Day 20
Meh only 500-odd words today. Amusinginly enough though, the word counter on NaNo reckons I've done more words than what OpenOffice says I have, heh
After breakfast the following morning, the family headed to the community centre as always. Aidan had school, Susanne and Matthew met up with their workmates before heading to their respective workplaces. Tim and Wendy made themselves at home in the library and worked on their own school work, which was primarily pertaining to horticulture, although Tim preferred carpentry.
Vera, however, headed for Sandy’s office. She waited patiently on a seat outside until the doctor made an appearance. Sandy stopped in shock when she saw her, then politely invited her to come into her office. One the door was closed the scolding began.
“Just what did you think you were doing, running away like that? Your symbiont can’t be removed to our knowledge so there was never any fear of your mother having her way on that. And in any case you only just found out. There wasn’t nearly enough time for all parties to absorb the impact, let alone have a rational discussion about the matter! And the next thing I hear, you’ve run off! We all searched for you for weeks, young lady. Do you have any idea what you put your poor mother through? If we had been on Earth, I would have prescribed her anti-depressants, but we don’t have any of those here. And for that matter no child on Earth would have been stupid enough to do what you did, missy! Do you have any idea what kind of things happened to runaway children? No… you wouldn’t… you probably don’t remember much of Earth, but that’s not the point. Suffice to say that children who ran away from home either came running back a few days later with their tail between their legs or they never came back at all - except maybe as a corpse! You’re damn well lucky you didn’t end up a corpse either for that matter - there’s more than one type of predator out there after all! And after thinking you’ve been dead all this time, next thing we find out you’ve shown up at SomeNameHere, making critical medical decisions! Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I missed you too?”
“Ha! That won’t cut it with me,” Sandy replied, but although her voice was stern there was a momentary twinkle in her eye.
Vera smiled a little, although she fancied that Sandy was looking a little older and a bit more haggard than she remembered.
“I didn’t realise Earth was so dangerous just because of other people,” Vera mused.
“You kidding? Earth is a hellhole,” Sandy replied. “It wasn’t safe for anyone to walk the streets alone, let alone kids. Self defence classes were complusory for anyone who had the audacity to be born a girl. Unemployment was horrendous. You could be robbed in broad daylight with everyone watching and no one would lift a hand to help you. Hell someone could be outright murdering you and no one would pay any attention.”
Vera stared.
“Why?”
“Because the world was desensitised to that kind of thing,” Sandy replied sadly. “And massively overpopulated. Who cared if some random person died? People died every day.”
“I’d care.”
Sandy smiled.
“That’s because you’ve grown up on Jessu, which has and still is dangerously underpopulated and so every single life is regarded as precious.”
“Does the value of life decrease when the population increases, then?”
Sandy paused.
“No, not at all,” she replied finally. “Only our perception of it.”
After breakfast the following morning, the family headed to the community centre as always. Aidan had school, Susanne and Matthew met up with their workmates before heading to their respective workplaces. Tim and Wendy made themselves at home in the library and worked on their own school work, which was primarily pertaining to horticulture, although Tim preferred carpentry.
Vera, however, headed for Sandy’s office. She waited patiently on a seat outside until the doctor made an appearance. Sandy stopped in shock when she saw her, then politely invited her to come into her office. One the door was closed the scolding began.
“Just what did you think you were doing, running away like that? Your symbiont can’t be removed to our knowledge so there was never any fear of your mother having her way on that. And in any case you only just found out. There wasn’t nearly enough time for all parties to absorb the impact, let alone have a rational discussion about the matter! And the next thing I hear, you’ve run off! We all searched for you for weeks, young lady. Do you have any idea what you put your poor mother through? If we had been on Earth, I would have prescribed her anti-depressants, but we don’t have any of those here. And for that matter no child on Earth would have been stupid enough to do what you did, missy! Do you have any idea what kind of things happened to runaway children? No… you wouldn’t… you probably don’t remember much of Earth, but that’s not the point. Suffice to say that children who ran away from home either came running back a few days later with their tail between their legs or they never came back at all - except maybe as a corpse! You’re damn well lucky you didn’t end up a corpse either for that matter - there’s more than one type of predator out there after all! And after thinking you’ve been dead all this time, next thing we find out you’ve shown up at SomeNameHere, making critical medical decisions! Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I missed you too?”
“Ha! That won’t cut it with me,” Sandy replied, but although her voice was stern there was a momentary twinkle in her eye.
Vera smiled a little, although she fancied that Sandy was looking a little older and a bit more haggard than she remembered.
“I didn’t realise Earth was so dangerous just because of other people,” Vera mused.
“You kidding? Earth is a hellhole,” Sandy replied. “It wasn’t safe for anyone to walk the streets alone, let alone kids. Self defence classes were complusory for anyone who had the audacity to be born a girl. Unemployment was horrendous. You could be robbed in broad daylight with everyone watching and no one would lift a hand to help you. Hell someone could be outright murdering you and no one would pay any attention.”
Vera stared.
“Why?”
“Because the world was desensitised to that kind of thing,” Sandy replied sadly. “And massively overpopulated. Who cared if some random person died? People died every day.”
“I’d care.”
Sandy smiled.
“That’s because you’ve grown up on Jessu, which has and still is dangerously underpopulated and so every single life is regarded as precious.”
“Does the value of life decrease when the population increases, then?”
Sandy paused.
“No, not at all,” she replied finally. “Only our perception of it.”