Heroes of the Bible

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Heroes of the Bible

Published by Jesse W. Thompson at SmashWords

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Copyright 2015 by Jesse W. Thompson

Standard Edition All rights reserved

This is a story; a work of fiction.

Any similarity or resemblance to, of, or about names, persons, places, things, stuff, or events, is happenstance, accidental, coincidental, and rises from the author’s imagination. If a real person’s name is used, remember, this is fiction. Thankee, Mate.

Foreword

===============================

Cliff Morgan had started reading a book called Heroes of the Bible. Todd asked him if he had gone past Adam and Eve.

Not yet. I’ve skimmed through the rest of the book. It’s filled with clichés, every worn-out saying you ever heard. I guess it’s where they originated. Way back then. I’m still enjoying the first chapter. I’ve read it three times.

Once satisfied me. The way they talk, it’s awful.

Cliff laughed and said, Yes, they use terrible grammar. So does the Almighty himself. You have to remember, the children were made in his image.

Besides, it’s blasphemous, ridiculous, and way too far-fetched. Nobody could believe it.

There you go with your literal mind again, Cliff said. Nobody’s supposed to believe it. The author wrote the chapters about Adam and Eve for fun, I’d say, fun to write, fun to read. He didn’t expect anybody to believe them any more than they should believe the original story in Genesis.

#

Cliff Morgan and Todd Brewster, seniors at the University of Washington, were lifelong friends. They shared an apartment on the ninth floor of Skookumchuck Terrace near the top of Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill. Their windows gave them a sweeping view of downtown, the waterfront, and across Puget Sound to the Olympic Mountains.

When the weather permitted, they lounged on their balcony and read, napped, or continued their debate on the evidence of science as against the beliefs in religion.

Todd planned to become a priest. Cliff majored in history, with minors in religion and psychology. He planned to go on for a doctor’s degree and become a teacher in college.

On a Saturday afternoon in May when the sun decided to shine after hiding its face for eight straight days, they sat on their balcony with coffee and glazed doughnuts.

They both loved skydiving and often gave their weekends to the sport. With the weather the way it had been, they decided to stay home this Saturday and loaf. The sunshine surprised them.

#

In Genesis, it’s God’s Holy Word, Todd said.

You know I don’t buy that argument, Cliff said. Every religion has its own version of God’s holy book. The Hindu Veda, the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon. Believers claim that each one of them contains revealed truths and supposedly teaches ethics. Fat lot of ethics you can get if you look to Jehovah and his massacres. No character in all history stands as guilty of genocide as the Almighty God of the Old Testament.

It’s his judgment on sin, his righteous wrath.

Supposedly he ordered an eye for an eye as proper punishment, Cliff said. "Like fun. For his revenge, he demanded not only an eye, but teeth, jaw, head, heart, the works. And for his favorite method of capital punishment, he chose stoning to death, a cruel, vicious suffering until the victim became unconscious.

"I flipped ahead and read about King David. Jews revere the House of David and Christians brag that Jesus comes in the line of David. They should be proud of such a wretch? No worse bandit ever wore a royal robe than this murdering criminal. Unless it was Moses. Or Samuel, Saul, Solomon, any of them. They're all cardboard heroes, and the Almighty himself ranks number one. He's at the top of the list.

Moses officiated at the first Passover when all the firstborn of the Egyptians were killed and the firstborn children of the Israelites were spared. The Jewish Passover still celebrates God’s mercy at that time. They seem to forget that they’re also commemorating one of the cruelest mass murders in history─if indeed it qualifies as actual history.

Todd asked, Do you have a date with Polly tonight?

No.

My Uncle Art wants me to come see him this afternoon. I should get going.

Okay. I’ll loaf and read some more about the heroes.

You going to read the first chapter again?

You betcha.

=================Elvin Wordsworth

Chapter 1

Adam didn’t have a belly button. Neither did Eve. Since time began, they are the only two human beings, ever, who did not have belly buttons. This omission didn’t bother either of them in the least.

