Lamb was finally learning kung fu… again.
After three month of classes, Lamb was finally ready for his first sash test.
His school was called Phoenix Pakua Kung Fu Association. Lamb arrived 10 minutes early for his test and was warming up on the floor doing stretches. There were 15 other students of different sash ranks and ages as well, also preparing to test today. Lamb was a white sash beginner, and testing for his yellow sash. Everyone was in their official school uniforms; white Karate gis, with a patch of the school’s logo hand sewn to the front upper side.
“Line up class!” Master Cristiano announced, as everyone lined up in ready formation facing the front of the class.
“For our white belts, welcome to your first test, I wish all of you good luck and please try not to be nervous. We have a special guest joining us today,” he motions to another crisp looking man standing next to him, “our visiting itinerancy instructor, Master Quintino has drove down from Michigan to help evaluate your test today.” He motions to the class as everyone claps in welcome, Master Quintino takes a shy bow.
“How today’s special class will proceed is… visiting Master Quintino will lead a short work out, afterwards for the next half hour, each of you will divide into pairs and take turns demonstrating all the blocks, strikes, and self defence techniques you have learned up till now at your current level…” Master Cristiano shoots a look at Lamb, “..and only at your level.” Lamb turns away in embarrassment.
“Meanwhile, Master Quintino and I will be watching and evaluating your performance from the sidelines. Make sure to demonstrate proper control for each of your techniques.” Master Cristiano concluded.
“Come with me,” Madra playfully kicked Lamb in the side.
Madra was a yellow sash testing for her orange. She started training at Phoenix four months before Lamb did. Madra was the tallest person in class (6’3, 190 cm), she had dark unnaturally red hair, and pink highlights. After a few weeks of classes, she realized she had a flair for fighting, “I can’t wait to hit something!” was one of the first things she said to Lamb.
In contrast, Lamb was 5’6 (167 cm), with shoulder length dark hair, and despite all his attempts at working out and losing weight— he was still quite tubby, his general love of cuisine from all corners of the globe was mostly to blame. He was 23, she was a couple years older.
Madra was an aspiring actress, who started looking for a kickboxing class in prep for a role she got in a local indie-theatre production called ‘Oddities and Oddilies’, which had a couple scenes of improvised stage choreography. Supposedly, there was also a lot of artistic nudity. He told her he’d love to come out and see her play, purely to support small budget local theatre— of course, no other nefarious reasons, “if you did, I would kill myself,” was her reply.
After 15 minutes of basic warm ups led by the itinerant instructor, each pair took a spot on the matted floor and took turns hitting the punches, kicks, hand strikes, blocks, grab releases, and other self defence techniques they’ve learned for their respective sash levels. All the pairs took turns doing their techniques at the same time, whilst the two instructors stood in the back and watched, chatting privately.
Madra demonstrated her moves enthusiastically, Lamb was inspired. Lamb breezed through his stuff, he was already an experienced practitioner in other fighting systems, and the stuff he learned these past 3 months was all beginner’s fluff for him. But this was a test, and everyone starts somewhere, so Lamb was putting in his all.
It took them 12 minutes to get through all their stuff.
There were no ‘forms’ though. In the 3 months Lamb spent at Phoenix Kung Fu (tuition price: 120$ per month for 2 classes a week, each class being an hour), he hasn’t seen anyone practice a single form, he’s only ever seen them do one beginner level ‘breathing pattern’, a set of movements and breathing techniques designed to relax the body and circulate one’s chi.
Forms/patterns/kata: are a sequence of pre-choreographed fighting techniques which differ from style to style, they are used to teach students foundational fighting techniques and muscle memory. ‘Forms’ are also featured a lot in competitions, and are usually a stable training tool for most kung fu schools. Forms, drills, partner practice, and sparring are the core methods used by most kung fu schools to train students. It always perplexed Lamb that ‘Phoenix Pakua Kung Fu Association’, a school that practiced the art of ‘Pakua’ aka ‘Bagua zhang’; a style known for it’s beautiful intricate forms, did not practice any.
