Chapter Three
________________________
What Are the Origins of Man?
Where had they come from? Out of the earth? Fire? Water? Water!
When the mountains sprung up out of the sea, and the cleft of water sprung into the light—
Because it does come first—
Yes, tell me the first part, first—
The mountains arose, and the water poured down their slopes back into the cleft left behind by the rising land, and fire seized the surface of the sea, and the rains came and the fire turned to smoke and the smoke rose to cover the face of the sun. Where once large animals wandered the land when it was hilly and covered with trees, and cleaved to another great mass of land that no one had a name for because no one had yet been born to give things names—
And after another great rain the sea remained burning, the smoke and steam rising higher and higher, and all the animals and trees went up in flame.
Pillars of fire and burning bush…?
Mountains melting and ice arising…and the seas in tumult…?
Do we know, do we know when and where it all began except to say that the oldest rocks came out of Africa and somewhere on those shores some fishy creature probably pushed its snout for the first time up from the sea into the air? This in a long life of reading and speculation is what we have come to believe. But the preachers say otherwise. What do the imams and the rabbis say?