They had never heard of belly buttons. They had never seen one. If they had, they wouldn’t have known where it came from or what it was good for.

The happy young couple lived a free and innocent life. They romped and frolicked the day long, and since they had no memories of a childhood, they played hopscotch, hide and go seek, collected jacks and marbles, skipped rope, and skipped rocks on Eden’s golden pond. If they felt a bit hungry, they picked an orange or a banana, and if either of them wanted to, they made love six or eight times a night.

Before long, things changed. They knew nothing of disease, but Adam felt certain something had gone haywire in Eve’s stomach. Eve, honey, I’m worrit. The way your belly has swolled up─it’s got sumpen wrong inside it. It’s went bad.

He caressed her and petted her stomach, but all the while, she assured him she had nothing serious. It don’t hurt a’tall. I can’t imagine what could be bad about it, so you can wipe that worried look off your face.

After some months, she began to feel movement in her stomach and soon it felt like a Shetland pony was trying to kick a hole in it.

I think the Almighty stuck his hand in this, she said. He made you out of dirt and me out of one of your ribs. Seems to me that don’t give neither of us nothing to brag on. Is that how we’re made in his image? Anyways, it’s my guess that now, he’s making sumpen out’ta my stomach. I wish to criminy he’d hurry it up.

Some seven or eight months after they first noticed the swelling, she squatted on a chair by the dining-room table, grunted, and a tiny figure wiggled out between her thighs. She and Adam had no idea what it was, whether a frog or a dog or what.

Eve asked, Is this what God meant when he told us to multiply?

I don’t know. What does it mean to multiply?

I think it means to make more of something.

Well, you just did. How did you do it?

I don’t have the least idea.

It has no tooths, Adam said. It couldn’t eat nothin’ and it don’t have a single hair on its head. Not one. It’s bald as a goose egg. I better throw it away.

No! Don’t you dare. I like it. I multiplied it. It came out of me and I like it. It has a long rope attached to its belly and it has a tiny thing like yours only yours is bigger. Find a scissors and cut it off.

The thing or the rope?

The rope, dummy.

Okay. What’s a scissors?

Adam, you do tire me sometimes. You’re a weariness to the flesh. Don’t you know nothing? You can be so dense. You don’t have the sense God gins a donkey. Sometimes I think I got more brain power out of your rib than you did out of God’s dirt. And the names you gin the animals, most of them are plain redickalus. Rhinoceros or hippopotamus, for example.

Adam said, I thought those names suited them just fine.

(Genesis 2:19-20: And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.)

Eve said, God should have let me name some of them instead of bringing them all to you. For Pete’s sake, it took three years. I counted eight hundred kinds of cattle and something like ten thousand different birds, slews of horses, and scads of lions and tigers and bears. And monkeys, hundreds of different kinds of monkeys, hyenas, baboons, till I got sick of looking at them.

What about the platypus? I let you name it and you named it platypus. I asked you why and you said because it looked like a platypus. How could you know what platypusseses look like? You never seen one.

I used my imagination. Another thing─you spend hours gaping at the moon. You’re up all night and sleep all day.

I told you. I’m trying to figure out why it changes size all the time.

Who cares?

I do.

Baloney. What do you want to do? Write a book or sumpen? Go find a scissors.

I asked you, what’s a scissors?

A scissors has two blades and loops to stick your fingers in and you work it to cut things in two. Paper, strings, all sorts of things. Go find it.

This squalling thing looks like a animal, Adam said. A big frog mostly. You could name it if you want to and then I’ll throw it in the river.

"No! Go get a scissors. It’s in the kitchen in the drawer left of the sink. Don’t knock the garbage pail over again. I get sick of cleaning up the mess after you.

Another thing. You go around singing half the time. I wish you wouldn’t. It’s turble. I can’t stand it. It sours the milk and scares the kittens. The second you cut loose, they scatter and run under the porch. Anyways, go fetch a scissors.

