Rock Animals

A conversation between the Self and the first human to study their tapping language...though he isn't very good at it yet.

Greetings, Newmaker.

Greetings, Self. More question.

Ask. We welcome questions.

What is your inside and outside?

You're asking how our parts are constructed? Inside, they have twice the number of limbs that yours do. Their mouth has the beak that yours lack. Outside, they are protected by rock animals.

Outside is animals. Do not understand.

Many small animals. Each one lives inside a hard shell, and they link together similarly to the way our parts link, covering the entire outside of a part.

Request touch your outside.

Certainly, and please share your impression. It will be interesting to compare our sensation experiences.

Small amount rough.

That's the pattern that the shells make. You can't feel the animals themselves because these parts of ours are outside the atmosphere. They have retreated into the shells for their safety.

Inside atmosphere?

What are they like inside the atmosphere, is this the question? Then they reach their tendrils out of their shells.

What difference touch?

Go and touch the part of the swarm that is within the atmosphere--but carefully, so you don't hurt the animals. They're tiny, but we need them.

Small amount soft.

Those tendrils snatch passing particles of food, the same kind that our wall parts eat. Swarm parts eat different food, small animals they have to chase, but still must spend time drifting through places where the rock animals can eat. We need to keep them alive, although it is true that they are of some use to us after they die.

What use?

The animals attach to a material that covers our skin, and when they die pieces of this material break off into large pieces of hard and brittle shells. These pieces, knocked together, are what makes the sounds we speak with. But we still prefer them alive, because until more animals grow into the open space, a part that has shed some dead animals is not completely protected.

What protection?

We dislike the feel of the atmosphere. The shells of these animals keep it from touching us.

Do not understand.

That's all right. The Singer never understood it either.

Time frame: recent