Just last week I saw a clip of an Alabama legislator talking about creation as if it happened last week. Well, maybe not last week but 6,000 years ago is practically the same as last week if you believe the universe is 15-billion years old. Apparently the debate between creationists and evolutionists will go on forever, which so far is either 6,000 years or 15,000,000,000 years.
There is an outdated reference to eight-tracks in the story. I left it in because when you're telling a story about something that happened 15 billion years ago, or even 6000 years ago, does anything really go out of style?
Adam
and Eve Were Space Astronauts
Adam looked at his wife sitting in the seat next to him. His face was beginning to show the strain of the many years he had been at the controls. Eve looked a little ragged herself.
“Well,” he said.
“Well, what?” she responded.
“Well, what are we going to do now?”
“I don’t know. You’re the driver.”
“And you’re the navigator.”
“Well, if you had turned back there when I told you to, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.”
“Oh yeah. If I had turned back there we’d probably be in the midst of an asteroid storm right now. Let’s face it. We’re lost.”
“I don’t think it’s my fault. These maps are so old it’s a wonder I find anything. All the names have changed and the neighborhoods don’t look at all like they used to. As for this galaxy, it looks like it went up overnight.”
As she spoke, an image appeared in the viewfinder. Adam straightened up in his seat.
“Eve, look!”
“What is it?” she asked. “I don’t see it on these maps.”
“I don’t know. It appears to be a planet but it’s different from the others we have seen.”
“It’s very pretty. I like the blue.”
“It may be water.”
“Get out!”
“I’m serious, Eve. This could be—I think we can land.”
“Land? Are you sure? Do you think it’s safe?”
“Well, it’s no Holiday Inn, but it’s the closest we’ve seen to home in thirty light years.”
They were both excited now about the prospects of landing. Thirty light years in an RV had been a long time, especially since they had only gone out for a Sunday drive. And especially since they had only brought two eight-tracks along.
“I’m going to try and establish radio contact, Eve. Why don’t you get out our extra change of clothes from the closet? I’d like to look good in case we bump into anyone down there.”
She left and returned a few minutes later. “Adam, you’ll never guess what happened.”
Adam was having trouble with the radio and wasn’t in a guessing mood. Eve continued.
“You know that last trip we took? The one before this one. Well, you remember the barbecue and how our clothes got stained and how I was supposed to clean them but that week was so hectic what with the company on Tuesday and then the softball game and—
“And you didn’t wash the clothes and we have nothing to wear when we land. Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Well, we can wear what we have on,” she said.
“I will not. I won’t wear these clothes one day more. I feel like I’ve worn them forever as it is. I’d rather go naked than wear these clothes another day.”
“But what if there are people down there?”
“So what?”
“Won’t you be embarrassed?”
“Not at all. I’ll just tell them where we come from this is hot stuff—the latest fashion.”
“But—
“That’s it. We’re going to take these grubby clothes off and go naked. If there’s anyone down there, they can take it or leave it.”
Adam was still having trouble with the radio and was unable to establish contact with any living creatures on the planet but blamed this primarily on his batteries. They were good for forty light years or twenty million miles—whichever came first but because they were foreign made, he had little faith in them.
He laid the radio aside and made his decision.
“I don’t care. We’re landing. I don’t know what or who is down there. We may never get off the ground again and have to stay the rest of our lives but if I don’t get out of this vehicle and stretch my legs I’ll go crazy.
“Besides,” he continued, “I don’t even know if I want to go back. We’ve probably lost our jobs by now anyway.”
Back home, Adam had been a swimming instructor and Eve had been a check-out girl in a large discount store. Both jobs were a dime a dozen. Ever since RV travel had become prominent over an eon ago, the saying had been, “Miss your exit and you might just as well keep going. By the time you get back, nothing will be the same as you left it.”
Within an hour after deciding to land, Adam was parking their RV on a little hilltop. They had no difficulty finding a spot. “We must really be in the boondocks,” Adam exclaimed. “This place is so remote I don’t think anyone knows it’s here.”
Eve was standing right beside him. “I’m glad, too. I still don’t feel comfortable being naked. First thing I see to cover me, you better believe I’m gonna do it.”
Adam wasn’t listening. He was too busy walking around, surveying their newly discovered land. He decided to call it Edem—a name derived by substituting the E’s from his wife’s name for the A’s in his name. When he told Eve, she was thrilled. She said it made her feel like an explorer and made their getting lost seem almost like an adventure.
“Well, if we get tired of it, we can always change it.”
For days they did nothing but take long walks on paths that seemed designed just for them—their home away from home as Eve called it. The one day, she asked him the question that he’d known was coming sooner or later.
“Adam,” she asked, “will we ever return home?”
He missed the old neighborhood, too. And he knew the old neighborhood missed him. “Eve,” he said, looking out over the vast expanse of land that seemed to be all theirs. “We’ve come a long way—
“You ain’t kidding,” she interrupted.
“No, it’s more than that,” he said. “It’s more than just the miles. When I think of what has happened to us, it’s almost as if we weren’t really in control. It’s almost as if I wasn’t meant to be just a swimming instructor and you weren’t meant to be a check-out girl. I feel at times as if destiny has had a hand in shaping our lives—like we were pawns in some master game plan we know nothing about.”
“That’s kind of scary, Adam. I don’t know if I like you talking that way.”
“I know it’s scary and sometimes I get scared too, but at other times, I think, what the hell—and don’t ask me what that means because I don’t know. What I do know is there’s plenty of food here and plenty of room and no one to bother us—no taxes, no work…
“And no clothes,” she interrupted jokingly as she had grown quite comfortable with the whole idea of nakedness.
“What I’m saying, dear, is sometimes I think we have it made here. I’d like to raise a little family and settle back to spend the next hundred years here.”
“Hundred years,” she laughed. “Haven’t we got high hopes? And what am I supposed to do while you settle back for the next hundred years—raise the kids?”
“You could find a hobby.”
“And what do you suggest?”
“I dunno. Maybe gardening?”
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