The Horton Dilemma [ONC 2022]

OR WAS IT?

He holds a book in his hands. The title Horton Hears a Who decorates its cover.

The book is not the true Horton Hears a Who. The knowledge of this book was gifted to him by a human, a human who knew the book well enough to give him a good idea of its words and illustrations. The book he now holds in his hands is merely a recreation of that real human book. Human memory isn't very reliable, so the words and illustrations probably aren't totally accurate compared to the true book. If only he could have the real book! He could if he could target where it came from...

With a swish of his tail, he turns to walk the other way, opening the book to read it during his jaunt. Walking is nice sometimes; teleportation offers no exercise.

He's read the book various times. The other glephkings snicker at him, as this behavior is bordering on obsessive. Glephkings aren't supposed to have feelings that are too strong. Strong feelings lead to irrational decisions. There are fixes for strong feelings. Ways to subdue them. He should take advantage.

But he loves reading this book, loves reading about Horton the elephant discovering a world on a dust speck. After he reads the book, he often looks around his own world, wondering where in his world the astral entities he's encountered, including the recent humans, might come from.

Humans only began to visit them a few days ago, and they might not visit for long at all—for all he knows, their world could have ended by now. He suspects time moves much faster there. Each entity that visits the glephkings' world astrally only ever visits for a time. And each time, he has to say goodbye.

He hopes another human appears in front of him soon. No other glephking seems to cherish these entity visits as much as he does. They grow bored of the entities after receiving a few of their gifts.

He never grows bored of gifts. He wonders what his next gift will be.

But he really shouldn't wonder so much. Wonder is spawned from curiosity. Strong feelings like curiosity ought to be subdued. 

When did he become so curious? He wonders about it, but he will not subdue it...it feels too good.