A Foolish Consistency (2 page)

It was one of his best ones ever.  Full of fire and conviction, he railed against those who were not consistent with their moral beliefs.  He preached about integrity and values.  The studio audience gave him a standing ovation, and he was sure that his ratings had received a great boost.  The next two weeks went as well as he could have hoped.  He maintained a life consistent with what he preached.  In the third week, however, the temptations grew too much.  Needing to fix a dent in his BMW, he pilfered the cash donations that came in the mail, rationalizing that he would pay it back later.  A few days later his secretary cornered him in one of the broom closets, and, his sexual urges nearly at overload, he gave into her.  But in his own mind it was she who forced him.  In the fourth week, a caller on his show asked him if he'd ever done drugs, and he said no, knowing full well that he'd smoked plenty of weed when he was younger.  It was a bold face lie, to be sure, but he couldn't shatter the poor person's faith.  He had to present himself as a paragon of virtue.

He knew full well that he had let down his fellow people, but it was so hard to change so many years of habit.  Oh well, Harry thought, perhaps these evil alien races Roger speaks of will never find us.  The thought comforted Harry, and when he was walking back to his office after one of his shows and felt that familiar tingling in his legs, it was that thought he repeated to himself. 

When he appeared back in the glass tube, Roger was already shaking his narrow head at him.

"You've really flown it," he said.

"Blown it?"

"Right.  Kaboom."

"I know, I know.  I just couldn't help myself.  I guess we're not worthy of becoming oxyzan.  We'll have to do without your protection."

"Oh, it's much worse than that.  I transmitted my report and my superiors were quite disgusted.  Revolted, actually.  They decided that you are not even worthy of being zalzan.  You are zal only."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," Roger said, "that instead of merely marking your species as unworthy, they are going to take an action they have never had to take before."

"And that is?"

"Eradication."

"What?  You can't mean—"

"I'm afraid so.  A species classified as zal is one having contaminating potential.  Ability to infect other races with their revolting ways.  As self-proclaimed protectors of the universe, we could never let your race affect others.  Your planet must be destroyed."

"No, please," Harry begged, feeling his breathing becoming ragged.  "You can't.  Do this.  Please.  Have mercy."

"Calm yourself, zal.  Remember your asthma.  Since eradication is a step we have never before taken, we
are
going to give you one last chance.  One more month to prove that we should not destroy you.  You must show some improvement, however small.  You must show that you can develop at least a rudimentary form of consistent thinking.  Your actions must match your beliefs.  The future of your planet depends on it."

"I'll do my best," Harry said.

"I hope that's good enough," Roger said.

Once back on Earth, Harry endeavored to live as pure and noble a life as the one he espoused on his television show.  He shrugged off his secretary's advances.  When a reporter asked him if he'd ever been arrested, he said yes, many years before, for assault and battery on one of his ex-wives.  He reported the actual amount of income on his taxes.  He even donated money to various charities, instead of just claiming he was going to do so.   

When Roger brought him back to his ship a month later, he felt altogether good about his behavior.

"So?" he said.  "Did I save the planet?"

"Hardly," Roger said.  "Your performance was wretched."

"What?  But—but I thought I did well.  I didn't do anything wrong—"

"Oh, yes, but you did, and your ignorance of the fact only makes you look worse."

"But what?"

"In your efforts to be consistent with your beliefs, you still managed to break five of the Ten Commandments."

"Impossible!"

"Let's review.  You took the lord's name in vain three dozen times over the past month.  You did not call your mother in the nursing home on Mother's Day, thereby not showing her the proper honor.  You stole your bank teller's ballpoint pen, knowing full well that you were not taking it by accident.  When your neighbor asked you who crushed his azaleas, you told him it was the skateboarders from down the street instead of you with your lawnmower.  You told that same neighbor that you wish you had his roses, showing that you coveted them.  I believe that's five."

"I guess I didn't realize what I was doing," Harry mumbled.

"Exactly.  You are incapable of changing.  I will be so kind to erase your memories of these events before returning you to Earth, so at least you will have a few ignorant hours of peace before we eradicate your planet."

Roger skittered over to one of the consoles, tapped a few buttons, and Harry immediately began to feel dizzy.

"Wait," he said. 

"Don't speak," Roger said.  "You'll only cause yourself brain damage."

"But I have one final request.  I want to speak to your superiors."

"Why?"

