I am Eve

A look at where the human race has come from and a possible apocalyptic future

In human genetics, Mitochondrial Eve is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all currently living humans. This is the most recent woman from whom all living humans today descend, .... The scientists' conclusion was that all living humans were descended from one specific woman,

 

 

I am Eve

I am a mother.

 

I live with my family and small clan on the edge of a great lake. The sun climbs out of the sky each and every morning, scorching the land and burning our naked skin from red sunrise to red sunset. When our body-shadow disappears from our feet we cower under the lip of our living cave to escape the sun’s merciless glare. Of our clan there are only three families left, altogether seventeen in number. In my own family there is myself, Eve, my mate Batu, my son Lartu of two years and my baby girl Nooma of one year and 5 moons. I myself have lived through seventeen years.

 

Our living cave lies a short walk across the sand from the reeds lining the edge of the great lake.  The sun rises behind our cave and sets behind the mountains. We can see the far side of the lake but each end disappears into the dusty haze!

 

Our life here is simple. Finding enough to eat occupies most of our energy. We hunt and we gather anything that can be eaten - from seed to leaf, from grub to snake, from fish to antelope. Sometimes when we are hungry we have to chase off the hyenas and vultures for a share of their scraps.  On cold desert nights we huddle under our animal skins for warmth. In happier times when we had any energy left we sang and danced and told our ancestor stories as our forefathers did, and their forefathers before them.

 

This year our life has been very hard again. The season of small rain that brings some grass to the dry land and succour to the animals that inhabit the land has failed for the third year. Over the three years of drought, fifteen of our clan have died of thirst and starvation, and those of us that remain barely cling to life. Of our neighbouring clans along the lake none have survived. Every so often, a sun shrivelled survivor from afar appears like a mirage from the desert. They carry the same news - not one remains alive! This disaster has overtaken the whole earth. We are living and dying in a cauldron of fire and dust.

 

So many have succumbed to this scorching - perhaps the desert wind will fade our footprints forever. Can we live through this time of testing? If the small rain comes soon I know we will survive. My children can live and grow and have children themselves.

 

Perhaps I am the last mother of an old earth.

Perhaps I shall be the first mother of a new earth.

Perhaps ……….

 

 

 

I am Eve

I am a mother.

 

I live with my husband Joshua and my two children Lucy and Tom on a small island off the West coast of Scotland. There are three other couples living here but with no children and we barely scrape a living from the land and the sea.

 

In the last few years we have been battered by extremes of weather that make the storms, floods and heat waves of the past seem like nothing.

Each year that goes past has seen disasters, each of which surpasses its predecessor; drought without end, famine, refugees by the million, unending war and then ravaging diseases; blood sickness from Africa and then brain sickness from America.

 

As a young girl I lived with my family in a small village on the southern edge of the great sand desert. Our country is called Mali. We lived in a small house built by my grandfather. As I grew, life became harder. My father worked as a mechanic in his uncle’s garage but only earned enough to stop our family going hungry. When I was sixteen I married Joshua from our village and together we went to live in his family home in the nearby town. Joshua found work as a taxi driver and was able to save a little for our future. Our people have been living in this area for hundreds of years but even in my short life I can see great changes. Many years the rains never arrive and the land that once grew corn and fed our goats is turning to desert.

 

After three years with no seasonal rain Joshua decided that we should use what we have saved to reach Europe where we could start a new life. After a long bus ride across the desert and long months spent in a refugee camp in Morocco we finally paid most of our money to cross to Spain in a flimsy rubber boat with several hundred others. We were shocked at what we found - this was no promised land and there was no welcome for us. Imprisoned behind barbed wire on dusty soil and with little water and food we had only exchanged one hell for another. We learned that life for the local people was little better. There had been no rain for years, the crops had failed, the earth was parched and many had died.

 

By some miracle Joshua and I were chosen as part of a small quota to be taken to England. Another camp and more barbed wire awaited until we were sent on a long journey to a country called Scotland, where at last we were made to feel welcome. Another long journey and we ended up on this small island, Eilean Ruadh, with its welcoming, small, close knit community. After three years it feels like home now and Joshua and I have been blessed with two healthy children!

 

Two weeks ago we were all out working in the fields and suddenly, in a great arc from the east to the south, the sky was lit with great flashes of light and then we heard a far off rumbling like thunder. During the next few days our TV and radio stations went dead one by one  until yesterday the last radio station stopped and was replaced with a deafening silence. What that silence betokens we can only guess! Perched between the rocks and the ocean we feel at the end of the world.

 

Perhaps we are the last left alive on the face of the earth.

Perhaps I am the last mother of an old earth.

Perhaps I shall be the first mother of a new earth.

Perhaps ………….

Reviews

[emmajoy]

Oh my goodness. this is super-fantastic in both feel, sound (I read it aloud) and intention.

' Perhaps we are the last left alive on the face of the earth. -- -- Perhaps I am the last mother of an old earth. -- -- Perhaps I shall be the first mother of a new earth. -- -- Perhaps ………….'

We might never know... in spite of your comparable tales, different and yet full of sameness. Your first piece has an ancient tone, sweet though stilted language (couldn't be anything else, could it!) Thee's a touch or few of post-Creation when life was crude and hard and the planets seemed not to be aligned. Eve, the mother, took her days, her life as the norm, perhaps unaware at the time of what time can do.

The second part.. is a nudge into what might/could happen in Scotland, UK. Under the light of human kindness, refugeess could be accepted for that vast wilderness in the Highlands.. way off and away in the middle of nowwhere, where there are no comunities or work... a strange and near cruel means of taking in the pitiful bands of folk around the world. ITruth That piece, seemingly at first to be full of hope.. could may well have returned to beginning of the end.. and thus, the two beds with only one sheet.

