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Prime
by Doug Hawley

5

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Julie Collins – I’m very pleased to be able to have another interview with Dook, a representative of our closest relatives, what we call the yetis and what they call the Angwin.

We have talked about some Angwin basics and your successful attempt to create homeland. Today I’d like to talk about your daily life. We’ve already learned about your sustainable life, and your creative romantic life. Would you tell us what a normal day is like for you folk?

Dook – Glad to. We always try to get a good night’s sleep and then work on our homes and communal structures and harvest our food. None of those activities take very long, so we have plenty of time for entertaining ourselves.

Julie Collins – I’m sure that our in house audience and those listening and viewing at home would like the details filled in.

Dook – Let me start on what you might call our infrastructure. Most of us live under the snow and we have tunnels connecting our homes. Depending on the weather, we may have to create troughs and pits for water runoff or repair damaged tunnels. At least we never want for building materials – snow and ice. Chuckles.

Julie Collins – If I may break in here, are all homes connected to all other homes?

Dook – Oh, no the number of connecting tunnels would be astronomical. Want me to do some illustrative mathematics for you?

Julie Collins – Oh, please no! But I do wonder how many houses you have and how many live in a house?

Dook – I don’t know the answer to the first question and if I did, I would not want the answer known. As indicated in an earlier interview, we do have enemies, and we would like to keep some secrets. As to your second question, anywhere from one to fifty may live in a single home.

Julie Collins – Fifty? Are extended families common amongst Angwin?

Dook – Our social structures are more varied than among humans. In some cases there may be several generations in one house. In another, it may resemble a sorority or a fraternity. Also, polyamory is widely practiced with various mixtures of genders. Less sensational is the most common arrangement, mother, father and 2.5 children. The 2.5 is a joke unless it isn’t funny.

Julie Collins – Is homosexuality common?

Dook – About the same as with humans, also roughly the same percent as left handers.

Julie – How about you personally?

Dook – I’d like to keep my private life private out of consideration of my family.

Julie Collins – You mentioned in an earlier interview that you are relatively impervious to the cold. Are your homes warm enough naturally, or are they heated somehow?

Dook – We don’t need anything beyond the heat generated by living in close quarters, but we like hot baths and we get into the sunshine when available.

Julie Collins – How do you heat water?

Dook – We have become very good with solar energy. Our retrogrades, have been very helpful.

Julie Collins – Remind us about the retrogrades.

Dook – We produce some mutant children occasionally who look like humans, but are as smart as we are.

Julie Collins – You mentioned time for entertainment.

Dook – We have games and quizzes. Some of the Angwin are excellent sculptors. We use both stone and snow. The snow is used as an impermanent medium, something like the sand in Japanese gardens.

Over the years, the retrogrades have furnished us with up to date technology for writing and film. As a result, we have quite a library of indigenous literature and film, plus some of the best human product.



Julie Collins – You mentioned earlier that you have a stable population because your women can time their births. How is that done?

Dook – I believe that I mentioned before that we have developed various kinds of fungi. One increases a woman’s fertility and another one shuts it down.

If I may interject an interesting sidelight, a part of what we offered to the rest of the world in return for our homeland was information about our discoveries. The birth preventing fungi is very popular among women in countries controlled by patriarchal societies and fundamentalist religions. The male rulers feel that power comes from an out of control population of the poor and uneducated, but the women have found access to contraband fungi and are taking control of their births. I’m sure that those brave women can improve the fortunes of their countries.

Julie Collins – That is indeed good news. My final question is related to your last answer. You mentioned your fungi diet. What else do you eat?

Dook – I mentioned our solar power earlier. We also grow a variety of vegetables with hydroponics. I brought some peppers with me this time. Take this basket.

Julie Collins – Dook, thanks for taking the time again to talk with me. Any final thoughts?

Dook – Thanks for all of the people and governments that have supported us. We feel that humans and Angwin can have a beneficial relationship in the coming years.

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