Madra and Lamb were the first to finish, they spent the remainder of the time practicing head kicks. Well… Madra was practicing head kicks, it was easy for her to put her feet on Lamb’s face, whereas Lamb’s kicks could only reach her neck. He could easily reach her head if he did a jumping reverse crescent kick, but Master Cristiano warned him to only stick to the basics.
10 minutes later, all the testees were done. The two Master’s lined everyone up, and gave simple critiques and compliments to each student on their performance.
“Madra, you showed good power in your punches, but I saw you hitting your partner a little too hard, he might wake up with some sore bruises in the morning,” The class chuckles, “I want to see more control from you in the future.” Master Cristiano critiqued.
Lamb was graded by the visiting guest instructor, “Good kicks, good control, Master Cristiano says you tend to get distracted sometimes in class, so just stick to the curriculum in the future, umm… that’s about it, overall good performance, good test.”
Everyone passed and was celebrated with the presentation of their new sash, salutes and formal handshakes. Madra and Lamb were now Orange and Yellow sashes.
“Thank you everyone, and congratulations to everyone who successfully passed their evaluation! And thank you to our visiting itinerancy instructor for his help in grading everyone today.” Master Cristiano announced, addressing the class, a round of applause as everyone clapped.
“And now some announcements, while we have Master Quintino in town, we will have a new selection of ‘special feature’ classes available for next week. Those classes are: urban self defence, urban knife defence, circular fighting, mediation, advanced sparring, and advanced ground fighting. Please consult our website for a detailed list of our ‘special feature’ classes, and schedule. Also check the website for a full list of prices or talk to me. Note, you will have to be at a minimum of blue sash or above to qualify for the advanced classes.” Lamb immediately lit up at the mention of ‘circular fighting’, could this finally be the real kung fu he’s been searching for? Madra sensed the change in him, peering over to examine him. She wasn’t sure what he was excited about, but like any other adult around a child or small puppy, she was excited that he was excited.
“Also remember, for those of you who haven’t done so already, you will receive a 10 dollar discount on your first ‘special feature’ class if you post a Google review online for our school. I assure you, you can feel comfortable to say anything you want, we want to hear your complete and honest feedback, and I promise you, the school will not take it personally.” After some additional announcements, the special testing class concluded.
As people fanned out, Lamb went to speak with Master Cristiano privately, Madra decided to sneakily hover around the corner, within ear shot. “Could you tell me more about the ’circular fighting’ class?” Lamb asked, trying nonchalantly to act uninterested.
“Ahh.. yes… circular fighting… as you know the circle, and the harmonious balance of yin and the yang are the core features of Pakua and Chinese kung fu.” Master Cristiano assumes a wide open fighting stance, fingers outstretched, he slides his toes forward, and begins walking in a perfect circle, hands in guard, as he demonstrates ‘dragon sticking out claws’.
This, this is what Lamb was here for. After 3 months of beginner’s basics, his patience was finally paying off, this was finally his chance to learn real internal martial arts!
Bagua zhang aka Pakua, is a traditional kung fu style of the Wudang School, a class 1 internal northern kung fu style. Another name for the Wudang School is the ‘Wu-tang Clan’.
Bagua is characterized by distinct circular movements, redirecting the opponent’s energy, and elaborate palm strikes. Evasiveness is a core stable of the art, additonally, the style contains a wide number of hand techniques drawing inspiration from the “eight trigrams" of the I-Ching. Lamb had always dreamed of one day learning the style’s graceful elegant movements, but alas he could only admire it from afar through videos on Youtube and Hong Kong cinema. But now.. finally here was his opportunity to learn the art in person.
“If you are interested in the ‘circular fighting’ class, it is next Saturday morning at 9 am, a week from now. If you are— express interest, I can reserve a spot for you.”
