SF Short Story Preview: "Mergs -- Or Why Godot Can't Come" [Originally Posted March 2017]

As a reader, I have very broad and eclectic tastes and read a lot of both non fiction and fiction. Over the past week, I finished a book on quantum mechanics, a shorter one on seven physics lessons, and am now reading (listening to on my commute, actually) a book on the singularity--the quickly approaching time when machine intelligence will not only equal but far exceed human intelligence. Maybe I'll tackle a good sword and sorcery book next, or perhaps a back title from Dean Koontz,  Stephen King, Larry Niven or Arthur C. Clarke that I have not yet read. When I read fiction, which is often, I like to be entertained of course, but beyond a good narrative I like novels and short stories that make me think. When I write fiction, which is not as often as I'd like due to time constraints, I often like to present the world from a different point of view--a world in which things are not always as they seem, in which our assumptions may be proven tragically wrong. We humans are a complicated lot. The profane and the divine is in each of us, though not always in equal parts. Our hearts seek to soar with the angels while our feet keep us anchored to the earth. Sometimes it is good to be reminded that even the weakest and most humble among us may be a god in his or her own right and a universe onto himself. This particular short story which like Eternal Quest is among my earliest, is in its own strange way intended as a reminder of this fact.

Mergs (Or, Why Godot Can’t Come)

(C) 1980, 2011, 2017 Victor D. Lopez -- All Rights Reserved

Something was definitely wrong with the world. The Provider appeared to have abandoned his children, and the cold advanced unchecked from the great beyond, even as the land lost its life-giving warmth. And, although every single being was aware of the incipient disaster, none could understand the reason for the inexplicable climate change, let alone think of a way to stave off the certain destruction of their kind.

Mergs, the dominant beings in a world of almost limitless bounty, are highly resilient, sentient beings who had evolved in an environment that offers no natural impediment to their growth and development. With no natural enemies to protect against and no need to marshal limited resources, Mergs, who are not by nature particularly gregarious, never developed a social structure or any concept of property; all the necessities of life are provided by the land in inexhaustible quantities. Each simply takes from the land in accordance with its needs or appetites without the slightest need for toil, industry or planning. Food can be found all around in limitless quantities and variety. All that is required to procure a meal is to bend down and scoop up tasty, highly nourishing morsels of delectable substances in endless varieties and inexhaustible quantities. Thirst quenching, delicious liquids quite nourishing in their own right are available in pools, lakes and rivers of various sizes scattered throughout the land. As with the solid food, the land offers up liquid nourishment in endless variety, some yielding intoxicating effects not unlike that of alcohol and hallucinogenic drugs in the human system. These intoxicating springs are particularly popular with Mergs who are not by nature temperate creatures.

Although the Mergs’ existence might seem a utopian one, there is, alas, a price exacted for such a life of perpetual ease and unending bounty. Endless leisure and an existence devoid of challenge had made the Mergs into a rather intellectually dull race. Intelligence is not prized in a land that so freely yields up its bounty, where there is no game to hunt or trap, no enemy to guard or plot against, and no need for shelter to protect one’s property or oneself from the elements, or the aggression and greed of others. Thus, while Mergs had the same genetically coded survival instinct as all other living organisms, the particular circumstances of their rather hospitable world did not necessitate that it give birth to science, mathematics, or the cultivation of knowledge that at its most fundamental core is born of the survival instinct. For Mergs, survival merely requires eating, sleeping and reproducing to take place. And, since Mergs reproduce asexually, that function is best served by eating as much as possible, thus obtaining the necessary mass and energy required by the reproductive function. Not surprisingly, then, Mergs spend most of their waking hours eating, or looking for new sources of food in order to find pleasure in what would otherwise be the tedium of their primary occupation.

Although the Mergs have no religion as such, they share a universal belief in the Provider, their creator who is the source of life and, in accordance with their belief system, constantly replenishes their supply of food and keeps the land warm for their benefit. Perhaps such a belief system developed due to the destructive floods and killing fumes that are inexplicably visited at least once on the land during the typical Merg’s life cycle. In the Mergs’ belief system, the Provider doles out such catastrophes as punishment for unknown transgressions of which they must surely be guilty, though they be beyond their comprehension. But, because such punishments are uncommon, they represent more an apocalyptic myth than a reality to be feared by the average Merg. 

When such disasters occur, the remarkable resilience of these creatures allows them to spring back undaunted to soon forget they had taken place. And if the Provider earned their respect  through the awesome power he wields, he also earns their unwavering devotion through his constant replenishment of their food supplies which miraculously appeared daily throughout the land, rumored to emanate mostly in a far-off region of the world, where they are said to gush forth in incalculable quantities, conjured forth by the benevolent Provider, erupting from the bowels of the land  and spread by Him to the four corners of the land through powers beyond their ken.

Although most Mergs spend their whole life in a relatively small area, some travel does occur in one of two ways: some Mergs literally eat their way from one place to another in search of different sources of food, and each recurring flood deposited a few hardy survivors in far-off lands. Additionally, some of the more adventurous Mergs--those not yet of breeding age who for that reason need not spend most of their time eating--sometimes venture to climb “the growing regions,” incomprehensively vast, dark mountains that rise upward slowly and inexorably as lava-fed islands do on Earth’s oceans, reaching for the heavens, stretching out endlessly into the Great Beyond. Unlike the beneficent land, these regions are largely bereft of food and contain no pools of liquid from which to drink.  Some Mergs believe that these massive desert regions are a link to the Great Beyond through which a brave Merg with a pure heart might travel, prove its worth and earn the right to meet the Provider. Few were brave or foolish enough to attempt the quest, and of those who did, fewer still returned to tell of it. The fortunate few who made it back alive uniformly reported that the warmth of the land did not reach into the higher regions, but clung close to the ground. Despite such discouraging reports, a few Mergs still ventured forth from time to time, convinced that none who had tried the ascent before them had been worthy, and taking heart in the fact that so many had not returned, believing these to be enjoying the unimaginable Epicurean delights awaiting in the Provider’s domain.

But then the cold began to spread over the land, bringing with it more death and devastation than had ever been visited by floods or noxious clouds. Many Mergs blamed the adventuresome youths for having angered the Provider by trying to venture into his realm, thus visiting upon them this new, harsher punishment. 

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