The room was spinning.  He was sure to pass out at any moment.  "I have an argument they may not have considered," he said.  "Please, give me that, at least.  You said yourself that you've never destroyed a species.  Don't I deserve every chance possible?"

Roger's stared at him for what seemed the longest time, then, finally, he clicked a few buttons and the dizziness Harry felt went away.

"I'll give you that chance," Roger said, "but it could get me into a lot of trouble."

"Thank you."

"You better have something good to say." 

Roger pecked at the consoles until all the screens went dark except one.  That screen showed nothing but static, but then three creatures like Roger appeared.  Roger spoke to them in an odd series of clicks and hisses.  The creatures spoke back.  Roger spoke again, louder this time.  There was a moment of silence, then one of the creatures clicked once.

Roger turned to Harry.  "They will hear what you have to say.  I have turned on the translator so they will understand you.  Make it kick."

"Quick?"

"Right."

Harry took a deep breath.  It was time to draw upon all of his experience as an orator.  He knew he had to deliver his most powerful speech or the whole planet could be destroyed.  His impromptu persuasiveness had always been one of his greatest strengths.

  "I am not going to deny to you that we are an inconsistent bunch," he said to the faces on the screen, faces so impassive they could have been painted there.  "We do not always do what we say, or say what we do.  I suppose that I represent the epitome of that fault.  But what I argue now is that inconsistency is not a fault at all, but a strength.  It is part of our essential character.  Ralph Waldo Emerson, a wise man among us if there ever was a wise man, one said, 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.'  It is our inconsistency that makes life worth living.  It is our inconsistency that makes us unique.  If you destroy us, that uniqueness will be lost.  I suppose what it boils down to is this, the crux of the matter:  if it is consistency you are after, then we are the most consistent of all, because we are consistently inconsistent."

When he finished speaking, the creatures on the screen turned to one another and clicked and hissed vociferously.  It went on for some time, and it was all Harry could do but hope his message had gotten through to them.  Finally, the creatures stopped.  One of them clicked a few times at Roger, then the monitor returned to static.

"Well?" Harry asked.

Roger shook his oval head and stepped up to the glass.  "I did not think it possible," he said.  "They changed their minds.  They are not going to destroy you."

"Then I did it!  I convinced them!  I always knew I had it in me."

"Calm yourself.  They did not change their minds for the reasons you think.  Your argument only convinced them how right they were.  You are still zal."

"More than let you live, they have decided to protect you from aggressive races.  You see, your absurd argument proved to them that yes, you are unique, uniquely perverse.  They want to use your planet as an example of
what not to be
.
  They think that by studying how backward your world is other species might benefit.  They could change their minds, however, so I would suggest that you be as perverse as you can manage to be.  You must set the tone for others."

"You mean they want me to preach high morals while cheating, lying, coveting, and having as much sex with married women as possible?

Roger had returned to one of his terminals.  He tapped a few buttons and Harry felt the tingling in his legs.

"That's right," Roger said.  "Do what you were doing before only worse.  One last thing.  I can erase your memory of this or leave it intact.  What do you want?"

Harry smiled.  "Leave it.  I wouldn't want to forget my extra motivation."

And with that the esteemed Reverend Harry Lochsteed, a little dizzy but altogether in one piece, found himself back in his office. 

The first thing he did was buzz his secretary.

~ | ~

About the Author

Tim Tracer lives in Oregon.  To his knowledge, he's never been abducted by aliens, but his wife often suspects otherwise.  If you enjoyed this story, please consider buying his collection,
Strange Tales
,
which includes 10 stories very much like this one
. 
A free preview is below. 

STRANGE TALES

Tim Tracer

Weird. Provocative. Bizarre. There are a lot of words that could be applied to the ten tales found in Tim Tracer's debut short story collection, but perhaps they could best be described as strange.
A young lawyer is asked to give his idol, a master magician in his day and now a corporate giant, the pink slip – and he discovers that the "Magic Man" has one more trick up his sleeve . . . A couple with a strained marriage encounters some unusual "Road Hazards" while driving the Oregon mountains and finds something that may just save their marriage – or end it forever . . . A young sorcerer is approached by two computer scientists from a software giant in a faraway land who need a little "Magic Code" on their programming team, but it's not quite the easy path to stardom he's been promised . . .
Dark and light, long and short, brooding and whimsical – there's a lot of variety to be found among these ten stories, but they have at least two things in common. They're delightfully entertaining. And they're very strange. If you're a reader looking for both, you'll find them in abundance in these tales.