September 12, 2014 - 16:37
“Humans are the superior animals in this universe, we create a strong contact zone to other species in this world. This contact zone is what makes the world as it is now, balanced and harmonious. Sometimes, people will think of the idea of someone trying to break the zone. In Butler’s short story of “Blood child”[1], humans(Terrans) are dominated by worms( Tlic). The superior species and humans create a contact zone where they need humans to carry their young, and at the same time humans need their eggs to get longer lives. Even though it is a society that has a huge hierarchy, there is still a balance in it: worms give humans their eggs to eat, the humans incubate their offspring. In the story, after seeing what will happen to human once they carries worm babies, the main character Gan tries to break the balance. He first refuses to carry the worm eggs[2], and then he asks the worm mother T’Gatoi to show humans what it is like to get the babies out of their belly instead of hiding that from them[3]. These are all the signs that show Gan is trying to break the balance of the contact zone bying trying to reduce the gap between worms and humans…”
The class is finally over. The topic of today is too heavy, now Weilla just wants to go somewhere and relax.
“Oh my god! This little bird is so cute!” Weilla shouts out surprisingly. She is now at the train station waiting to go to the central city. A little sparrow just landed near her and it seemed like it is trying to find something to eat. Weilla loves birds, so she leans over and tries to say hello.
“Hello little bird! Come over here!”
She looks at it and smiles, knowing that the sparrow will not respond her because it cannot understand human language. However, at the next moment, in Weilla’s shocking voice, the little sparrow jumps over and lands on her shoe!
“Wow! You understand me!” Weilla is so excited for what the sparrow did, “You are trying to make friends with me? Haha!”
At the next moment, Weilla remembers what the teacher said in class.
“Is it trying to break the contact zone?”
Weilla is confused, does it know what it is doing? Can it actually think about the things that she is thinking about right now?
Weilla stares at this little creature on her shoe. It is staring her back. When their eyes contact, she suddenly realized something:
“There is no such a thing as contact zone between animal species! We are all the same. A contact zone is the contact zone between two objects with different levels of power. The thing is, however, the standards cannot be measured. You say humans can hunt? Indeed, but birds can fly, they are the conquerors of the sky. We live in different environments, you cannot just simply say who is better than who. On the other hand, we are all creatures, we share an instinct that we can be able to understand each other somehow. Maybe it is not through language, but through eye contacts, smell or touch. The reason why humans think there is a contact zone and can be broken is that we think that ourselves are superior than the others, and we think too much about everything. Sometimes to us, the other animals are “breaking the contact zone”, but to them they are just trying to get to know who you are through their senses. Birds’ brain are not that developed as humans’, they cannot distinguish which one is stronger and which one is not, so they treat us the same.”
“It is the same in the blood child story. On the surface, humans are suppressed by the worms, but the worms are not conquering humans after all. Even though from the readers’ perspectives, humans are miserable by breeding offspring for the worms, but the worms never actually forced them to do it. If the human says no, they will turn to someone else[4]. That is certainly not what the contact zone is talking about. It is not a contact zone; it is just contact.”
“Hey little thing! You think so too right?” after finally clearing her mind, Weilla feels so happy and tries again to connect with the sparrow. Maybe it is because of her over-dramatic movement, the sparrow got scared off and flies away. Weilla looks at its little body disappeared in the sky and says to herself:
“Next time, just be careful. Try not to scare it off again.