Waking Adam

It wasn't exactly the birthday present I was expecting. An empty planet, the husk of a civilization that killed itself at the first sight of me.

I know I shouldn't take it personally. I mean, they liked me, maybe a little too much, but they liked me. Still, being alone sucks. It's boring here, I'm writing this just to stay sane.

I'm sure my mind will devolve into mud in no time, you, happy discoverer of this book will be the first to witness the madness of my second coming.

Maybe I should kill myself too? Wouldn't that be a surprise for all of them when they wake up. I wonder if they would all follow my lead again. What a crazy lonely cycle of death that would create. That's actually more depressing than the thought of no afterlife.

I could stick around, I guess, maybe some of my friends or family might wake up soon. I don't really know all the rules of this thing, and no one stuck around long enough to help me figure them out. Now every minute feels like eons of silence.

I guess I could find some really cool pets, my family will be up and about before I even need to worry about baboons becoming sentient enough to follow the rest of those idiots into the temporary solace of oblivion.

I don't exactly remember everything from before. It's still pretty blurry but it's coming back a little at a time. I think it's still all in there.

The really crazy thing is that God won't answer me. I keep shouting for him, but I get no response. I'm starting to think maybe I imagined him?

I look up at night, it's amazing how far I can see now. It's as if all I need to do is keep looking and I can see farther and farther. Those Galaxies, stars, planets, comets, they're all so beautiful, it hurts. It doesn't make any sense. Each one of them is so beautiful, but I can't keep looking at them. It hurts, to think that each is as empty as this rocky shell of a boistrous past.

Who cares what they accomplished in all those thousands of years? I miss the noise of them. The life of them. The warmth of their pulses pounding in excitement, the stomping of their heels on the bare earth.

I miss being hungry too. Eating was great, that's one of the things that came back almost right away. Skin breaking under my teeth. The juicy pulp tickling my throat with it's overpowering scent. God, I'm so hungry to be hungry again.

I visited one of their largest and mustiest libraries yesterday. At least I can still smell. It was a rich aroma, all those decaying tomes. Most of them are still readable, but I already know all of that. I cast my eyes and I can see instantly, any corner, any crevice. The whole world is open to me. The depths of the oceans, the seas of cloud. I know them all like I know myself. I watch the lonely atoms spiral just like I watch the stars. Mostly I like to burn the books and imagine my toes can feel their warmth.

I try to imagine stories in my mind. Entire worlds and civizilations spring into clockwork-motion, complete with symphonies, rituals, pets, lice. But they're cold. They're devoid of life. Devoid of the warmth of being.

I think I could walk on the sun now, I don't think it would hurt. It would probably destroy me utterly. Honestly, I'm affraid to try. Getting there is the catch. There are rockets that could get me there. But, and I know this sounds infantile, I have this inexplainable terror that my trajectory would be off and I'd be lost barrelling through space forever. I'd miss everyone else when they woke up and I'd be without even a means of ending my own misery. Well, I could take a nuke with me. That would probably do the trick. But, I'd be condemning myself to miss them all forever. So, I'm stuck here to wallow in the waiting. God, I'm so bored.

God? I know you're the only one reading this.. Why'd you stop talking to me? It's been so long. Hasn't it? I wish I could remember.

Well, at least that will give me something to do with this time. I'm sure it's ironic if I bother to think about it. I can see anywhere, if I look long and hard enough everything keeps getting more and more clear. Everything except my memory. I'll try again. I remember being in that thunderous chrysalidic womb. It beat and beat so quickly, I thought it would explode. I could see through the opalescent walls. There were people in white all around looking in. Trying to measure and study me. Talking amongst themselves with no thought to speak to me.

With their lights they managed to hurt me, but they didn't mean it, they were trying to steal a piece of me to examine. It was some kind of scalpel, or scan, or some bastard of the both, either way they got at my genetic code. They whooped and clapped. For days and days they were busy trying to analyze it, to see the portent of my coming. They didn't know then what I was, or who I was. I'm pretty sure they thought I was a new form of life, or an alien being of other-worldly origin or something else exciting like that.

After a few months they started to look very worried. I think they had realized my DNA looked just like theirs. It took them a long time before they started doing ancestry matches. I didn't look very African to them. I still don't look African.

Anyways they freaked out for a while. A crazy cult sprang up, they actually wanted to worship me. Next the scientists started to look at what parts of my DNA were activated where theirs were dormant. That's when they got the biggest shock.

All along they were affraid of death, but I was so beautiful, so complete, and their own lives were so full of sorrow and age. It had never occured to anyone that the human body might be a seed. Germinating for thousands of years in the soil, only to grow into something far more beautiful.

Who ever thought a simple, wonderous piece of knowledge could evoke such horrors. In the end it was the crazy cult that tried to stop the scientists' suicide pact, but the stoic gravity of the scientists' demise infected them as well. Why be mortal when we could be gods?

When it got really hectic, thats when I pried my way out of my phosphorescing womb. I wasn't fast enough to stop them. They were only more awed, more selfish, more greedy to be other than what they were. Wait..

I remember now, God, you said I would surely die..

I'm so sorry..


I left you all alone.