“Yes please, thank you.” Lamb replied, “how often are the classes?”
“All the special feature classes are the same duration. Next Saturday’s class will be 90 minutes.”
“Got it, what I mean is.. how often.. how many times do we have Bagua zhang circular classes?” Lamb asked.
“It’s just one class.” Master Cristiano answered, making a ‘1’ with his finger.
“Pardon— what I mean is..” Lamb tried again, “after next Saturday’s circular class, when is the next one?”
“I unfortunately I cannot say for certain…”
“Why not?” Lamb asked.
“Circular fighting is a ‘special feature’ class, only the itinerancy visiting masters are permitted to teach them. Master Quintino will be teaching this class. After that, it may be at least 3.. or 4 months until we book another itinerant visit.” The instructor answered. Madra saw Lamb visibly deflate.
‘Ok.. one 90 minute class every 3 months…’ Lamb rationalized to himself internally, ‘if I take one class every 3 months, and I asked Master Cristiano for instructions on the side here and there.. after a few years I could get the general grasp of it.. ok not to bad… It’s not ideal, but I could make this work.’ he thought, perking himself up. It was there, real kung fu was so close and finally within reach!
“How much is the class?” Lamb asked.
“The full list of special feature classes and prices are listed on our website. Each of the regular special feature classes start from 60 dollars each per class. Please check our website for specific price lists at home.” Master Cristiano answered.
“Could you tell me now, I can sign up and pay in advance.” Lamb said.
“Circular fighting is a premium level special feature class, for only visiting instructors are allowed to teach theses classes. The price is 190 dollars per class.” Master Cristiano answered. Lamb deflated even more, the vapour lines of his soul squished out of his body.
“Does my monthly 120 dollar tuition fee cover part of the cost for the circular class?” Asked Lamb.
“No. Your monthly class fees only cover regular 1 hour classes. These classes are 90 minutes each, and an additional cost. However, your first special feature class will be discount to 180 dollars if you write an online Google review.”
Lamb just had one more question. “How come circular classes are so rare? Isn’t circular motions the basis of our style bagua zhang?” He asked.
“Yes circular motions are the basis of bagua palm aka pa-kua palm. However our style is not ‘pakua palm’, our style is ‘pakua fist’, we focus on the ‘fist’ aspect of the art, we do not focus on the circular aspect of the art. We practice an external form of the art created by our founder in Venezuela. We do not practice the internal circular movements as part of our curriculum.” Cristiano explained. Lamb had checked and double checked the website and read it’s description of their style multiple times. Not once on the Phoenix Pakua Kung Fu Association website nor in any of the promotional material do they ever mention the term ‘pakua fist’, all it says is that the style is called ‘pakua’ alluding to the well known circular movement internal style pa-kua also known as bagua zhang. Lamb has done a lot of research and reading about kung fu, and did extensive research when selecting this school, not once did he ever come across the term ‘pakua fist’.
***
“Was it just me.. or did that feel kind of bullshit.” Madra stated, as the two them walked towards their bus stop after class.
Lamb had to take a minute to think about it. He lamented, “you’re right, it was kind of bullshit.”
“RIGHT?!” She exclaimed dastardly, “You’ve done other stuff before this right?” She asked, karate chopping the air, Lamb nodded. “I’m a virgin, I’ve never done any karate or commander—jutsu before… but still, even as a virgin.. it’s hard to contextualize but—- something about today just felt off.. ya know?” She mused.
Lamb looked down, shamefully, nodding. “Unfortunately, I have to agree. What made it feel fishy to you?”
“Well… it was supposed to be a test right? But it was over in just 20 minutes.”
“Hey! Twenty minutes is plenty of time!” Lamb chided, Madra laughed.
“Back on topic!” Madra said, raising a finger, “there were what.. at least 12 of us testing today? But they didn’t have us take turns doing it one at time, we just all did it at the same time. There is no way they could’ve watched and evaluated 12 people at the same time, what a load of crap.”
