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Prime
by Doug Hawley

1

Interviewer: Welcome to the most significant television show ever. I know that it sounds like hyperbole, but this is the first ever interview with our closest relative, sometimes know as a Yeti or abominable snowman.

Because of the worldwide interest, the show is being simulcast around the world in English with translations into every major language with additional showings delayed for prime time viewing. DVDs will be available within a week of the broadcast. There will be minimal commercial interruptions.

The first order of business is to introduce our guest on my left. What would you like to be called?

Dook: A close approximation to my name in human languages would be Dook.

Interviewer: We have so much to learn about you, but why can you speak English?

Dook: We picked it up from newspapers, radio and television programs which are occasionally in English and from what we call the retrogrades.

Interviewer: It sounds like you must be quick learners. The retrogrades sound interesting, but if you don’t mind, I’ll get back to them later. I’ve got so many questions. Legend would have you seven or eight feet tall, but you only appear to be about four and half feet tall, or as non-Americans would say, less than a meter and a half.

Dook: That’s mostly because the people that saw us exaggerated madly. I don’t think anyone would claim to be scared by a white furry hobbit.

Interviewer: At least the legends are right about the white fur. I suppose that it helps you live in the cold environment north of India.

Dook: That’s part of it. Do you want the full story?

Interviewer: Absolutely. Our worldwide audience would love all of the details.

Dook: A few thousand years ago, what you call the yeti, and we call Angwin, or superiors in our language, diverged from homo sapiens. As we evolved to suit our environment, our blood changed to adapt to the altitude. The reason that we are doing this in Nepal is that we Angwin can’t thrive in lower altitudes.

Physically, we got smaller with lower metabolism in order to survive on available food sources. Our pelts are much like otters in its insulation. We are usually awake only a few hours a day to conserve energy.

Given our difficult environment, we had to get smarter to survive. We developed edible fungi that thrive in our homes in tunnels and caves. I will confess that I personally am not a purist. I’ve been known to steal food from villages, and grab things left behind by trekkers – they are so wasteful. We are largely vegetarian, but in a pinch …

Interviewer: Your answer invites so many more questions. You seem to imply that you have evolved to be superior to humans.

Dook: That should be self evident. We live in harmony, don’t pollute and keep our population at a sustainable level.

Interviewer: Relative to your population, I think that our viewers would like to know about your romantic life.

Dook: Put another way, the drooling viewing perverts want to know about our sex lives. I’ve seen you glancing at the bulge in my shorts that your producer forced me to wear. I even got unwanted help putting them on from that very handsy producer. Yes, I’m very much a male.

The secondary sexual characteristics of our females are such that no enhancement is necessary, if you catch my drift. Our sex lives are frequent and inventive. Our flexibility permits acts unimaginable in humans. Just thinking about it makes my shorts tighter yet. Better yet, the female easily times births without any artificial methods. In that way, we keep our population stable.

Interviewer: I’m unconvinced about your superiority at this point, but let’s talk about the retrogrades that you mentioned earlier.

Dook: The retrograde story should also convince you of our superiority. Given our relation to humans, every once in awhile, we give birth to an Angwin that appears human, but has an Angwin brain. They act as our emissaries to the unknowing world outside, keeping us up to date on events. Sometimes they just migrate to local villages, and sometimes they travel afar. In fact some of the villagers know our secret but they have either been discreet, or dismissed as superstitious fools. Many of our retrogrades have been big successes in the world at large. A good example is a retrograde that was huge in scientific circles in Switzerland and then the US in the early twentieth century. His equation is known the world around, and improved on the knowledge of a mere human. An unfortunate example of ours was a very rich man in the US who went into politics, but at least he succeeded. Our take is that he was corrupted by long exposure to human society.

Interviewer: Is the North American bigfoot or sasquatch related to you?

Dook: We frankly believe that the bigfoot stories are myths, despite the widely circulated photo of Doug Hawley with a purported bigfoot in Oregon.

Interviewer: One last question for what I hope that will be one of many interviews. Why are you talking to us now after previously being so shy?

Dook: It may be a vain hope, but we are hoping to halt an encroaching human population. We don’t want to be overrun or exploited. Our hope is to form a coalition of nations that will allow us a homeland, something like Israel, but without the continuous conflict.

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