Daily life is pretty dreary for eleven year old Reggie. She's already mastered the art of dumpster diving for scraps of food and being her own parent. Her mother, dangerously close to a full break with sanity, is of little help. Reggie has invented a dream world where she and her best friend, Tough Girl, battle aliens for glory. Life is manageable until new neighbors move in and Reggie's dream world begins to unravel.
X
XENOPHOBIAReggie's fantasy universe has humans as the least liked, least respected species. They've almost been annihilated several times in the history of the universe but they always bounce back. Alien life forms joke that it's because "humans breed like cockroaches." The humans are segregated from aliens. They're allowed to interact but are forced to live in ghettos, cannot hold office, and most live well below the poverty line.
This is Xenophobia seen from a different perspective. Humans are the ones being discriminated against. No, Reggie didn't go as far as to make us pets, but I'd be surprised if she hadn't invented a world or two where that was true.
ALSO - I have lost my Blog List temporarily. Trying to fix it desperately and add all the blogs I follow. UGH. Difficult.
Bummer-good luck.
ReplyDeleteKaren
I think you had fun with that twist on seeing humans as the "cockroaches".
ReplyDeleteAnd I think your list will come back. It's usually just a Blogger glitch. I hope. If not, good luck.
Wow, what a fascinating concept that humans as a whole are the ones discriminated against. I'd imagine that the petty things like ethnic background and skin color wouldn't divide humans as much in that world, because all humans would need to stand together against the common enemy.
ReplyDeleteClarification: I mean to say that it's petty when people discriminate against those things -- not that our backgrounds are petty. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how the subject of discrimination against humans is treated in fiction, since all of the discrimination against people today is done by other individuals.
ReplyDeleteThe Eagle's Aerial Perspective
I love your version of Xenophobia from the other perspective. Reggie has a creative imagination.
ReplyDeleteI love this idea of making humans the ones who are discriminated against. In many ways, it's quite fitting. I always think of how when we hear of some horrible act of violence we say the criminal is an animal but really that's an insult to animals since they are not deliberately cruel whereas human beings are.
ReplyDelete