Country (4)
What are those sounds I can feel but can't hear? What kind of sounds are unspeakable yet desired by humankind? Mi clutched the small stone in her hand, the sharp pain reminding her that this is a real world.
Mi encountered Al and Joe playing on the riverbank. Joe would always make little things to amuse Al, and Al would always play along, his face lighting up with delighted smiles—it was just like the childish games between children. Sometimes Mi would watch Al and Joe with envy. Before they appeared, Mi hadn't felt lonely, but now Al and Joe's laughter constantly reminded her that she was alone. Loneliness is a contrast, and Mi had never realized this so profoundly before. Is loneliness also part of human nature?
Mi stared at the forest on the opposite bank of the river. The dark shadows moving within were unrecognizable as animals, yet they were so lively and adorable. Why did none of them ever cross the river and enter the Witch's Forest? They wouldn't even come to the Lost River to drink. Did the Witch's Forest really exist? Or was it also a forest of consciousness, like a witch separated from her human body, becoming a form of consciousness?
"What are you looking at?" Al and Joe sat down next to Mi.
“I’m wondering why those animals aren’t coming over,” Mi said, pointing to the moving dark shapes.
“Only witches can enter this place,” El sighed. “This is a world that only witches can see and enter.”
"Is this a country that belongs only to witches?"
“This is not a country. The emergence of a country is the expansion of divinity, in order to produce more people.” El shook his head. “There are no hierarchies, no oppression, no reproduction, no exploitation here. If there is any similarity between this place and a country, it is that there are some rules here. But these rules have never changed, because these rules are neither for domination and oppression nor for survival and development. Sometimes I feel that this is the graveyard of witches.”
“Isn’t it a nation?” Mi muttered softly. “The nation exists for a better life and more births, so there shouldn’t be population movement between nations?”
“Normally, that wouldn’t happen,” Al said. “In a country, as long as women continue to reproduce, divinity will still dominate. That country will not accept foreigners, and it will elevate the rights of its own citizens to a very high level.”
"Why?"
“This is where the distinction between inside and outside comes in,” El said. “When a nation expands its birth rate, its rulers treat all its citizens as their own children, which is a manifestation of the nation’s will. Patriotism is something every ruler does, so a nation’s resources should be prioritized for its own citizens. Just like a family, property only circulates and is distributed internally, not given to outsiders without reason. The nation is a large family, and the family is a small nation.”
“That is indeed the case,” Mi continued, “but in modern society, there is also a great deal of population movement between countries.”
"Population mobility is partly due to humanity's pursuit of different civilizations, but also to humanity's abandonment of its own civilization," Al said. "Population mobility is a choice, and it is also human nature."
“You said that humanity is a resistance to divinity and a correction to the state,” Mi asked, puzzled. “How could the state allow the movement of people?”
“Countries need population, and I think those countries that are willing to absorb people must be experiencing a decline in birth rates,” Al said. “Human nature is a resistance to divinity, and divinity is reproduction. Humans have learned to refuse to reproduce.”
"Refusing to have children?"
“Humans are a strange species,” El said with a smile. “You know that pleasure was created for procreation, right?” El looked at Mi and nodded before continuing, “Humans have gone to great lengths to retain pleasure and refuse to reproduce.”
"What method? You mean contraception?"
“Hmm, let me see,” El reached out and took Mi’s witch’s hairband again. She stared at the gray cloud of gas for a long time before saying, “On Earth, same-sex love has always existed. You know that same-sex couples can’t have children, right?” El looked at Mi and nodded again before saying, “Same-sex love can also bring pleasure. In order to have a population that can reproduce, the country once treated same-sex love as an illegal and criminal act.”
“Uh, but—” Mi thought for a moment and said, “Homosexuality is determined by genes.”
"No way, don't be fooled by this theory," Al laughed. "Look at how popular the love between beautiful young men was in ancient Greece. Did that mean everyone was gay? If anything is hereditary, it's bisexuality, because a person has both paternal and maternal genes. The reason heterosexuality is the mainstream ideology is also for the sake of reproduction and population."
"ah?"
“Let me see,” El said, looking at Mi’s witch’s headband. “Homosexuality also exists in the East. Don’t tell me that all those who are pursued by the same sex are homosexuals. Heterosexuality is the foundation of the family. Go to the animal kingdom and see. There are more homosexuals among animals, but they still have estrus cycles.”
“Let’s get back to the country.” Mi was speechless. This El often spoke without thinking. Whatever came out of her mouth—Mi couldn’t think of a suitable word to describe it. She really didn’t know how she and old-fashioned Joe lived together.
“The nation needs people,” El said, handing Mi’s witch’s headband back to her. “The nation agrees to this movement because of its population.”
"Isn't reproduction a divine instinct inherent in humanity?" Mi thought for a moment and then asked, "Since humanity has triumphed over divinity, why is population still needed?"
