We’ve got to go to Iron Island and get iron!”
And the Moffer blacksmiths said, “We need more iron for our spears and wagons and plows and scythes. We have to go get iron from Iron Island!”
So the Gnuffs sent a ship to Iron Island...
...and the Moffers sent a ship to Iron Island too.
When the ships came back, the sailors told everybody at home that the others had also taken iron from Iron Island.
“The Moffers are taking our iron!” a Gnuff newspaper announced.
“The Gnuffs want all the iron for themselves!” announced a Moffer newspaper.
This was rather an exaggeration, but everybody knows that papers with exciting news sell better than those which say that everything is not so bad and one should maybe first have a look if maybe there wasn't enough iron for everyone. And newspaper people want to make a living just like everybody else.
And the Moffers once again became frightened of the Gnuffs...
...and the Gnuffs became frightened of the Moffers.
“We have to have Iron Island for ourselves,” said some of the Gnuffs, “or there can be no peace.”
“Iron Island must belong to us,” said some of the Moffers, “or there’ll be another war!”
“If we don’t have iron for plows, we’ll have nothing to eat,” said some of the Gnuffs, “and then our terrible poison won’t help us either!”
“If we don’t have any iron, we’ll starve,” said some of the Moffers, “and then our huge bomb won’t do us any good either.”
And the Gnuffs sent a warship to Iron Island...
...and the Moffers sent a warship to Iron Island.
And when the battle came to a draw...
...the Gnuffs sent another warship...
...and the Moffers sent another warship.
“We can’t allow them to build any warships!” said the Gnuff general and with his troops he attacked the Moffer’s shipyard.
“We have to prevent them from building ships,” said the Moffer field marshal, and with his troops he attacked the Gnuff’s shipyard.
“They have attacked us!” yelled the Gnuffs.
“They have struck us!” yelled the Moffers.
“We wanted peace,” said the Gnuff general, “but now it’s too late. We have to spray them with our poison before they drop the bomb on us!”
“We didn’t want war!” said the Moffer field marshal, “but now it’s too late. We have to drop the bomb on them before they spray us with poison.”
And the spray gun was filled...
...and the big balloon was launched.
“Now their number’s up!” said the Gnuffs.
“Now their number’s up!” said the Moffers.
“And ours is too!” said the Gnuffs when they saw the balloon slowly rising.
“And ours is too!” said the Moffers when they saw the giant spray gun appear on the horizon.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have invented the poison after all!” said the inventor.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have invented the bomb after all!” said the professor.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have made any swords!” said the blacksmiths.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have made any spears!” said the spear makers.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have sewn any uniforms!” said the tailors.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have delivered any potatoes,” said the farmers.
“Maybe we shouldn't have exaggerated so much” said the newspaper people.
“Maybe we should have stuck to the truth more” said the people who wrote the magazines.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have become soldiers,” said the soldiers.
“Maybe we should have sent our general into retirement!” said the Gnuffs.
“Maybe we should have given our field marshal the pink slip!” said the Moffers.
...
And then a Gnuff said to his friends, “We can’t save ourselves anymore. But the Moffers – they weren’t any more stupid or mean than we were.” And they climbed up onto the spray gun and knocked it over, just at the moment before it started spraying.
And a few Moffers said to each other, “Now we’re going to die because of our stupidity. But the Gnuffs at least ought to know that there were a few decent Moffers.” And they grabbed hold of the ropes and climbed up to the balloon and exploded the bomb before it got to the Gnuffs.
“Moffers saved us!” the Gnuffs said, astonished when they saw that the bomb had not hurt them.
“Gnuffs gave their lives for us!” the Moffers whispered, completely amazed, when they noticed that the poison hadn’t hit them.
And then they all let their swords and spears drop to the ground, sat down on the ground and moaned, “Whew! That was a close call!” And because they were so relieved, many of them started crying.
Then they sent the general and the marshal into retirement, the Supreme President and the Head King too, and they said, “This time we’ve got to be smarter!”
The Slave
A man had a slave. And the slave had to do all the chores for him. The slave washed the man, combed his hair, cut up his food, and put it in his mouth. The slave wrote the man’s letters for him, shined his shoes for him, darned his socks for him, chopped the wood for him, and lit the fire in the stove. When the man saw some raspberries while taking a walk, the slave had to pick them and put them in his mouth. To keep the slave from running away, the man always kept him on a chain. Day and night, he had to hold on to him and haul him around, or he would have run away. In the other hand, the man always carried a whip because when the slave pulled on the chain and yanked at it, the man had to whip him. Then when his arms hurt, and he was exhausted from whipping him, the man swore at the slave, and at the chain, and generally at everything.
Sometimes he secretly dreamed of the times when he was still young and didn’t yet have a slave. In those times he could still roam through the woods free as a bird and pick raspberries without this constant tugging and tearing at the chain. Now he couldn’t even go to the can by himself. In the first place, because the slave would have run away, and in the second place: who would have wiped his butt? He himself couldn’t free up either hand for that.
One time when he was bellyaching like that, someone said to him: “Well, if it’s so terrible, why don’t you let the slave go free?”
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