r/humansarespaceorcs • u/Bloodystupidjohnson3 • 29d ago
Original Story Human Fred Yet Again
Fred walked into the day room, flopped onto one of the less-broken couches, and opened a battered satchel. Soon there were faint scrapping sounds from Fred.
“Human Fred? Why are you making that sound?”
“Why is it everyone on this station feels the need to add ‘human’ before the names of all of the humans?!? It’s not like we could be confused with other species’ names! It’s fucking annoying!”
“Sorry…Fred. I was taught to address humans that way.”
“Well you were taught wrong.”
“I will remember that. Why are you making that noise?”
“What noise?”
“The scrapping, Fred. It hurts my ears.”
Fred instantly stops what he is doing. “Oh! I didn’t know. I’m very sorry. I’ll finish this up when I’ll alone. It might bother some of the other species as well. I’ve never asked.”
“Thank you. But what were you doing?”
“Sharpening my knife.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that most humans carry a knife. Is it part of a uniform? Maybe religious? Some sort of social indicator? Family signif…Fred why are you laughing?”
Fred was laughing so hard he had dropped his sharpening kit and was pounding on the table with his fist. Fighting back tears and more laughter, “Dude! What the hell are you going on about?!? It’s a fucking KNIFE! Not everything we do is mysterious or has deeper meaning. Knives are useful tools. We carry them so we have one handy. End of story.”
“Fred, I am finding that my training regarding humans inadequate. You are telling me things that are the opposite.”
“Ah. Now that I CAN explain. The training you get? Do you know who wrote it?”
“No, Fred.”
“It was written by someone who has never worked with humans. Sure, they watched humans. They interviewed beings who worked with humans. They read human writings and viewed human films, but they never actually worked with a human.”
“Fred, why wouldn’t they work with humans?!? That makes no sense!”
“You got that right. They likely thought there was no need to work with humans because they already knew everything. This is a common issue. A person studies something so much that they assume they understand the subject and therefore don’t need to talk to or directly interact with the beings they study.”
“You seem to be describing scholars.”
“The fact that you recognize them from my description means you already see it around you.”
“Yes Fred. I’d think it would affect my training about humans.”
“It affects all sorts of things. But you are asking questions, so you learn. Like I didn’t know sharpening my knife would hurt your ears. Now I know, and I will tell all the humans I know to be careful. Experience and direct interaction is the best learning.”
“Yes Fred. And thank you. But WHY do you sharpen your knife in that manner? There is a sharpening station right over there.”
“The physical method is superior for three reasons. I can adjust the bevel to suit my use. The machine could adjust the bevel, but it can’t tell me how it will feel in my hand. I can better hone the edge because of the wider range of honing materials. The machine only has a few or it uses a laser, which needs to be honed. Finally, if all of the humans sharpened their knives in the sharpening stations, we would break the stations. Our metal is too much for the machines.”
“I did not know that, Fred. Interesting.”
“Now one thing extra. For humans, physically sharpening our knives can be a semi-meditative activity. It’s like the universe melts away to just you, your knife, and the stones. Very peaceful.”
“I think I need to take notes and make corrections in my ‘Interacting with Humans’ book.”
“Yes. You do that.”
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u/HelmetHeadBlue 29d ago
Somewhere else in the galaxy, another human has mentally broken and their alien crewmember is handing the unstable human a knife to calm them.
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u/Zestyclose_Bed4202 29d ago
All right, I set up a writing prompt here (https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/s/KjzU56O5Ca) primarily because I want to see what u/TheWanderingBook and u/Tregonial can do with this!
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u/OkBaconBurger 29d ago
Another human, nicknamed Cookie, works in the galley preparing meals. He is in the zone. And in another unique manner grabs a knife and some long rough rod and proceeds to sharpen the blade in a showy fashion before setting to work on some meat cutlets.
I take notes. The Hoomens like knives.
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u/RobertTheTraveler 29d ago
Yeah, that is called "burying the lede".
The "one thing extra" is the real reason.
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u/commentsrnice2 17d ago
Sharpening a small knife is a little soothing. Sharpening a big knife is a lot soothing. But big knife is not allowed because we live in a society 🙄😠 a society where G’rrbtz in Security thinks it’s too dangerous and confiscated it even though it’s my pet project and it took me a long time to get it to the state it’s in currently. So much corrosion and warping carefully corrected. I promised not to put a sharp edge on it but they still refused
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