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Rodent fiction: a little time has passed.
Dec. 2nd, 2007 12:28 amKeek'k was attending the opera that evening. Once his report had been passed around, it hadn't taken many meetings before his chief had agreed that a trip to Titan that involved hibernation, got the Hamsters in the program, and included living in a small dome on Titan for 6 months or so, would be an excellent lead-in to an interstellar trip - as soon as the Titan mission arrived there and the awakened crew members verified that hibernation had worked, then actual construction would begin on the interstellar craft. Right now, there were teams of Hamsters in town, negotiating on what sort of facilities they'd need to have built there on North Twin Continent in order to expand their hibernation program to other Families and develop units that would work on spacecraft. Stagings of all three of Kipit and Ray's operas were part of the entertainment for the visitors - and part of the unofficial but widespread attitude that this was the start of the biggest program yet, and deserved some ceremony and pomp. The operas were being performed for a month, 4 performances each spread out through the month, at the largest theater in National City [author's note: if you want to think of this as the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, that would work].
Keek'k enjoyed opera in small doses, but the plots were so silly! Of course, that was at least in part because most of them were written by Guinea Pigs, so that many of the stories had to do with losing a lifelong mate, something a Squirrel couldn't really take seriously. He remembered one opera he had seen that had had an even sillier plot than most - a young Guinea Pig female becomes pregnant before she finishes school, won't reveal who the father is, and drops out of school. Her parents, instead of doing the normal thing and raising the kits as theirs while ruthlessly finding a male to marry their daughter soonest, instead hide the new kits and gave them to another family, and send the daughter far away, to live on the other side of the continent with a family of Squirrels. The daughter is ashamed at being sent away, and then, in her emotionally fragile state, becomes even more ashamed that she does not have a tail like the Squirrels. She commits suicide, loudly and at length.
Well, Ray's plot for this opera, "Carrier," was certainly not that silly. A young Guinea Pig, raised in a traditional farming family, is dissatisfied, and leaves home to become a carrier. He travels all over the world, delivering messages, parcels, and freight. The plot includes a lot of comedy, as when, early in his career, the protagonist Kirli delivers a letter to a Hamster. The Hamster stuffs the letter in a cheek pouch, then forgets where he has put it. A long duet ensues, where Kirli starts to tell the Hamster, "It's in your - " but the Hamster interrupts and runs to check the closet. "No, it's not in your closet, it's in your - " and the Hamster interrupts and lifts up the rug. "No, it's not under the rug, it's in your - " and so on. However, in all his travels, Kirli never finds a female Guinea Pig he feels he could settle down with - until he returns to his hometown for a visit, falls in love with the girl next door, and decides that he can live there forever, opening a carrier company that he will run from a home office there, as long as she is by his side. The opera ends with most of the cast singing of the joys of home and family - loudly and at length, needless to say. The implicit moral for would-be space travelers is not so obvious as to be boring, the plot is not so silly that most Families would find it completely unbelievable, and the travelling in the plot allows for members of almost every Family to be in the cast. In fact, Keek'k's chief's daughter is a professional performer, and has a part in the production.
Keek'k enjoyed opera in small doses, but the plots were so silly! Of course, that was at least in part because most of them were written by Guinea Pigs, so that many of the stories had to do with losing a lifelong mate, something a Squirrel couldn't really take seriously. He remembered one opera he had seen that had had an even sillier plot than most - a young Guinea Pig female becomes pregnant before she finishes school, won't reveal who the father is, and drops out of school. Her parents, instead of doing the normal thing and raising the kits as theirs while ruthlessly finding a male to marry their daughter soonest, instead hide the new kits and gave them to another family, and send the daughter far away, to live on the other side of the continent with a family of Squirrels. The daughter is ashamed at being sent away, and then, in her emotionally fragile state, becomes even more ashamed that she does not have a tail like the Squirrels. She commits suicide, loudly and at length.
Well, Ray's plot for this opera, "Carrier," was certainly not that silly. A young Guinea Pig, raised in a traditional farming family, is dissatisfied, and leaves home to become a carrier. He travels all over the world, delivering messages, parcels, and freight. The plot includes a lot of comedy, as when, early in his career, the protagonist Kirli delivers a letter to a Hamster. The Hamster stuffs the letter in a cheek pouch, then forgets where he has put it. A long duet ensues, where Kirli starts to tell the Hamster, "It's in your - " but the Hamster interrupts and runs to check the closet. "No, it's not in your closet, it's in your - " and the Hamster interrupts and lifts up the rug. "No, it's not under the rug, it's in your - " and so on. However, in all his travels, Kirli never finds a female Guinea Pig he feels he could settle down with - until he returns to his hometown for a visit, falls in love with the girl next door, and decides that he can live there forever, opening a carrier company that he will run from a home office there, as long as she is by his side. The opera ends with most of the cast singing of the joys of home and family - loudly and at length, needless to say. The implicit moral for would-be space travelers is not so obvious as to be boring, the plot is not so silly that most Families would find it completely unbelievable, and the travelling in the plot allows for members of almost every Family to be in the cast. In fact, Keek'k's chief's daughter is a professional performer, and has a part in the production.