‘It was a load of crap’. Lamb sighed as a realization dawned on him.
“You’ve done karate-dragon-jutsu before right? What were the tests like there?” She asked.
“I do taekwondo, it’s like Korean karate but with more kicks, it’s great.” Lamb answered.
“Like this?” Madra started flailing her legs around like a mad woman, drawing weird looks from passerby's “Woowwhhaaaa!” She screeched. They were downtown, downtown was full of weirdos.
‘She has great potential’, Lamb observed. “When we have tests at my school, there’s usually at least 3 to 5 saboem-nims or senseis, and they’re each in charge of 2 to 3 students. The students take turns, they go up one at a time, or in small groups to demonstrate what they learned, and each student has a dedicated teacher grading them.”
“Are the tests 20 minutes long?”
“They’re at least an hour, usually longer with advanced students.”
“But each student get’s one-on-one attention from a sensei during grading?” Madra asked, trying out the foreign word.
“Yes, each one.”
“See! Now that seems like a real test, like auditioning in front of a director. I hope your instructors are less creepy than the directors I’ve met.”
“I’m the only creepy one at my school.” Lamb answered.
“Isn’t your school mostly children?” Madra squinted.
“I’ll shut up now…”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“You better go hide, we’re 20 yards from a public school.” Madra pointed out.
"Noooo! I can’t go to jail again. I’m too pretty!”
“Do you hear a beeping?” Madra laughed. “I think your ankle bracelet is going off.” They kept pushing each other as they they rounded the corner.
“Have you heard the term McDojo before?” Lamb asked.
“Hmmm… no, but I bet I could guess.” She pondered, hand on her chin.
“Shoot.”
“Is it like.. the McDonald’s of karate schools, cheap and full of aids?”
“You can’t say that! Children go to those schools, stop giving the children aids!” Lamb laughed.
“Is that what Phoenix Karate is like? Full of aids?”
“Stop saying that word!” Lamb cried covering his ears, “If by aids you mean bad martial arts, yeah that’s pretty much it.”
“That’s actually what it is?” Madra asked.
“Yeah, a McDojo is a school that prioritizes making money over properly teaching martial arts. They also do a bunch of shady schemes to squeeze extra money from their students.”
“Shady stuff like trying to talk people into paying for ‘special signature’ one time only classes?”
“Yeah, stuff like that.” Lamb agreed.
Madra fished in her bag, pulling out her uniform. “What about making you have to sow their logo onto your uniform?”
“Honestly— I dunno what’s up with that.” Lamb admitted.
Madra thought on it for a bit, “I got it, it’s to make you get more invested because you have to do it yourself, it makes you more attached to the school…” Madra mimed clutching a heart.
“So they can squeeze more money out of you.” Lamb finished Madra’s thought.
Madra bit down on her uniform using her incisors, staining her uniform a deep purple with her lipstick. She tore savagely, grinding her unnaturally sharp teeth. She starred back at him with big beady eyes, holding the torn patch between her teeth.
“Think you’ll be going back?” She smirked.
Lamb pulled out his own uniform, inspecting the patch, remembering the time he took patiently sewing it on stitch by stitch, and the pride he took in the finished result. To be honest with himself, after the initial honey-moon phase, he had been losing interest in Phoenix Kung Fu for a while now, he still looked forward to class everyday, but he was mainly looking forward to seeing Madra. They existed in two different worlds, he was a nerd who stayed up until 4 am voice chatting and playing video games with other losers. He was a loser and he was proud of it, and he loved the losers he played with. Madra was an actor, she had the shine, and he knew in 10 years, he’d still be playing video games, and she will be the biggest movie star in the world. He’d remember her, but he wouldn’t even be a blip in her mind, that guy in her fitness class would be but a distant pleasant memory. Her life moved at a mile a minute, without classes, he may never see her again.
