The Monolith
Contents
About
I've always love the story The Egg by Andy Weir, and one day, randomly I wondered if I could write something as brilliant. The answer is no, but that didn't stop me from trying.
The Monolith
The Monolith
By: Andrew Noske
Not so long ago, not so far away, there was a world of humble and relatively peaceful beings. Their lives were simple, but filled with purpose until the day an unimaginably giant monolith appeared overnight in the middle of their land. It was twenty times taller than their highest mountain, reaching to the heavens, shimmering with light and an unworldly material they'd never seen before.“How is this possible?” One of them exclaimed. He banged together two bones to get attention. “None of us could have created this. There must be an explanation, and I need to know the origins of this monolith. I feel very uncomfortable with not knowing”, he said desperately.
Unfortunately, at that moment, someone stepped forward with an explanation. “This precious monolith was surely created from minerals of the earth, shaped by huge primitive animals like giant sand-eating worms, and it arose from the ground.”
Another man lunged forward and said, “The notion of giant worms is ridiculous. Clearly, this intricate monolith can only have been forged by a huge being with many dexterous arms.”
Another know-it-all stepped forward. “The idea of multiple-armed beings is preposterous; no one will ever follow that belief!” he scoffed. “Obviously, this wonderful monolith is the work of powerful male and female beings who look like us, who love drinking and live in a giant hall”.
An older man stepped forward and said, “The idea of female gods is laughable; I have decided there is only one God, a male who looks like me, and this man is all-knowing. He placed the monolith here to test our faith and demand our hard work, else he will flood our lands and drown everyone, as I believe he has done before.”
Another man stepped forward, “Oh no, you and I are going to have problems John. There is indeed only one god, but he talks only to me, he demands we rest on the seventh day, and if we eat the wrong food, he will condemn us with fire, not water.”
---
Suddenly, there was division in the land. Everyone chose sides, became fanatical, and hundreds of thousands of beings were slain in the name of religious beliefs. Women and children were murdered. Over the next hundred generations, religions fractured further and further, often with subtle variation in belief, but growing intolerance of each other.
Fed up with the hatred, three new groups emerged who stood for non-violence and a very different system of belief. The first were the atheists, who said: “We believe rigidly in science. We don't know the origin of this monolith, but we know there is a logical explanation, and we know, there is no such thing as a god”.
The second group were the spiritualants. The consensus was: “It's all energy, man. The monolith is energy and we are all connected by an invisible force... meaning that we are all god”.
The third group, called the agnosticants believed something else entirely. They believed in nothing. When asked about their beliefs, they would say: “Honestly, we don’t know the origin of this monolith, and that’s okay. We don’t need to know everything. Maybe it’s explained by science, maybe there is one or more recognizable gods that created the monolith, or maybe something we have never considered. Unless we know 100%, it would feel arrogant to believe we alone are right.”
Funnily enough, everyone hated the agnostic ants the most. Even the atheist would say: “dude, pick a side”. The others joined in with, “Yes, as much as we hate each other, at least we all have righteousness in common - why do you have to be special?”.
The agnostics, however, stayed strong in their belief of non-belief and decided that, to help end the hatred and suffering caused by religion, they would try to seek the answer to life’s ultimate question. The origins of the monolith. Without the limiting beliefs of other groups, they are able to evolve. To everyone’s shock, they grew wings and took off to the heavens in search of answers. They travelled a perilous journey far beyond the sight or reach of anyone before. The others waited.
Days went by. Nothing. Weeks went by. Still nothing.
Forty-one days later, they finally returned, and everyone gathered around. “We were not sure you were coming back. What did you find out there?” they asked with trepidation.
One of them, a woman called Trillian, stepped forward, folding her wings, and carefully said, “We have learned much about life, the universe and everything. More importantly, we learned the true origin of the monolith”.
Everyone waited in silence. “What did you find?”
“We did, indeed, meet a supreme being”.
The atheists were too stunned to speak. The leaders of each faith were now desperate for the answers. “Well, which of us is right?”, one said nervously.
The sense of suspense was palpable.
Trillian paused thoughtfully. “All religions are right in their own way”.
A deep silence fell over the crowd.
“The monolith was indeed forged from the ground from minerals - sand and water. It was indeed manufactured by a mechanical creature with many dexterous arms. It was indeed a process of science, and involved the transfer of chemical and electrical energy that exists in all things. We also learned that there are billions of these monoliths, used by billions of beings of unimaginable size. These beings do indeed enjoy drinking, and are capable of kindness but also of unimaginable cruelty. Finally, it was indeed one of them that placed this monolith here”.
