Rigid Placidity, an opening volley of grafs

There once was a land. On and of, atop and abounding, there once was a race. This race was much like ours - ape-evolved bipedal cultivators of civilization and division and such - but for one peculiarity (from our vantage at least). This race of humans (for lack of a better) fell to sleep once still. Being perfectly still, rigid, motionless was necessary and sufficient for sleep. Consider it, lying down, back, attaining stillness. The second the body is without movement, devoid of even the slightest tension of a muscle here or a reflexive wiggle of the toe there, *snap* sleepy times.

The rub? Anytime a member of this race sits perfectly still for any reason *snap* they go, and the sleep of this peoples is shamefully deep.

Oh, the race had evolved to manage. To thrive even, the teeming masses of them. The will to lie still is strong. As well the urge to keep movie, shark-like. Never sitting still. Always tapping toes, rolling quarters along the knuckles. Snapping a finger to the beat of your own heart. This was an expressive, physically fervent people.

One day a traveler appeared. She was a stranger, an astro-anthropologist. My dear aunt Susie. She had been exploring the galaxy for over a decade and was thrilled to have finally come across an honest to god civilization, even one so unnervingly familiar.

Aunt Susie explored the hell out of their land, anthopologized the hell out of the people, just got all the hell up in it until she was one of them. They didn't have much interest in strangers until she showed up. Now she was among their cultural elites, hosting coffee breakfasts and tea brunches and wine-filled lat evening dinners for the statesmen and philosophers of this people. Within ten years she was married into them.

Their first child was ...TO Be CONTINUED....