She dangled her embroidered ‘Phoenix Kung Fu’ patch in the air and clicked on her fat cigarette lighter. The patch burned with a bright radiance. Lamb didn’t know whether or not he believed in ‘ki’, the life energy that permeated the world, but he felt like some of her ki was in that patch, and she was burning her own life energy— and using it to light a cigarette.
She offered Lamb a cancer stick, he didn’t smoke but accepted anyways. She brought Lamb in close lighting his as well. Lamb mirror her motions, taking a big drag of pungent flavourful tobacco. He hacked, as burning pain erupted from his chest, his lungs felt like they were collapsing. She gently patted him like a pug until the coughing stopped. Madra bought her cigarettes in bulk from a drug dealer she knew, he got arrested again last week, she’s gonna need to find a new hook up.
Madra held her smouldering patch before her, watching it burn, the colours greying out. She tossed it in the trash.
Lamb held his uniform in front of him, his decision made. He tore at the patch with his fingers, undoing the hard work he once did. He extend his hand, and held the stranglely ‘Phoenix Pakua Kung Fu Association’ patch before Madra. She took the cigarette out of her mouth, it’s tip stained purple. She gently hovered the burning end of the cigarette next to Lamb’s patch, grinning maniacally the whole time. She gently rolled her cigarette against the patch, tapping away the ash. Lamb’s patch burned just as brightly as Madra’s.
Lamb held his patch before him, watching it burn, the flames making the colours more vibrant than ever. Lamb tossed it in the garbage.
***
“190 dollars?” Epona said over voice chat, as Lamb regaled her about how his big day went. “Your teacher sounds like he should be selling car insurance.”
“Don’t forget, only 180 dollars if you write a google review.”
Epona was an avid gamer. She was on discord streaming her campaign of ‘Goblin Make 2’ a new goblin themed deck-building game, Lamb was watching & commenting along, offering card synergy and risky stratagem ideas. Epona was playing a precision rogue deck, filling her deck with daggers and poison goblins, along with ‘ugly but cute’ woodland creatures which acted as henchmen.
Epona summoned ‘Goblin-Godiva’: a giant multi-headed serpent class goblin. It was a large boss monster with multiple goblin heads attached to long snake like necks. It was truly hideous.
The two of them lived half a world away. Lamb lived in a small American tourist city near Jersey. Epona lived in Ålborg, Denmark. They first met in a gaming Discord dedicated to ‘Gun Metal Bandits’, which so happened to be both of their favourite games. They’ve been friends for over 2 years now. Gun Metal Bandit was a Japanese tactical RPG about maneuvering troops around a battle map, and strategic battles. The key factor differentiating the game, was the game’s strong emphasis on recruitment. After each major story mission, you were presented with 2 or 3 new characters to chose from, but you could only recruit one of them, and your choices dramatically effected the outcome of the game’s story and gameplay. The recruitment mechanic also made the game infinitely replayable, as you can recruit different characters for different story branches and play styles, making each playthrough feel different and unique.
They were both in they’re twenties, only a few months apart, the two of them regularly chatted online, played games and watch movies together, Lamb was a night owl and barely noticed their 4 hour time difference. Creatively as always, ‘Lamp’ was Lamb’s online name, he changed one letter.
Lamb told her he had to go, it was getting late, and he wanted to get in a nightly 10K run before bed.
“Night Lamp! Don’t get kidnapped!” She exclaimed.
Lamb made one joke about rising crime rates in his city, and now Epona made fun of him every time he went out at night.
“If I ever do get kidnapped, it’ll be your fault for jinxing me!” Lamb replied.
“Nooo!! Don’t worry, I’ll call 112”, Epona replied with several accompanying GIFs of calling the police, “Well it’s a good thing you don’t live in a dangerous country like America.. oh wait..”
“CRIME HAPPENS IN DEMARK TOO.” Lamb retorted, defending the pride of his nation.
“YES, MAYBE TWICE A YEAR, SOMEONE MIGHT STEAL A DAIRY COW.”
