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Category: Skwibby fiction

A bedtime parable

Hills through smogOnce there was a boy, just about the same age as you, who lived with people unlike us.

–Yes, they were different. Not much, but different enough.

He was a very smart young man, just like you, who saw that not all things were right with the way that his people lived. He tried to tell them, but they would not listen. One day it got colder and everyone made fires to make their houses warm.

“The air does not smell right,” the boy said.

“That’s just because you’re not used to it,” the adults said.

“Couldn’t we burn fewer trees, so the air smells better?” the boy asked.

“No, that would make us uncomfortable,” the adults told him. “Besides, if we didn’t burn this wood the wood-choppers wouldn’t have enough money to buy things at the market, and the profits at the market would go down. And then everyone would be affected.”

Some time passed, and then on another day, the boy noticed that his food tasted strange, and he said that something was wrong with it.

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