'APPLE'A Story by alanwgraham A parable for our times - a modern take on the Adam and Eve story. ‘APPLE’< Adam stood in the centre of the great stony desert. The scorching wind rasped his face; the searing breath of a dying earth. The sun had slipped to a hands width above the horizon, painting a lurid slash of red. Adam was beyond thought, beyond words. He was in the zone of the mystics - senses ablaze, beyond words, at one. He felt the earth’s pulse and its beat was feeble.
He looked intensely at the desert but one direction seemed the same as another - yellow-brown sand, strewn with stones. He listened but there was no discernable or identifiable sound. There should have been absolute silence but he became aware of a remorseless hiss in his ears. The deafening silence had brought into being the very sound of the air - the reverberation of a shell held to the ear.
As Adam watched he could see the dark shadows cast by the stones lengthening as the sun slipped down. Such had been the intensity of his at-oneness that it almost came as a surprise when he turned his gaze to see his family a few paces away - his wife Eva and their three children; Ham, Shem and Japheth, along with their wives and children. They were also immersed in the vastness of their surroundings.
It was hard to believe - less than a human life span ago, the place they were standing had been a vast expanse of fertile Kansas wheat and corn fields. And so had it been with the remainder of the earth - out of the fertile earth had come sand and dust. Humanity had tasted of the knowledge of good and evil and had discovered the taste of evil sweet and seductive.
Adam turned to his wife Eva and took her hand. They all turned away from the setting sun, gasping as they gazed up in awe. Before them, seeming to take up the whole of the darkening sky, a vast, flattened sphere shimmered just above the stony desert. In spite of their familiarity with the craft, its enormity and the audacity of the men and women that had constructed it still gave them an almost religious feeling of awe. What they actually saw was the sunset reflected back and for a moment they were dizzied by the perfection of the image.
Lost in thought, they looked at the vast craft - the ‘Apple’. ‘The work is done now, it is time.’ Adam said quietly. ‘The ‘Apple’ is our last chance father, isn’t it?' Shem commented. Adam just nodded sadly as he continued to look at the curving surface reflecting the shimmering oranges and reds of the desert and western sky.
The work had taken a generation and more. New technologies had been invented and a sizeable tithe of one in ten was taken to pay for the work. All non essential work and research was set aside and the work on the Apple proceeded steadily. At last it was ready and even the most hardened climate sceptic admitted that time was running out. The Apple was not built to be a lifeboat for the dwindling human survivors of planet earth - its sole purpose was to carry a cross section of the earth’s living species. An earth-like uninhabited planet had been identified forty five light years away. The sole human passengers of this interstellar vivarium would be Adam and his extended family.
Vast as the ‘Apple’ appeared above them, it had been built with the space warping black-matter fields predicted a century before and the space within defied imagination. Within the great sweeping halls of the ‘Apple’ each of the remaining creatures of the earth flourished in its perfect habitat. Arctic tundra, temperate forests, grasslands, tropical jungle, coral reefs and many other habitats all had their rightful place in the great starship. Artificial suns in each of the habitat halls created night and day and caused the seasons to pass.
As Adam and Eva watched the 'Apple', an opening blemished the surface and a ramp slid down to the sand. ‘We should go.’ Ham said with excitement, but also a measure of trepidation in his voice. Just as Adam was about to answer his son he heard the sinuous rustling sound of shifting sand behind them. They all turned. To their amazement, a few paces away, there was a large serpent, it's head lifted high. The serpent observed them closely then opened its mouth and hissed. Then something quite mysterious happened, the sibilant hiss turned into words and the words turned into a voice.
‘ssssss ssssss greetingssss Adam. Oh I forget - ssss - I grow old. That talk with Adam and Eve was a long time ago at the start of this sssorry tale. All I remember was ssssomething about a rib, and a tree with the fruit that Adam was forbidden to eat! But of course you are not that Adam and your wife is called Eva. Tell me Adam, what is this great shining object filling the sky behind us.’ ‘Serpent, it is the ‘Apple’- a great star-vessel that will carry a number of every kind of creature from the earth to start a new life on a distant planet.’
‘Ah, I sssomehow thought we would come back to the apple. That was the ssstart of man’s trouble. All you had to do was ssssteer clear of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and then you blamed it all on poor old me, the sssserpent.’
‘Yes Serpent,’ Adam replied, ‘you are correct - men and women thought that we were like gods and in our foolishness we lost our place in the garden of Eden where we could have lived in harmony with the earth.’ The serpent looked at Adam and his family, turned to look at the empty desert and then turned back again.
‘And thissss, thissss, isssss all that issss left.’
Adam hung his head in shame, not for himself but on behalf of all the foolish and deluded men that had brought them to this sorry pass. Serpent, there is still time to put it right. The ‘Apple’ will be our new beginning. It contains the seed that will grow into a new tree of life.’
‘Have you learned nothing? - you have also tasssted of the fruit and come to know good and evil.’
Adam looked puzzled, for he believed he had tried to do right. ‘Serpent, we must leave now. We have a voyage to begin and a world to start anew. Come Eva, I think this serpent is sent to distract us.’
Eva hesitated, as she had been considering all that had happened. ‘Wait Adam, I have been thinking about what we are doing and I think we have got this all wrong. We’ve believed we have the solution to this disaster but I can see it clearly now - this is not the solution, it is us that is the problem. The serpent is right - even if we don’t know it, we have also chosen to behave like gods,’ and Eva lifted her arm to signify the ‘Apple’. We cannot escape the fatal flaw of our humanity. There is only one conclusion - we are the only creatures that must not go on that Apple.
Later, after they had discussed and argued, they eventually came round to Eva’s view. They turned their back on the 'Apple' and walked slowly, with heavy hearts, into the wide, darkening desert.
As they walked away the ramp slid back into the Apple. Noiselessly the great vessel fell away from the desert and was gone.
© 2019 alanwgrahamFeatured Review
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alanwgrahamScotland, United KingdomAboutMarried with three kids, I retired early from teaching physics but have always enjoyed mountains. In my forties I experienced a manic episode which kick-started a creative urge. I've written a novel .. more..Writing
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