Lamb had to admit, Epona won this round. Denmark 1, America 0.
“Do you seriously not wear sports shoes when you go running?” She asked.
“I don’t wear any shoes when I run.” Lamb replied.
Lamb loved to run. Few thing’s felt better than feeling the night wind brush against your face, sweat trickling behind you, and rough cement against your feet. Lamb prefered afternoon, or 8pm evening runs. But with work and extra curriculars, sometimes midnight was the only time he had to go out for runs. Lamb usually preferred to run for at least 10-16 kilometres, or as much as he could, but today… it was almost midnight and getting late, he would only have time for an 8K power run, maybe a 10K.
Lamb was not like the regular brightly dressed runners you’d often see running in the park as you drove past them in the mornings. Lamb enjoyed body conditioning, and coming up with unique training regimens, plus he doesn’t like spending money on expensive running shoes. Inspired by TV documentaries about pre-agricultural hunter gatherer tribes, who would spend 6 hours chasing down their prey on foot, until their prey literally collapsed from exhaustion, all whilst running in bare feet— Lambs thought to himself, ‘if our hunter gatherer ancestors could literally run all day on rough terrain, and they didn’t have shoes, what am I doing buying running shoes for? They’re expensive, and sweaty, and break after a few months. I’ll just go running like our ancient ancestors did!’
The first 3 months of barefoot running hurt like hell. People are often worried about glass on the ground, but it isn’t really glass on the ground you should be worried about, it’s not like Police Story, there isn’t just small bits of glass on the ground everywhere you go, in actuality, the real trouble is small rocks. Every few blocks, sharp tiny rocks would dig into Lamb’s exposed feet, they felt like tiny spikes and hurt like hell, tiny little stab wounds. After a few blocks, Lamb would have to stop his run, and dig out tiny pebbles from the bottoms of his feet. But after about 5 months, his feet acclimated. The bottoms of his feet became harder, and Lamb naturally learned how to step better. With each stride, he would step in a way where the feet glides across the ground, resulting in the feet making as minimal amount of contact with the ground as possible. As soon as his heel met the ground, it was immediately off, followed by the ball of his foot. Those two sections became the hardest part of his feet, and it didn’t matter what he stepped on. Lamb has been barefoot running for years now, and has developed iron like feet of steel.
He was trying to clear his head as he ran, trying not to get bent thinking about how the school Phoenix has been ripping people off this whole time.
Lamb was just getting into the ‘runner’s zone’, he’d been running for 8 and a half kilometres, now suddenly he started to feel like he could run forever. Then all of a sudden, flashing police lights and loud sirens took him out of it. He took out his headphones as he noticed a squadron of police cars speeding past him.
It was night out and the streets where illuminated by street lights. Then, all the lights around him abruptly began flashing on and off like disco balls. The lights in the houses around him also began shutting on and off. Fire alarms and cars alarms around him everywhere also started going off.
‘What the heck is going on?’ He thought to himself.
All of a sudden, the night sky was illuminated by a bright yellow flash, as if archangels were descending from the heavens. Is this a nuclear bomb? Lamb thought, confused and fearing the worst. Incredibly loud crackles of lightning boomed across the sky, sounding like bombs going off. The sound made Lamb jump out of reflex. It was so unnaturally loud that it was impossible for anyone to miss it. All around Lamb, people were getting out of their cars and homes to stare up at the sky. Some were still in their pajamas, watching the commotion.
The sky returned to black, then artificial panels of lights appeared hovering about the night sky. The lights shifted form, shaping themselves into large neatly arranged rectangular panels in the sky. The panels combined becoming a projection: a projection of the first contact scene between aliens and humans from the 1977 Steven Spielberg movie ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’. It played out across the night sky, covering the entire cityscape. It was as if the moon had been transformed into a film projector, and the night sky was a blank canvas. The scene was intercut with clips of the friendly, shiny-fingered alien from ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ and several other first-contact alien movies. It concluded with the titular alien saying, “E.T. phone home.”