There was silence again. “Who are these beings?”
“They call themselves humans,” Trillian replied with a pause. “They call this a soft-drink bottle”, she said, pointing at the monolith, “and they call us ants”.
The crowd stirred with awe. Trillian then pointed towards the horizon, and the crowd simmered.
“Beyond our limited sight, and beyond this body of water, called a lake, are countless creatures of all shapes and sizes that our minds have never imagined. Some are smaller than us, others even larger than humans. But only humans fabricate objects like this bottle”.
Everyone was shocked. Nobody dared speak for the longest time until a young girl blurted out: “Why did a human give us this object?”
“Honestly, we think he or she didn’t even see us; it might have just been dropped carelessly from the sky”.
“Are these gods crazy?” the girl asked.
“Many of them are”, Trillian replied.
“How do you know all of this? Maybe you are just the work of an Antichrist to test us?”, one of the more sceptical Christi-ants demanded.
“Well, we brought back small artifacts from this new land, and we’ll happily take you to meet the others.”, Trillian replied with a gentle conviction.
“The others?!” he gasped.
“Yes, there are more like us. Ants of different colours, sizes and shapes, who talked to us, and explained the peculiar nature of humans and the known universe called earth”.
One of the older ants emerged forwards, “So I was right too, about the existence of aliens?”, he said, as he removed his tin-foil hat.
“Yes, Arthur, you and your imaginary friends were perhaps even the most right. The truth is out there, just like you said”, Trillian smiled.
“Wohoo!”, he exclaimed.
There was a huge pause before the next question: “If they created the monolith, did they create us too?”.
“Apparently, these humans can now create new tiny life in small glass dishes, but they did not create us. We just evolved naturally in the wild, the same way these wings have evolved.”
“Should we fear the humans?” The Christian asked.
“We have witnessed that humans are capable of unimaginable cruelty to animals. They capture and torture animals of all sizes, even ants sometimes, for entertainment or food. Fortunately, our island is protected by a lake, and humans simply don’t notice or care much about us if we stay out of their way. It appears we are among the safest ant colonies from the destruction of humans or any other large animals.”
“If these humans are the true all-knowing creators of the monolith. Should we worship them instead?”, the leader of the Hindu-ants asked.
Trillian paused thoughtfully. Somehow, she knew this question was coming. “I don’t think we should. Humans are not all-knowing. These humans also have their own religions and gods to explain phenomena that they don’t understand. Perhaps the answer to their monolithic question is something that they too can not imagine yet. Something beyond their current sight and intelligence. Humans have four thousand religions - not including the thousands of religions wiped from the planet during the history of humankind. These humans are more violent than us - they’ve murdered hundreds of millions of each other over religious beliefs, and even today their wars rage on.”
“I thought these humans were clever?”, the little girl ant said.
“Yes, they think they are clever, but despite their superior intelligence, they are deforesting the planet. They are killing their own home world with fire and causing it to flood with water. Due to our small size and resilience, we will survive far longer on this earth than they will. So in short, no, I believe these humans do not deserve our worship.”
“But our entire lives and worship system is based on different ideas about the monolith. For a hundred generations, we have done this. Now that we know the truth... whom will we worship?”, yelled someone from the crowd.
“I think we should revere and worship each other. To me, it seems that if we can all lay aside our differences and coexist peacefully, regardless of our beliefs, then we will be far more human than these human beings ever were. If we have the wisdom to treat each other with kindness and be okay with the fact that we cannot explain all of life’s mysteries, well, surely that makes us far superior beings. And we are so close to that already.” Trillian paused and noticed glimmers of pride in her colony. “Ants have travelled to every corner of this universe, and helped in the balance of nature. Our proud, resilient species can achieve amazing things working together with a common vision. Do you think we can get back to that?”, Trillian asked. “Can we wake up tomorrow and choose tolerance and peace?”
“I think we can”, the young girl replied, with a smile.
Backstory
I wrote this story on September 29, 2010. It's a story that popped into my head while on a lovely walk in nature, and I couldn't shake it. You'd think maybe I saw an ant-hill or something but not... just a random thought. I'm proud to say I didn't use ChatGPT at all for this... old-school writing... but then I guess a ton of spell checkers at the end. I hope it's not too aggressive as political satire. I do hope the human race isn't doomed, but if we are, I'll have this story to point back on.
