The Human Experience - Prologue

Elation, n. a pathological euphoria. The state of being elated. A feeling of great happiness and exhilaration. It was the closest word I could find in this big red book that matched the current state of my borrowed heart. What am I elated for? Aside from the fact that our planet has revolved around its star for 11 years, I finally got my wish granted. It took some convincing, a protest even but I’m now here, standing on dust. This is what I wanted. To know what it is like to be human.

Ever since my father came back with this funny looking disk with a hole in the middle, I have always been curious what it is that those creatures from this pale blue dot are capable of doing. It only took a second of deciphering the code on the disk for it to reveal what it was about. Behold, I saw the first image of man. His name was Noah. Calhoun. I don’t understand why he had two names. But other humans mostly called him by the name, Noah. My guess is that all humans have two names because of their great number. My kind, there are only eight of us. Myself. My father. His father. His father’s father and so on. And I only had one name, Cayo. My father, and all the fathers before him, have travelled faraway galaxies and their stories have been my every day existence. Nothing captured my attention like that one blue planet and its inhabitants. I have seen how they interact through that disk. It brought out emotions from me I never knew I had. That is when I knew what I wanted to be. A human capable of changing his appearance overtime. Growth, as they call it. It must be an elating experience to go through. And this is where I chose to travel.

My father said it was not the wisest choice. But my persistence won him over. He warned me that it may not be like how I thought it would be. But is it not how the universe has been. For the longest time, we thought we were alone. It took a few circles around our star to find out that something else is out there. I would like to believe my father and heed his warning. But I have played the disk over and over and found the Great Noah and his commitment to his fellow kind. That is what I understood from viewing human interaction from that artifact they recovered. That humans are capable of caring deeply for one another. And I wanted to experience that.

It is true that I get scared at times. Even the big red book contained words of man that is beyond my comprehension. I do not understand why humans have the words such as murder or death. I think they are very sad concepts and I do not wish to see it happen before me. It is difficult to grasp how one human can take the life of another. What does he gain out of it? Will his life double in years? Maybe that is why one human may kill another. Maybe they are scared of death. And I think I understand why because even I do not know what happens after that. Considering my kind has never experienced it, ever. By coming here and becoming human, I have risked the gift of my kind to mortality. Nevertheless, I still feel elated. There is something about uncertainty that excited me. Excited. I like that word. Maybe I should use it more often. Starting now.

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