The panels in the sky pixelated, and reformed after the movie reel ended. The pixels rearranged themselves to project a detailed image of an alien-looking octopus creature with exaggerated proportions and large, cartoon-like eyes and mouth.
“Greetings Earthlings of planet destination XP 112323242354546 of the Spiral Nexus milky-way galaxy, local destination name: Earth. We are the *blurp blurp,” the alien octopus said. Its name was unrecognizable to human ears. “We recognize that our species name, the *blurp blurp, may be too difficult for human vocal organs to articulate, so going forward, you may refer to us as the ‘Cloroepii.’” English letters spelling out the species name appeared as subtitles beneath the creature. The octopus-like being spoke English with an auto-tuned, echoey robotic voice, slightly high-pitched.
“We cloroepii, are one of several hundred unique alien species, spanning the vast edges of the known universe, together we are united under a peaceful coexisting multi species alliance known as the *’blurp bleep bloop beep blurp blurp’. In consideration for your limited cybernetic-less vocal organs, you may refer to our united organization as ‘Plato’.” the cloroepii explained. A large subtitle reading ‘Plato’ formed beneath. Lamb was transfixed by the alien message beaming down on them. All around him, the crowds were growing larger. People whispered to each other while gazing up at the eight-limbed messenger from the heavens. Several people had their phones out, recording the alien transmission.
“For millions of years, we have intermittently visited your planet, always monitoring from afar.”
“I knew it!” Someone from the crowd shouted, “aliens have been here this whole time! Ha!”
“However, it is only within the past century that your planet has gained the attention of Plato’s general populace. There are thousands of intelligent races we are aware of; however, inclusion in the united Plato alliance of planets is very exclusive. The Gods are real. They are mysterious, but their will is made known to the leaders of Plato. Our Gods can be very eccentric at times, and they can also be very generous, but they do not grant boons lightly and are very selective about which species they deem worthy.”
All around him, people gasped in surprise at the mention of the existence of Gods. “What a load of crap!” Some guy from the crowd exclaimed. Some people tried to throw beer cans and rocks at the messenger in the skies, their projectiles simply fell back down.
The alien announcer continued, heedless of audience’s bickering.
“Earthlings as a species have been collectively deemed worthy to prove themselves to the Gods. Once the Gods have deemed a species worthy, that species must prove themselves. They may not refuse the calling, nor can they stall or sit idly. When assessing the potential of a new applicant species, they are measured by three criteria: Governance, Technology, and Art.” The three large words—Governance, Technology, and Art—appeared on the screen in bold letters.
“The ‘Governance’ trait favours species who have successfully managed to govern themselves peacefully on a united global scale. This trait favours: A planet with no war, minimal starvation, minimal violations of core fundamental rights and freedoms, and an overall happy general population. If a species has succeeded to meet those feats on a planetary-wide level, they are deemed eligible to receive the boon of ‘Governance’, and an invitation to join Plato. Only 10% of the species in Plato, have been deemed worthy by the Gods through the governance trait, Earth is not.
“The second trait is ‘Technology’. The feats for the technology trait include: the development of faster-than-light travel, warp technology, harnessing the power of a black hole, harnessing the power of anti-matter, exceeding the bonds of their natural lifespan, building advanced robots, the creation of superior AI, and the creation of magic and alchemy. Almost all the civilizations deemed worthy by the Gods were invited into Plato through achievements in the ‘Technology’ trait. Earth has not.” proclaimed the cloroepii.
‘What is this? A roast?’ Lamb thought. People yelled and boo’d all around him.
