A Ramble About the "Beast-People"

One of my favorite computer game and book series is the Myst collection of games and books, which taken together tell an expansive story of an ancient, fallen civilization, the D'ni; a secret, powerful Art of creating links to the worlds described in great Books; and the intrigue and pain of the last family to carry the legacy of this lost civilization and their unsuccessful attempts to rebuild it.

In one of the books, Myst: The Book of D'ni, the main protagonist of the series, Atrus, discovers an ancient Descriptive Book which leads him and his followers to a separate branch of that lost civilization, the Terahnee, one which never fell from the plague which swept the D'ni. As they get to know and be amazed and dazzled by the wonders and art of this civilization, they uncover a dark secret about this seemingly perfect world.

They employ a class of slaves which they refer to as the bahro, which in the D'ni language means “beast-people.” These people are stolen from their families in the other worlds to which the Terahnee link through their books, brought to their world, castrated, their wills are broken through torture and discipline, and then forced to serve the Terahnee mostly out of sight, only appearing through a system of extensive tunnels that run throughout their cities and town to perform their duties and then leave again as quickly as possible. The Terahnee also refer to them as the “unseen,” and there are severe consequences if anything happens that forces a Terahnee person to acknowledge their existence publicly or privately.

As I've been working for an event security company, and riding the public transportation, I've gotten to know and see a great many of the people that, like the bahro, are willingly unseen by those people they serve every day. Many of these people work two or three “part-time” jobs, at full time hours, at minimum wage, because the cost of living in Southern California is so high, they can't afford rent, food, or utilities without doing this. They sleep when they have a day off from one job. Many of them share small apartments between two or more families in order to just have a roof over their heads. Virtually all of them are a hair's breadth from homelessness, and it doesn't take much to snap the hair keeping them safe.

When people look at Southern California, all they see is the glamor, the entertainment industry, the movie stars, the concerts, the theme parks. But the millions of tourists who come through don't see the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of minimum wage workers who make it all happen, unless they have to interact with them to make a purchase, or suffer the indignity of submitting to a security screening. They're not meant to in the same way that those people coming of the Interstate 5 freeway to Disneyland aren't meant to see the dilapidated apartments and houses of the predominantly low-income residents who live within walking distance of the theme park. The freeway exits are specifically devised to avoid those areas of town. The signs won't even let you right turn down the street to get there.

Growing up here, I didn't really see these people either. My culture and society conditioned me to not see the Hispanics on the street corner that work twelve hour days for what amounts to birdseed. I was conditioned to not really see the worker at McDonald's or Burger King as anything more than a flesh and blood fast food ATM. The people who ran the rides, attractions, and manned the concession stands at Disneyland were just as much a part of the ride as the animatronics. They were always there, but you didn't talk to them, you didn't know them, and you didn't see them a second time if you saw them at all.

Our culture and society in this Southern Californian civilization dehumanizes the majority of its population into unseen, biological background mechanisms in order to provide a playground for the wealthy. When a member of this “unseen” class of people falls behind in some way, they are mercilessly thrown to the side and become homeless statistics, begging on the streets just to feed themselves and no one who has the power to do anything about it sees or cares. For this reason our social services are overwhelmed to the point that even housing assistance is more of a myth than a help, as the waiting lists are often two or three years long.

The practice of the Christian Faith is lovingkindness and compassion. We cannot afford to not “see” anyone because of who they are or where they work, neither can we afford to dehumanize someone into just a part of the background machinery. We will answer for it to our Lord if we do. “Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it also to Me.”

No human being should be treated as an unseen beast of burden. It flies in the face of everything Jesus Christ and His Apostles taught.