Copperfox
Well-known member
This will be more comprehensible if you have read Frank Herbert's "Dune" books, which pass for science fiction but are at least forty-nine percent fantasy. You'll be still better off if you've gone so far as to read the fill-in books Frank Herbert's son has written since his father's death.
But, unlike a Bene Gesserit warrior-nun in teaching mode, I have tried to make my satire understandable EVEN for the uninitiated.
“Come in,” said Reverend Mother Bodelia Sneakaround, “for all of life is entrances which are exits which still are entrances to the exits we enter.”
“Er, um, right, what you said.” The Fremen-born girl Dazzlechick, in her first year as a Bene Gesserit novice, came in, looking relieved that, in spite of the typical gobbledygook speech from her mentor, it still was possible to do a simple, natural action like walking forward through a doorway. “Reverend Mother, my prana-bindu meditation exercises have been disrupted by a question which I cannot expel from my mind.”
“Questions go questing,” Bodelia solemnly intoned, “in quest of the unanswerable answers which question the unquestionable process of answering the answers that we question.”
“Of course, Reverend Mother. Now, may I, um, you know, actually tell you what my question is?”
“The ancestors of our questioners have been telling the untold answers ever since humanity left Old Earth and began forming the Empire of the Known Universe, my child. Here on Planet Arrakis, the descendants of those who decided calling the place Dune was less of a mouthful are daily writing all sort of questions in the sand, where the wind of destiny blows them away unnoticed.”
Dazzlechick nodded nervously. “I’ll take that as a Yes, Reverend Mother. What unsettles me is this question. Since the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood is supposed to be all-wise and totally awesome, guiding all humanity toward the glorious evolutionary something-or-other, why does everybody’s life on every planet always turn out so rotten? Also, why aren’t males making more of a contribution to trying to fix things?”
To the girl’s surprise, instead of scowling and delivering another meaningless lecture, Bodelia smiled. “Praise be to nothing in particular!” She arose from her lotus position to hug her apprentice. “I had been hoping that you would get around to raising that very question on your own initiative! Prepare to learn an actual answer!”
The Fremen girl was further surprised, but encouraged, to hear her teacher speak so coherently for once. “Enlighten me, Reverend Mother!”
“Come this way, then,” Bodelia invited. “We must follow the Golden Path to the Oxygen Path, followed by the Uranium Path and the Carbon Fiber Path. Along the way, we’ll say goodbye to the Yellow Brick Road, but BEWARE!-- we must avoid wasting time hopping and bopping to the Crocodile Rock. Thereafter, all shall become clear.”
But, unlike a Bene Gesserit warrior-nun in teaching mode, I have tried to make my satire understandable EVEN for the uninitiated.
“Come in,” said Reverend Mother Bodelia Sneakaround, “for all of life is entrances which are exits which still are entrances to the exits we enter.”
“Er, um, right, what you said.” The Fremen-born girl Dazzlechick, in her first year as a Bene Gesserit novice, came in, looking relieved that, in spite of the typical gobbledygook speech from her mentor, it still was possible to do a simple, natural action like walking forward through a doorway. “Reverend Mother, my prana-bindu meditation exercises have been disrupted by a question which I cannot expel from my mind.”
“Questions go questing,” Bodelia solemnly intoned, “in quest of the unanswerable answers which question the unquestionable process of answering the answers that we question.”
“Of course, Reverend Mother. Now, may I, um, you know, actually tell you what my question is?”
“The ancestors of our questioners have been telling the untold answers ever since humanity left Old Earth and began forming the Empire of the Known Universe, my child. Here on Planet Arrakis, the descendants of those who decided calling the place Dune was less of a mouthful are daily writing all sort of questions in the sand, where the wind of destiny blows them away unnoticed.”
Dazzlechick nodded nervously. “I’ll take that as a Yes, Reverend Mother. What unsettles me is this question. Since the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood is supposed to be all-wise and totally awesome, guiding all humanity toward the glorious evolutionary something-or-other, why does everybody’s life on every planet always turn out so rotten? Also, why aren’t males making more of a contribution to trying to fix things?”
To the girl’s surprise, instead of scowling and delivering another meaningless lecture, Bodelia smiled. “Praise be to nothing in particular!” She arose from her lotus position to hug her apprentice. “I had been hoping that you would get around to raising that very question on your own initiative! Prepare to learn an actual answer!”
The Fremen girl was further surprised, but encouraged, to hear her teacher speak so coherently for once. “Enlighten me, Reverend Mother!”
“Come this way, then,” Bodelia invited. “We must follow the Golden Path to the Oxygen Path, followed by the Uranium Path and the Carbon Fiber Path. Along the way, we’ll say goodbye to the Yellow Brick Road, but BEWARE!-- we must avoid wasting time hopping and bopping to the Crocodile Rock. Thereafter, all shall become clear.”
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