“That just leaves us with ‘Art’, less than 3% of civilizations have been deemed worthy through the ‘Art’ trait. Our Gods are beings of superior omniscient intelligence, power, and infinite lifespans which predate the creation of the universe. One of the things they seek most is entertainment to fill the vast void that is the infinite expanse of time and existence. Thus, the God’s are generous in giving out boons to works of great entertainment value which they can enjoy through multilayered time-dilated viewings spanning centuries. The Gods have studied the vast cultures of Earth’s civilizations, all in order to appreciate the exports of your planet’s art. They have deemed the vast output of motion pictures, pixel based computer hardware games, and animations of your planet— especially the animated and printed works localized to a specific Eastern island cluster— as some of the greatest works in the known universe.”
Thousands of panels cover the sky, each individual panel flashing a large collage of famous books, comics, manga, film, tv, anime and western cartoons, flash across the night sky. Most notably: Les Miserables, Akira, Dragon Ball Z, Ponyo, the works of Stanley Kubrick, Wong Kar Wai, the Cosmere, and video games such as Portal, Devil May Cry 4, Ninja Gaiden 2, Sekiro, the new DOOM, Goblin Make, Chrono Trigger, Gun Metal Bandit 5, Teris, Dragon Quest and various other action, puzzle and JRPG video games flash across the night skyline. One of the notable featured games was the ‘Gun Metal Bandit 5’, Epona and Lamb’s favourite. The collage also featured a lot of anime, a lot, Plato had good taste.
“For the past half century, the vast literature and media of your planet has been exported to various libraries and entertainment universities throughout the Plato empire, they have been reviewed, received, and consumed with great interest and profit, followed by high demand for more Earth content. Studies in the history and cultures of Earth have risen to become a leading field of academia. To put it in modern generational teenage human-speak: “Earth media is ‘trending’ across the Galaxy.””
‘Aliens have been watching us this whole time,’ thought Lamb, ‘and they are weebs.’. The octopus herald reappeared on a large central screen, the giant collage of Earth media continued playing in the background, but the attention was back to the cloroepii speaker.
“The citizens of Plato are very eager to welcome Earth into our united alliance of planets, once you join; all the knowledge in our collective libraries will be yours to peruse, unlimited travel across our galactic empire will be granted to each and every Earth citizen, additionally, every quality of life improvement and protections enjoyed by Plato member planets, will be made available to Earth. Your planet will also receive a generous and negotiable stipend, as payment for all the Earth media we have freely enjoyed thus far.
“However, all those benefits will only be made available, if your planet is deemed worthy of joining our planetary empire. Humanity is still in the qualification phase, membership into Plato, has not been officially admitted.
“As with every civilization the Gods of Plato have deemed worthy, before the civilization can be admitted membership, the civilization must enter a ‘testing phase’, people of Earth, with this planet wide simultaneous reveal of our existence, your planet now officially enters the ‘testing phase’.” The sky flashes gold, then fades to black. The transmission stops, all around Lamb, people are yelling amongst themselves, frantic and confused.
“A test?!”
“What test?! Are we in a death game?!”
“They’re shooting a movie right now, right?”
“Are we being Punked?!”
“This has to be fake guys! Someone’s pulling another moon-landing!”
Various guesses and loudly worded opinions fill crowd.
On the other side of the world in Denmark, Epona watches the empty black sky from atop her apartment balcony. A large, very vocal crowd has gathered in the parking lot in front of her building. She rushes out the door, not even bothering to put on shoes, in the halls, people are rushing out of their homes in their underwear. She runs down the stairs, joining the assembled crowd outside, looking up at the still black sky. They had received the same message Lamb did in America, except their octopus messenger spoke robotic Danish.
On the other side of the world, Lamb looks up at the same sky. Slowly, lights began to simmer. A bright golden world of effervescent creatures, glacial forests, vast fields of tall grass, and giant smoke spewing steam-engine trains glide across the screen, encompassing the vast sky. The sprawling world on display looks both outerworldly, yet still very Earth like. The grass seemed a little too tall, the trees a bit too large, and the creatures looked both grounded in reality, yet fantastical at the same time.
A giant golden text appears underneath the vast landscape on display, it reads:
“Welcome to Alyzia”
chapter end