A Lesson on Humans from the Zirgoonian Curriculum
A hidden transcript from Area 51 reports the lesson on humans from an alien classroom.
I found this scientific log. Found on the planet Earth. The label read “Zirgoonian’s Lesson on Humans” and was stored in Area 51’s library. This log was discovered one-thousand years after the extinction of humans:
“Ewwww!!!” the class of children are screaming in unison at the projection at the front of the classroom.
“Now, now children - give them a break - humans and very important to you and me and our way of life “ the teacher explains trying to calm down the class.
Just so you know, this happens every year, when the Zirgoonian curriculum calls for every seventh-grade Zyblat to understand balance in the intergalactic ecosystem. Students are forced to look at the horrendous slides of the tiny* Earth-bound creatures known as humans.
*Zyblats lived on a much larger planet than Earth and are 20 times bigger than humans. It’s about an exact equal ratio of humans to bats - for your reference.
“Humans were placed in this universe and have their jobs to do just as much as we do” the teacher continues to explain. She looks out on a classroom full of goopy disinterested creatures.
“It’s important that humans exist and their planet Earth is a crucial part of the intergalactic balance system. Without humans, we’d have an overabundance of oxygen and underabundance of CO2 in the universe. They have oil dependency and constant waste-making behaviours which are crucial to the intergalactic good of us all. We need them and their disgusting activities for the good of the universe!”
The plea for “the good of the universe” is met with little enthusiasm from the classroom. The majority of students are still gagging from the projections of shiny white teeth, pronounced face bones, and light blue coloured eyes. The Zyblats sourced all their human photos from human-made stock photo websites. The watermark is still on the photo.
Some kids are seeing photos of humans for the first time. Zyblat children have a much better understanding of the scope of the universe. Some in the class, aren’t quite believing that one species of creature on one very far away planet pay much importance to intergalactic balance at all. Especially a creature that looked so gross.
“Why can’t we just create artificial humans who aren’t so ugly?” cracks the four-armed class shit-head Timmy. Who has that name, not as an insult, but I’m noting that because he literally does shit from his head*.
*For context, shit-headedness is one genetic trait that shows up in Zyblat biology. In fact, genetic differences in Zyblats show up in all kinds of uniquely disgusting ways. Like instead of brown eyes/blue eyes, Zyblats could have any combination of shitheads/moucus pouches/pus sacks/gas excreters/thousands of more traits. Zyblats all look, and smell, very different in a way completely unique to each Zyblat. It’s like a full body fingerprint - if a finger print could make you gag.
Timmy’s shit-head pals (they all had a variation on Shit-headedness gene) slap their moist tentacles and claws together at the quip. The tentacles make a repetitive awful suction sound that had the decibels of earthy thunder. Remember, Zyblats are 20 times bigger than humans, so these descriptions are 20 times worse than you’re imagining. Each kid in this class is a huge sloppy monster worse than the last.
Well except for one. Cynthia. She speaks up to Timmy and the shit heads before they got out of control. And she was the only one who looked into the blue eyes of a generic coffee-drinking stock photo human woman and saw a creature capable of intelligence, empathy, and compassion.
“You should talk Timmy. You have an excretion vessel next to your eye canal! Why do you get to decide what’s so gross when you have to have a bucket by your desk?” yells Cynthia, who is the class crush of many of the boys. All the pubescent Zyblats perspired green ooze for her whenever she spoke. Cynthia’s mouth was attractively tied together by a firm mucous that traced a clove-shaped lip-line.
“Now now Cynthia, there’s no gene shaming allowed in my classroom. But you bring up a good point. Humans may seem gross to us for how they look, but they aren’t gross for what they do for us. Even more than the CO2, and oil, and garbage - we need them for our very way of life.”
The teacher is attempting to reel the conversation back from all this pubescent violence and slimy sexual tension.
“Without humans, we never would have discovered there was life on other planets capable of being grosser than Zyblats. We need the humans in order to hold our rank as second-to-last gross self-aware creature in the universe. Once humans became self-aware about 250,000 years ago, and they were able to recognize their own ugly faces in the dirty creek water, the intergalactic council decided we were less gross and shared the universal secrets with our species. We were granted the privilege of knowing some of the universe’s deepest secrets. The first secret we learned, was the universe is vain and punishes ugliness. But just because they’re ugly, doesn’t mean we don’t need them.”
“I mean I guess they’re kind of cute.” says Barbara, who’s genetic expression is random different discharges from 21 specific pores on her body (you never know what viscosity of discharge is coming next!).
As the pore in her neck oozed a dark green syrup she says, “I’ve heard humans have actually kind of learned to develop their own political systems, but they often are very bad, and result in bloodshed and corruption and war, but in a cute way!”
