"Welcome aboard, Mr. Pilgrim," said the loud-speaker. "Any questions?"
Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why me?"
"That is a very
Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why
you? Why
us for that matter?
Why
anything? Because this moment simply
is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"
"Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three lady-bugs embedded in it.
"Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no
why." (...)
"Where am I?" said Billy Pilgrim.
"Trapped in another blob of amber, Mr. Pilgrim. We are where we have to be just now - three hundred million miles from Earth, bound for a time warp which will get us to Trafalmadore in hours rather than centuries."
"How - how did I get here?"
"It would take another Earthling to explain it to you. Earthlings are the great explainers, explaining why this event is structured as it is, telling how other events may be achieved or avoided. I am a Trafalmadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply
is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber."
"You sound to me as though you don't believe in free will," said Billy Pilgrim.
"If I hadn't spent so much time studying Earthlings," said the Tralfamadorian, "I wouldn't have any idea what was meant by 'free will'. I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will."
-Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
Novelista norteamericano. En
Slaughterhouse- Five (1969)
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