I don’t undertand how three dimensional beings can stand the functionally two dimensional existence land enforces upon them. I confess that I often sleep during their terran sports which are often so . . . flattened from my point of view.
Will the dribbler go left . . . or right? Only two options. Not that interesting from where I am swimming. I value being able to go up and down with ease and the stratagems of defending a goal that can be attacked from left or right or above or below or straight on. This is what keeps the games fascinating for me.
And so it was with some nervousness that I accepted the offer to spend a day in mechanical legs. I would be transported to Martian homeworld and given the chance to play multiple terran games – Tad-Dadi, Venus Vaulting, Crater Defence and Baseball.
Some of my fellow Aquahielsas thought that by accepting the offer I was giving into a narrative that our fins were somehow limiting and that I should not accept until more of the terran species agreed to spend some more time in our oceans.
Nonetheless. . . someone has to take the first . . . step, right?
And so I did.
Game after game I was soundly beaten. Even with the mechanical supports, I found the gravity of a waterless habitation draining and I felt so helpless and constricted. To put it in terms you might understand, imagine a boxer used to a grand arena suddenly having to fight in a phone booth. I am used to having access to the up and the down – having only the forward, the back, and the left and the right is so constricting, so maddeningly limiting.
I was able, with much time, to partially crack the strategy, and I learned how to make the most of the reduced dimensions a land existence offers.
Strange how we find the land limiting and they find the sea limiting. I am glad though that now occasionally I can have legs, I just wonder if they will have the humility to occasionally have gills.
Gargi (Top left of photo) is a sports analyst for the Martian Muckraker on the planet Aquahielsas
Please see this other project of mine on the Bible, philosophy and religion.
The Martian Muckraker 