“Yes thanks Barbara, oh wipe your mouth, you got a little somethin’...” the teacher gestures to Barbara, while leaving a slick greasy dark green slime trail of her own. Like a slug, But only thousands of times bigger than a slug. Just hoping you can picture how big and gross these fucking Zyblats are.
“But of course, it’s not just the gross appearance, and environmental behaviours, or the underdeveloped political systems that make them so gross. We aren’t ranking that much higher than them. As Cynthia pointed out, we don’t have much going for us either. But does anyone else know why humans are grosser than us?”
Timmy the shit-head chimes in with an awful stench, “when my family went on alternate timeline vacation. We terrorized the humans for fun. And like I went to this city, Toronto, and ripped off the roof on the biggest mall I could find - and it was SOOOOO gross. Those tiny little non-slimy things were running away all over the place. And there were so many of them so close together. Just think… they were like crawling over each other like that. My parents said they were giving each other something called, ‘vie-rus-es’ and ‘de-zeez.”
“Well see Timmy - that’s exactly right. And wipe your eye canal, honey. You got some shit there.” the teacher says spitting out a brown and black tooth that regenerates and rots in a 7-8 day cycle.
“While our species doesn't really have anything going for for it at all. Aesthetically speaking, of course. We won out with the intergalactic council because we don’t catch or spread viruses and diseases. That’s why the intergalactic council gave the universal secrets to us. Humans are still able to contract diseases from eachother but also
less intelligent and non-aware creatures. And by intergalactic standards, that’s super fucking gross.”
For a moment the class falls silent. Until Cynthia raises her hoof.
“Well wait - that doesn’t seem fair! We spew more gunk, and goob and grossness out of our bodies than any other creature. But just because our bodies don’t spread sickness - we get a pass?”
“Cynthia!” the teacher exclaims - when she gets mad, ink squirts out her ears, not like a geyser, but in a dribbly way, like wet play-doh. The teacher continues:
“Each Zyblat is beautiful in their own way, every ooze, or gas, or crystalized discharge, makes us unique and shows who we are. We’ve learned to love these things about ourselves. We are all blessed to have our status in the order of the universe, and live long and beautiful lives because we’ve evolved beyond infection and disease. You should be thankful they’re ugly. And be thankful that we don’t have to live in the same conditions as those poor humans.”
“Wait teacher! You’re losing the whole point of the lesson.”
Cynthia flopped into a towering position where all the other disgusting blobs could see she was claiming dominance over the situation. The puberty sacs of the class can’t take it! Foul puberty gases continue to fill the room as she speaks:
“Why are we continuing to punish a creature for how they have or haven’t evolved? Why do we get to walk around with problems of our own, and claim superiority? Are our gunks and sweats any different than their boney faces and water-coloured eyes? When we all recoiled in disgust at the thought of a human, we weren’t actually recoiling at the humans - we were recoiling at ourselves. Is disease really that much grosser than any of our traits? They can’t control that they spread viruses! Just like we can’t control the shit coming out of Timmy’s head. And we can’t control the syrup and jam that drips from Barbara’s head. And we can’t control that this room is filling up with puberty gas. Though I wish you idiots could control yourselves. We hold the secrets to help the humans - to get rid of their diseases. But we know if we do - we might be subject back to the realm where all the other creatures in the universe make fun of us. Doesn’t that make us ugly? We might have to submit that the universe is vain. But do we need to be? Can’t we just help these creatures?Can’t we do good for the sake of goodness? Can’t we just help everyone and not make this archaic distinction that some creatures are gross and some are not?”
The disgusting truth and fallible nature of the entire Zirgoonian colony and Intergalactic Council is now lingering in the air - along with all the pubescent gases and other disgusting vapours. But like the gases - nothing stays for long. It all dissipates away and is forgotten as the teacher moves to the next slide.
The kids in the class looked inspired for a moment. But it lived as a fleeting thought of “we can be better” and never materialized as anything more. It will stay a shared memory of the ten kids who were in that class (class sizes are great within the Zirgoonian school board by the way).
Like everything in the universe, this whole exchange is just a tiny moment living and dying pretty much unnoticed.
———-
Since writing this log, There weren no changes in Intergalatic policies. Humans were still walking around giving eachother illnesses and were none-the-wiser to the alien species who could help them. Right until their extinction.
This observation log does begs a few questions:
Now that humans have ceased to exist, who will be second-ugliest next?
If it’s the Zyblats, what will happen to them? Can the universe take away their secrets once they are told?
Is there a chance the universe will churn out another self-aware creature as ugly or uglier than humans? So Zyblats can continue on the plain of higher existence?
Because these answers are unknown - does that mean there’s some secrets the universe isn’t telling us?
I don’t know who’s or what is reading this. But whoever or whatever you are, remember: just because you’re a tiny, disease-carrying creature, doesn’t mean there isn’t some monstrous disgusting creature out there who appreciates your existence. You have value. Even if that value is essentially helping a big gross creature feel better about itself.