Life in a Thousand Worlds

by W. S. Harris

It is amusing to see a Scumite busily engaged in delivering a speech to a few of his fellow creatures. It would remind you of a person playing a fife or violin without producing any sound.

The children of Scum learn this rod language just the same as our children at first learn to speak our language by observation and practice.

The face of a Scumite does not resemble a human face of our planet. The mouth and jaws are at right angles to ours and this arrangement seems to be just as convenient to these Scumites as the formation of our mouth is to us. The nose lies above the mouth, but is relatively much higher, its point coming between the two eyes which are situated more toward the sides of the head.

The startling fact about this world is that at one time in its past history fair intelligence reigned on a few parts of the planet. These intelligent sections were working their way upward on the measureless incline of progress and had won some distinctions in their sciences, as well as their religious devotions. These bright spots on the surface of this large orb were surrounded with large black patches of war-like humanity and, between these two extremes, a warfare of subjection or extermination raged without any hope or peace.

The educated Scumites had a few advantages in methods of war, but with all this they were not able to withstand the vast hordes that swept down upon them. Brute force won the battle and the accumulated light of four thousand years flickered until it was no more.

It was a fatal day for Scum when its mad inhabitants blew out the last of the candles that had promised to give them light.

When this sad and blighting victory was accomplished, these uncivilized tribes rejoiced more hilariously than at one time our Indians rejoiced when celebrating their victories in the wild scalp dances.

Thus the dark shadows fell on this huge world. The captured educated classes made a heroic effort to continue their cultured manners and religious life, but the prejudice against them and their ways was so great that they were compelled to live in the lower strata or suffer the pain of death. In process of time, the wild woods flourished where once the temples of science and pure religion reared their imposing pillars.

What can we expect of such a race of people who have drifted from the light of civilization for so long a period? As I looked at their customs and their ways, I was reminded of a garden that has run wild. Here and there I could see traces of the once thrifty life now almost choked out by the overpowering crop of weeds.

Gradually the people became worse and worse. Sin played havoc and built carnal fires around which these children of men gathered. Sensuality became the ruling passion and, in less than five hundred years of our time, the last family observance had died away and these creatures wallowed in the quagmire of fleshly lusts, compared with which the brute life of our world is highly respectable. "Free Love" was rampant and human offspring was cared for by mothers, or at least by such as were willing to assume the task. No one was supposed to know who was his father.