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“Hope is what makes you human. Animals have no hope, and thus are tranquil and happy living their lives eating, having sex, and dying. Humans have hope, and when this hope is broken, we weep. Other animals, such as elephants, mourn, but only humans weep. I would like to see humans evolve above animals, to transcend in well-being as well as intelligence.”
There was silence. No one could think of something to add to Gabriel’s flowing speech. Aidan racked his brain to come up with something.
“That’s a crock of shit,” he said. “You aren’t saying anything factual; you create these…notions of how things are. Given, you are very articulate, and some of the things you say have truth, but no, you don’t know everything.” He twisted his neck, breaking two piercing cracks into the air. “You see…you just make up these ideas. They’re completely made up! You want to know what really makes you human? You do? I’ll tell you. It’s the little cells and strains of DNA and shit that are buzzing around that little mass of organs and bones, supporting a neck and skull to fit your big little brain in, that’s what makes you human. Goddamn it, everyone knows that. Quit making stuff up and pushing it down our throats, like you’re some freaking child prodigy.”
“Aidan, listen, I understand what you’re saying.” His voice dripped down to a soft, warm tone to counter Aidan’s fiery, rising tenor. “You are correct in your scientific approach to the question of what makes us human. You’re right in that the universe is merely a string of causes and reactions, and that we are the byproduct of cells evolving over billions of years. And you’re right—no anthropologist, biologist, or any other scientist would say that what makes us human is that we have hope, unless they had specific evidence derived from trials, experiments, and the scientific method. You could say I just pulled it out of my ass.”
Logan and Phillip laughed. It was strange to hear Gabriel curse. Of the thousands of words that made up Gabriel’s vocabulary, it was rare for one of a select dozen of obscenities to show up in his speech.
Aidan laughed. “Yeah, you sure did pull it out of your ass!” He smiled and thought, for once, that it was clear to Gabriel that he won. Never before had Gabriel admitted defeat in a debate.
Gabriel smiled, unfazed. “Yes, yes, I did. However, that is only half of the story. As much as what you said was the truth, and how much what I said was pulled out of my ass, the opposite is also true.”
“Huh?” said Aidan. Gabriel’s mess of words confused him.
“I mean, ah….” Frustration squeezed his forehead, tightening his face as if each cheek and forehead were attached to hooks and string, and quickly yanked by his mental failure. “Forget it. You win. It’s an interesting phenomena, the feeling of As the years go on I grow more and more weary of debate. Everything can be equally proved and disproved. Nothing but our own existence can truly be confirmed. Who is to say what sound particles mean more to our ears than others? What is truth other than the illusion we create to dream us out of this cave?”
And with that, Gabriel forfeited, losing his first debate.
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The father made fetuses with flesh licking ladies / While you and your mother were asleep in the trailer park / Thunderous sparks from the dark of the stadiums / The music and medicine you needed for comforting / So make all your fat, fleshy fingers fingers to moving / And pluck all your silly strings and / Bend all your notes for me and / Soft silly music is meaningful, magical / The movements were beautiful / All in your ovaries / All of them milking with green fleshy flowers / While powerful pistons were sugary sweet machines, / Smelling of semen all under the garden / Was all you were needing when you still believed in me.
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