💾 Archived View for republic.circumlunar.space › users › joneworlds › 2021-01-10-signs.gmi captured on 2023-07-10 at 14:12:19. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
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Some years back as the Olds were beginning to occupy more and more of the quad-cities area, they put up these signs on highway 6 and other major routes in. Typical black-on-white road signs, with text: "WARNING / INVASIVE BEINGS / ENTER AT OWN RISK" And under WARNING there is this weird image of a head with one eye and no hair and an open mouth with fangs and a big pointy ears. It's drawn In the simple style of those hazard warning pictures on bottles of solvent and glue and whatnot, like the skull and crossbones in an octagon, or that skeleton hand in the bucket of acid, that sort of thing. The "harmful shit within" message.
And those highway signs always bothered me. I mean, we're still people, we're still in here, we're living in here. This is our home. We eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And the sign makes it seem like we're all mean and hopeless, dangerous and lost. Written off. And I don't just mean us homo-saps. Olds are people too, and we may not always get along, but they are just trying to live here, same as we are. And they aren't like in the signs, they aren't like scary monsters or something. Okay well, actually the ogres do eat children sometimes, and that is very monstrous. And for that we cull them like conservation officers on nuisance bears, and I guess that is pretty awful too. I wouldn't call goblins monsters exactly, but they do seem kind of hideous and amoral to me. And all in all I guess it is pretty dangerous around here. Okay, I guess it's complicated. But I still don't like those signs.