Category: Philosophical Message

The Statue: Flash Fiction

The Statue

NOTE: The origin of Lady Justice with a sword had to do with the fact that you needed bronze to make a sword and that was EXPENSIVE. So only the rich had swords, and thus only the rich had the means to enforce their judgments and decisions.  The arrival of the iron age brought a little more democracy!

By Shona Moonbeam © 2016

The arm of Lady Justice still pointed her sword upward to heaven, but the green patina of the bronze was streaked white with pigeon droppings.

Kelly stopped in front of the statue that guarded her school, and looked up into Justina’s kind face. Kelly had made friends with the lady over the years, stopping often to chat on her way home. Asking for advice when a teacher was mean to her, or to any of the other kids, or for acknowledgment of the sorrow she felt for her fellow humans when the current events class had covered particularly distressing news.

Usually, she held her conversations with Justina in private silence. But today, the first day of a new year, she felt optimistic. “Lady J,” she said, softly, at first, and then a bit louder, as she felt a surge of confidence after the words escaped from her throat.

She looked up again, at the face, and then allowed her eyes to follow the arm up to the clouds, and back to the face. Kelly jumped back in surprise. The head of Justina was tilted downward, to look at her.

“Lady J?” asked Kelly, “do you really see me?”

The mouth of the statue started to curl upwards at the corners, just slightly, for an instant.

“I think that the new teacher is an improvement,” Kelly told the statue.

The statue nodded its head, then resumed its former impassive, classical pose.

“Thank you,” Kelly whispered, “thank you.” Then she turned and started walking home, thinking, thinking.

I Gave My Name: Flash Fiction

I stood up and gave my name. That was all I gave. It was not the name my parents gave me. But after a week, it was the name everyone on this floor knew me by, so that was the name I gave.

The next person in the circle stood up and gave a name. I realized I was supposed to sit back down, and did so.

The self naming continued. As far as I could tell, we all gave pseudonyms. Shan, Dro, Berry, Hard Tack, and Anna Mae were a few of the names I remember. We were all guys. At least we all had beards or evidence of shaving. So even if some thought Anna Mae was a given name, I wasn’t convinced.

That was a long time ago. Twenty years, they tell us. One day kind of blends into another, so it’s hard to tell for sure. Dro and Anna Mae died. Tragic accident they said. Jess and Tanner replaced them.

But today, they came and told us we’re going home. They finished taking our space ship apart and copying it and put it back together.

The thing is, this planet had no visible technology when we arrived. I am pretty sure they couldn’t tell the difference between aluminum and titanium, or even iron for that matter. Heat treating had to be a complete unknown. A torque wrench or a pyrometer were gadgets that were in the mechanic’s crib, but could they distinguish that from the cargo that had been intended for trade? I doubt it. They had let a couple of the people from another floor out of the building to advise them on how to put the pieces back together after the replication. They didn’t comprehend that a pastry chef and a linguist would be useless in assembling a spacecraft.

So here we were. Free to go home. On their copy of our own spacecraft. Which was probably a safer bet than the original, which might actually still have functional take off capability, but surely would never get us home.

They’d listened to our conversations for years. But even now, they did not understand the concept of specialization.

We were free to go home now. Or free to stand up and give our names, and be welcomed into the native population, having finally been deemed harmless.