operose
adjective
-
industrious, as a person.
-
done with or involving much labor.
********************************
Dan and his roommate, Kevin, were barely watching TV. It was some documentary about Egypt that neither of them really cared about. But it was background noise that filled the silence that would otherwise dominate the room. Dan considered turning it off and putting on some music instead, but they could never agree on what music to listen to. It was why they used the TV instead.
Dan was more engrossed in his phone, browsing through the offerings of e-books. He had no idea what Kevin was paying more attention to. Apparently, he was looking at the documentary more than Dan was.
“Man, this is all bullcrap.” Kevin said.
“Hm? What is?”
“They’re talking about the pyramids, but they’re not even mentioning the aliens.”
Dan let out a quiet groan. Under normal circumstances, Kevin was a decent person. A bit dim, but not too bad. But get him started on any conspiracy? Dan was tempted to just leave. Move to his bedroom and shut the door, leaving Kevin to stew in his conspiracy theorist rabbit holes. But he knew that Kevin would just follow him while explaining why “they” were lying.
“Don’t.” Dan said. “I don’t want to hear about it.”
“Why not? Can’t handle the truth?”
“No, because your truth is dumb and wrong.”
“You can only say that because you’re so indoctrinated by the system that you can’t see the truth.”
“If I go away, will you stop talking to me?”
“No way. You need to have your eyes open man. It’s the only way the world will change.”
“Right.” Dan said with a heavy sigh. “So let me guess. You think the pyramids were built by aliens.”
“I don’t think, I know. It’s the only thing that makes sense. I mean, how else did the ancient Egyptians move such heavy rocks without power tools? And how did they make such precise cuts without modern measuring tech? They couldn’t, that’s how.”
“Uh-huh. Right. Sure. You keep on thinking that.”
“Oh like you have better explanations.”
“Better explanations for something that we know happened, rather than make excuses with something that has no evidence? Yes. Yes I do.”
“Okay then, smart guy. What are they?”
“Let’s start with how they cut the blocks. They used tools. Bronze chisels and the like. And before you say that hand tools wouldn’t be precise enough, no. You’re wrong. We have videos shot today of people using similar tools to cut stone with the exact precision that you’re claiming could only be done by what, alien lasers or something. Hell, I bet you and I could learn to do it with enough time, practice and motivation. And for moving the blocks? It’s called manpower. The Egyptians had a lot of that at their disposal. And no, they didn’t drag the big rocks across sand. They used logs or some other kind of rolling things. You know, like wheels. That’s also been demonstrated to be doable. So basically, skill and manpower. Things we know exist, and they had. Aliens? No, those have never been shown to exist on Earth. And don’t even try to point to their pantheon. Using mythology for anything is just idiotic.”
Kevin opened and closed his mouth a few times. “That…that’s just what you’ve been told.”
“Come on. Which makes more sense: That aliens came down the Earth, made a few stone buildings, and left, or that people built big buildings with tech that we know they had.”
Kevin did not say anything. Dan could guess that he was thinking hard about ways to counter Dan’s words.
“You can only say that because your mind hasn’t been opened to the possibilities!” Kevin said loudly.
Before Dan could say anything else, Kevin stood and stormed off to his bedroom. Probably to chat with other conspiracy nuts and see how he should respond to Dan’s points. Dan rolled his eyes. Having a conspiracy theorist as a roommate was a lot of things, but boring was certainly not one of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment