[Survey] To The Xero I Overheard Having An Existential Crisis In The Memorial Garden Last Week (I Hope I Have The Right One)

[The following note? Letter? Letter. The following letter is roughly written on borrowed stationary, with crossed-out words and ink blots. It is folded up carefully and placed in what Eber hopes is the right mailbox. All capitalization and punctuation is as written, for emphasis]

Hi.

So. Um. This is a weird note to leave and I hope you aren't freaked out by it, but I happened to...overhear you. Ranting in the memorial garden, the other day.

And I wanted to say: I get it.

WHY ARE ANY OF US HERE?

even a nation or cultural group that affiliated with AREZ recently, has a history. Longest Night has a different one in every city. My ̶f̶o̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ f̶a̶m̶i̶l̶y̶  Anhele sibs & parents can talk about how, ages ago, their diaspora won its independence from callous and capricious despots that genetically engineered them ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶d̶o̶p̶t̶ ̶m̶e̶.  [this clause is heavilly scribbled over, suggesting the writer felt this line of thought should be ignored.]

And that's the thing, isn't it? That happened literally over a thousand years ago. And then they had centuries more on their own before the Blight and joining AREZ   ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶H̶u̶z̶z̶a̶h̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶l̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶g̶e̶n̶e̶t̶i̶c̶ ̶d̶i̶v̶e̶r̶s̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶c̶u̶l̶t̶u̶r̶a̶l̶ ̶d̶i̶v̶e̶r̶s̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶R̶o̶o̶t̶ ̶L̶o̶g̶i̶c̶  [Irrelevant and bitter sarcasm: also, perhaps surprisingly, crossed out.]

what do *we* have? there's less than a thousand of us. we're all raised by people who—

well—

they *think* they know what we're like?

and you know, we just have to go with that.

How would we know otherwise?

I͇s͇ ͇a͇ ͇'͇x͇e͇r͇o͇'͇ ͇e͇v͇e͇n͇ ͇r͇e͇a͇l͇?͇ [This question is circled twice and underlined.]

X-1118A was Dead On Arrival when the ARC got there. there wasn't anything alive but lichen and bacteria. (caveat: what I remember learning.) [A small sketch representing the lichens in question.]

we're made out of ̶x̶n̶a̶  dna*, (*even if it's weird it's the same dna as anyone else has) but people are so much more than that! we don't have writing from our ̶g̶e̶n̶e̶t̶i̶c̶ ancestors. we don't have buildings! we don't have music or stories or embarrassing coming-of-age rituals or taboos about what you're supposed to never keep in your pouch or funeral rites and—

—and it's not even a complete genome anyways. it's reconstructed. it's barely _ours_ with all the patchwork you can put into it and get a functional xero out.

Culture is something we're raised with, and we're all adopted. How can we know who we are?

what would they think of us?
would they be glad we're alive? disturbed at how different we are?
Would they be angry, that we're educated little puppets of the ARC Labs, to be the best of whatever the Aluriza Reserve needs. With no cultural background to tell us otherwise?

i don't know. i can't know. if I could charter a shuttle right now and fly to X-A right now, i'd need a vacuum suit with rad protection just to walk on the surface. i could walk to the edge of the Great Rim Plateau, dangle my feet of the edge of the continental shelf, and stare off into the cosmic desolation that is our actual legacy.

[the closing lines are written with ink of a slightly different color, and smoother, neater, handwriting. Perhaps from a slightly later point in time?]

okay. maybe that was a little dark. but anyways. Iiiiii....asked around to try and figure out who you were and I hope I've got the right Xero. If you'd, uh....like to get together and talk more later, about all this stuff? Here's my contact info. Thanks for listening.

Your friend?
-Eber.