“As the power of civilization permeates, the more civilized a person becomes, the lower their desire to reproduce, and population becomes a problem,” Al said with a smile. “Now, humanity has mastered the method of retaining pleasure without procreation. You see, male-female love still exists, contraceptive drugs and devices are readily available, the concept of chastity is no longer a constraint on women, and sexual freedom is also freedom.”
“You mean birth control, right? Just want pleasure but not children,” Mi thought for a moment. “But the population can’t expand indefinitely. Children are born and need to eat and wear clothes.”
“Look, you’re bound by human society again,” Al said with a laugh. “Countries do compete for social resources in order to support a larger population. I think modern society has provided a lot of help for having children, and women don’t need to raise infants alone like female animals.”
“Yes, with so much help, why are women still unwilling to have children?” Mi didn’t understand either, since a hen could lay eggs indefinitely if it were kept in a pen.
“That’s human nature. Human nature makes choices,” Al said with a smile. “Humans describe motherhood as sacrifice, but sacrifice is not divinity. God has no spirit of sacrifice. Although human nature has always resisted divinity, divinity has always existed and has its own strength. No one can abandon their genes.”
"Human nature makes choices. If human nature always prevails, only enjoying pleasure and refusing to reproduce, will the country cease to exist in the long run?"
"If civilization were developed enough, humanity would destroy itself."
"Wouldn't that mean there would be no gods left?"
"God has reincarnated countless times, and perhaps the next cycle will begin."
Is this fatalism? People always know how to save themselves.
“That’s empiricism,” El laughed. “So the fate of witches is to observe and to feel.”
“Observe what? Feel what?” Mi looked at El with amusement. “You like, uh, pleasure so much,” Mi stumbled. “Even a witch is attracted to divinity, let alone a human. Humans will not abandon divinity.”
“Hmm, what you said makes a lot of sense,” El laughed as well. “I’ve said before that human nature allows for choices. The goddess of woman created pleasure for procreation, and the choice for humans is to retain pleasure and forgo procreation—that’s freedom. You should know that many births don’t involve pleasure, right?”
"ah?"
“What do you mean, ‘Oh’? I found you and Joe,” Al turned to look at Joe, who buried his face in Al’s back. “Sexual shame is also one of the methods of human domination. It’s a pretext that men came up with to monopolize women. Look at how quickly animals change mates. In a sense, sexual shame is human nature, and sexual freedom is divine nature.”
"Is human nature something that people create to imprison themselves?"
“Human nature is indeed self-correcting,” Al said, sitting down. “Human nature is complex, while divinity is a simple replication, or you could even crudely understand it as animality. Human nature is accidental; in theory, the same human nature should be produced in the same environment, but in reality, human nature is different for each individual.”
Why is this happening?
“I don’t know,” Al shook his head. “I only see that after humans had language, they learned to communicate. Communication influences each other, and no one knows how this influence will develop. Language, you know, is a unique human ability. With language, we can communicate. Communication expands the human way of thinking and its scope. Language is like a magic spell that humans created for themselves.”
“We have a legend that says a long, long time ago, humans spoke the same language. They worked together to build a tower to reach the gods. To prevent humans from coming to their land, the gods made them speak different languages, making communication impossible, and thus the tower could no longer be built.” Mi suddenly stopped and asked, “Don’t you find that strange?”
"What's up?"
“We come from different places, not to mention the same planet, we’re not even from the same era, so how can we speak the same language?” Mi scratched her head. She had always felt that this forest was out of place, and now she finally found out what was out of place.
“Actually, we didn’t talk. There is no sound, no language, and no time in the Witch Forest; it’s a frozen world.” El raised her head and smiled at Mi. “I know your doubts. You’ve mastered one of the witches’ abilities: insight. To be precise, you’ve sensed my thoughts.”
"You mean, everything here is just my imagination?" Mi turned to look at El, feeling like she was going crazy.
“Of course not,” El quickly said. “I told you, witches are conduits; all thoughts pass through these conduits and are captured by you. Witches don’t need language with each other because they are sentient beings and are naturally able to capture each other’s thoughts.”
"Then how do we determine if it's true or false?" Mi paused for a moment before saying, "You know, even human consciousness can lie."
"Then let's lie, what's the big deal?"
"Uh," Mi was speechless for a moment, and after a long while she said, "If all of this is you lying to me..."
“If I’ve been lying to you all along, then I haven’t been lying to you,” Al said with a smile. “There’s truth and falsehood, and the false part is what we call deception. If we keep maintaining the falsehood, then the falsehood is also the truth.”
“You make a good point.” Mi stood up. She needed to be alone and couldn’t let El influence her any longer. But she couldn’t help but ponder: what exactly is humanity? Is a person truly driven by humanity or by some so-called divine desire for procreation?
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