Perhaps. Beautiful writing, yours, not only visual but thoughtful, inspirational almost.. or more.

[alanwgraham]

Many thanks Emma for your great review which I have just discovered.

[Samuel Dickens]

This is very interesting and well-written. You hit upon evolutionary notes that appeal greatly and are similar to some of my own musings. Yes, we've one mother they say, but she is only one being in a seemingly endless life-thread. How sad that we can't evolve into something better, void of hatred, fear and greed. Not that it's applicable in any way, but a recent test of my DNA discloses a percentage of neanderthal variables greater than 93% of the population. (Please pass a piece of that roasted woolly mammoth)
Addressing another reviewer's comment about pov, one only needs to get past the first narrator's use of very modern sounding english, then it's gravy after that. (I'm just being a smarty)
Thanks for this great read, Alan.

[alanwgraham]

Thanks Samuel. Perhaps my outlook is a bit too pessimistic here - I hope!
Regards,
Alan

[Duncan Brown]

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV.............................

[alanwgraham]

Thanks for reading this Duncan, and your penetrating critique. I fully agree with your comment 'vvvvvvv' but feel that your view 'vvvvvvvv' is hardly justified. Thanks again
Alan

[Ted Kniffen]

A well written piece, a harrowing tale of what transpires for far too many these days. Although 'sparse' in style, it conveys a complete story. Besides, it is a style I favour. As Elmore Leonard once said 'I try to leave out the parts that people skip" A good write. I like it.

Ted

[Pete]

I can't read stories written in the present tense usually, which is a shame because I've missed out on some great books. But this story being so short I thought I'd read it anyway. And I'm glad I did! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Their bleak worlds and lives come across wonderfully. Not easy to do in such a short story. The human resolve to survive is a monumental thing, as is the worlds power to heal itself. It's like a pendulum.

[alanwgraham]

Thanks pete. I know that this story might be a bit bleak for some tastes but I do write some funny ones too. Your aversion to the present tense took me by surprise.
Thanks once again for your time.
Cheers,
Alan

[barleygirl]

A few months ago, I read the Bible from front to back for the first time in my life & your two parables here kinda remind me of that experience. First, becuz your writing is rather stark & showing mainly the physical manifestations of these lives more than any deeper reflections upon it or feelings about it. Second, becuz I noticed while reading the Bible that the same s**t happens over & over & over to us imperfect humans, so evidently we aren't learning the lessons. I can always count on you to come up with very original ideas executed in ways that are relatable, but also somewhat "out there" in imagination.

[alanwgraham]

Thanks again B, Your observation about the style is spot on. I did have a 'biblical' voice in my mind for this. I suppose it has been in my head for a long time waiting for me to start writing. We visited lake Turkana in northern Kenya many years ago where the earliest version of wo(man) was found and that was in my mind for the first part. You can't always take all the sometimes contradictory comments on board but i really value your suggestions and I do consider them seriously. I have had a look at a couple of your personal stories recently and i will send in reviews soon.
Regards,
Alan

[Aarea]

This was very interesting. The parallels were brilliantly thought through and I loved your name choice, it works well with this story. I like that you brought refugees into it, that added a whole new level of feeling and realism into the piece. Good work. :)

[alanwgraham]

Thanks aarea. This is a story that has been in my head for ages and it finally came together. I'm gLad you liked it.
Thanks,
Alan

[Robert Francis Callaci]

A remarkable write. I found myself riveted to these parallel stories. The first story was a powerful tale of struggle and survival. It seemed the end of the world was at hand but hope and perseverance is the underlying theme. While in the second a darker outcome seems on the horizon although hope is still in the wind.


Excellent write.


warmest
bob

[alanwgraham]

Thanks Bob. I have been thinking about this story for a while and it has just come together. I must admit I can get a bit emotional writing these and identifying withering the characters. My daughter is on her way to help at the refugee camp at Calais so she should take some of the credit.
I look forward to checking out your writing.
Cheers,
Alan

[alanwgraham]

Great Kali - I'm glad you enjoyed it. I've had it on the 'stocks' for ages now and thought i should finish it off. Funnily enough I'd called it 'I am Lucy' and it was only when i checked on the science (a mind-boggling idea by the way) that I realised I'd got mixed up with the earliest pre-human that Leakey had called Lucy. The photo that I used was actually taken on a pre-marraige 'honeymoon' trip to that area near Lake Turkhana in Kenya that Richard Leakey did his work. I'm afraid that I laughed involuntarily at your comment on using the word 'energy'. My wife had made the same comment when I'd given the word 'F**k' to a stone age man (in my novel 'Full Circle') and I then pointed out that neither did they speak English. Your logic is probably better than mine - haha!
Thanks again,
Alan

[Kaliope]

I really loved this piece, Alan. The fact that I instantly read and reviewed it, should prove it ;-) Such a moving story from the past and a frightening one from the (hopefully not near) future with alarming parallels to the present. Also loved the reference to genetics, as a science buff I just can't resist an opportunity to philosophize about how far off our conclusions might be.
There's only one minuscule criticism I have - the use of the word 'energy' in the tribal mother's narration. It struck me as odd, too modern (relatively speaking of course) and I looked up the etymology. It was first used - no surprise - by the Greeks, appeared - as far as we know - around 400 BCE and even then as a high level concept in a discourse about ethics. Therefore, I suspect this is not a word a cave-dwelling tribe member would use.
But honestly, I'm just nitpicking here, so by all means ignore my remark if you like.
I totally adore this story! (See, I even used an exclamation mark with no shame whatsoever :-D)