WEBVTT

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"The context in which my own
friend then had the narrative

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related to him by his
acquaintance is unknown to me

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as anything more
than, again, quote

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'quotidian' or 'everyday'.

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They would all line
up before the dais

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to offer the child
a yam, and ampoule

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of blow-dart
phytotoxin, et cetera.

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And in return, the
child would undertake

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to answer their question.

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As exempla of this sort of
mythopoeic cycle so often go,

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this arrangement is represented
as the origin of something

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like modern trade in
the villagers' culture.

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Prior to the child's
evection, everyone

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had made their own
clothes and lean-tos

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and spears, and had gathered
all and only their own family's

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food.

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And while certain foodstuffs
were sometimes shared

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that equinoctial religious
festivals and so forth,

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there was evidently nothing
like an actual barter or trade

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until the advent of this
child, who could and would

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answer any question put to it.

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And the small child, thereafter,
lived atop this platform

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and never left it.

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The dais had its own lean-to
with a pallet of plantain

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leaves, and a small
hollowed-out concavity

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for a fire and
primitive cooking pot.

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And apparently the
child's entire childhood

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was thenceforward spent
on the central platform,

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eating and sleeping and
sitting for long periods,

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doing nothing, presumably
thinking and developing

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and waiting out the
29.518 synodic days

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before the villagers would again
line up with their questions.

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And as the village's
trade-based economy

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became more modern and
complex, one novel development

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was that certain especially
shrewd and acute members

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of the shaman and
midwife castes began

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to cultivate the intellectual,
or as it were, rhetorical skill

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of structuring a monthly
question in such a way

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as to receive a
maximally valuable answer

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from the extraordinary child.

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And they then begin
to sell or barter

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these interrogatory skills
to ordinary villagers who

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wished to extract maximum value
for their monthly question,

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which was the advent of what
the narrative apparently terms

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the village's consultant caste.

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For instance, instead of asking
the child something narrowly

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circumscribed such as, quote,
'Where in our village's region

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of the rainforest should I look
for a certain type of edible

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root?'

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close quote, a professional
consultant's suggestion here

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might be that his client ask
the question something more

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general, along the
lines of, for example,

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'How can a man feed his family
with less effort than we now

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expend?', or 'How might we
ensure a store of food that

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will last our family through
periods when available

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resources are scarce?'

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and so on.

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Whereas on the other hand,
as the whole enterprise

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became more sophisticated
and specialized,

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the consultant caste
also discovered

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that maximizing
the answer's value

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sometimes entail making
a certain question more

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specific and practical.

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As in, for instance,
instead of, quote,

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'How can we increase
our supply of firewood?'

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a more efficacious
question here might be,

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'How might a single man move to
whole downed tree close to his

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home so as to have
plentiful firewood?'

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And evidently, some of the
village's new consultant caste

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developed into rather
ingenious interlocutors,

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and managed to design questions
of historic cultural importance

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and value, such as 'When my
neighbor borrows my spear,

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how can I make a record of the
loan in order to prove that

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the spear is mine, in case my
neighbor suddenly turns around

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and claims that the spear is
his and refuses to return it?'

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Or, 'How might I divert water
from one of the rain forest

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streams so that instead of my
wife having to walk miles with

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the jar balanced on her head
to haul water from the stream,

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the stream might be made
to, as it were, come to us?'

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and so forth.

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Here it was not clear whether
my friend or acquaintance were

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providing their own
examples, or whether these

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were actual examples enumerated
through the dialogue you

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overheard on the United.

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He said certain very
general conclusions

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about the passengers' different
ages and economic status

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could be deduced from their
respective hair's color

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and cut, and their postures
and the backs of their necks,

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but that was all.

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There was no reading material,
except the seat pocket's

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customary in-flight
catalog and safety card,

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and the wing's
engine's constant noise

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would have prevented
him from sleeping

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even had he taken a tablet.

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And that there was
literally nothing for him

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to do but lean ever so
subtly forward and try,

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as unobtrusively as
possible, to make out

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what the darker-haired
young passenger was relating

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to is less educated
seatmate or companion,

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and to try to interpret it and
fit it into some context that

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would, as it were, ground
the narrative and render

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it comme on dit illuminating
or relevant to his own context.

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And then, at a certain
points it became

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unclear what was part of
the cycle's narrative,

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Ding an sich, and what were
the passenger's own editorial

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interpretations and commentary,
such as the fact that it

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was evidently during
the child's decade

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long occupancy of the
special raised platform

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that the village's
culture evolved

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from hunting and gathering to
a crude form of agriculture

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and husbandry.

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It discovered as
well the principles

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of the wheel and
rotary displacement,

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and fashioned their first fully
enclosed dwellings of willow

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and yam-thatch, and developed
an ideographic alphabet

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and primitive written
grammar, which

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allowed for more sophisticated
divisions of labor

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and a crude economic system
of trade and various goods

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and services.

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And in sum, the entire
village's culture, technology,

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and standard of living undergo
a metastatic evolution that

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would normally have
taken thousands

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of years and countless
paleolithic generations

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to attain."

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