Short Story 44: Continuing Westward

David Stockhoff · 31 Aug 2012, 22:40 · from 2012-August.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2012 18:40:52 -0400
Subject: (urth) Short Story 44: Continuing Westward
In-Reply-To: <504122CD.2030503 at clueland.com>
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On 8/31/2012 4:47 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
> On 8/31/2012 2:53 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>> From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com>
>>> Continuing Westward
>
>>> though many of them seem somewhat deformed or blind in one eye 
>>> (probably from an irradiated apocalyptic fall out, which has not 
>>> actually affected these people, who never change much no matter how 
>>> much the world changes).
>>
>> I find it hard to see how radiation could make a lot of people blind 
>> in /one/ eye.
>
> The same way smoking can ruin one of your lungs. People with two bad 
> lungs die and are not observed; the wogs with two blind eyes die for 
> lack of care or stay indoors for safety and are not observed. People 
> with one good lung and one good eye can still be seen going about 
> their impaired business.

I was about to respond with something similar. Superficially, people 
seem to get by; behind what the characters themselves see (which is not 
much), there's probably a lot of death. It felt like natural selection 
in progress to me but of course blind people would not be out and about 
unless they are used to it. They might not often be blind from birth.
>
>>> because the language of the area is completely indistinguishable to 
>>> the narrator and Sanderson, who supposedly speaks ?Wog?.
>>>    Only a great, great passage of time could have made the language 
>>> completely unintelligible to him.
>
> or 2-3 generations of occupation by xenophones, which is fairly common 
> per millenium.
>
>
>>> (the children are described as thin or bow-bellied and generally 
>>> unhealthy looking)
>>
>> Thin or bow-bellied means starving.
>
> There's also malnutrition issues that can make the child potbellied, 
> bowing outward.

Kwashiorkor.
>
>

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