Adam disappeared. Eve took the wiggly animal and cuddled it to her breast. Immediately it stopped bellering and sucked a nipple into its mouth.

Well, look at that, she said. What does it want that nipple for? There there there, you sweet thing.

After five minutes, she hollered, Adam! Where the heck are you? What’s keeping you? Hurry up and come look.

I can’t find the scissors!

Come back and bite the rope in two.

I don’t want it in my mouth. Who knows what it tastes like or what it might do to me?

Don’t be silly. You don’t have to eat it. Just chew it off. Up close to its belly.

Adam came and pulled the big frog away from Eve’s nipple and bit its rope off. The little bugger, it gin me a dirty look.

Never mind. It wants back where you took it from. Honey, I thought up a name for it.

Like what?

It’s so bald. I named it Baldy. Do you like it?

It’s okay. Sure. It’s fine. Clever, and original.

Thank you. I thought hard about it and decided Baldy would make a perfick name for it.

I saw how other animals sometimes have little ones tangled around their footses. Before long, those little ones grow big and I expect this one will too. Me, I don’t want nothing to do with it. Eve, sweetheart, you’ll have your hands full.

We’ll worry about that when the time comes. Meanwhile, get busy and build a cradle for him.

Okay. What’s a cradle?

Few people know that Adam’s last name was Ripley. Many generations after him, one of his distant descendants, Robert Ripley, gave birth to Believe It Or Not. Robert discovered all sorts of things impossible to believe, but he proved they were true. He published books and his work appeared in hundreds of newspapers.

Almost certainly, his knack for this came from Adam, likely a trait passed down the line in the genes. Adam himself played this game his entire life, all 930 years. He had reached the age of 826, long after he and Eve were kicked out of the Garden, when he proved that the moon had been made of wax and published an article on it, ending of course with the phrase, Believe It Or Not.

It’s true, Eve. I’ve learnt why the moon changes size all the time. It’s from rubbing against the firmament when it skids across the sky. At times it gets so hot it disappears complete. At other times, it’s only lukewarm.

How do you know this?

It’s what happens. Believe it or not. You just have to look. It’s plain as the nose on your face. This explains all its different sizes, everything from a sliver to when it grows into a full circle. The full circle comes when the windows of heaven open and let a cold rain soak the firmament. When it’s wet, the moon glides slick as a whistle acrosst it and it don’t get hot and shrink.

You don’t have to go around braggin’ about it.

I ain’t braggin’. It satisfies me just to add to our knowledge.

Eve, more romantically inclined, took her own turn sitting up nights to watch the moon when it grew near its full round stage. Adam, once he solved the mystery of its different shapes, lost interest.

‘What’s next then?" Eve asked.

I want to learn me how fish stay alive under water.

What are you doing with that cat?

It’s part of my research.

He tied a rock to the tail of a calico cat and pitched it into the lake. Now you watch.

After a few seconds, the cat quit thrashing, stopped breathing, and sank. Next he threw out a Rhode Island Red hen that beat the surface with her wings until her feathers soaked up. She flopped over and lay still. Next, he threw out a miniature French poodle with a rock tied to its hind leg. It sank in seconds.

See? Adam said. They all quit struggling and drownded. I named what happens to them. It’s called drownding.

Time and again when he conducted his experiments, the animals all drownded. Some, with no rocks dangling from their legs, scrambled to shore.

Fish, however, managed just fine under water. Adam never did solve that mystery, but he did learn to build a rowboat and devise ways to catch fish. Here too, another mystery developed.

Fish, after he hauled them into his boat, soon quit jumping around, stopped breathing, and lay still. This seemed a strange contradiction.

I can’t no way understand this, he said.

Adam had caught a tiger Muskie four feet long and almost lost a couple of fingers before it quit snapping its fierce teeth. Chuck it back in the lake, Eve said. See if it starts to swim again.

He flung it overboard. It floated, but failed to twitch a single fin. It’s done for, he said.

"Drag it back in. I’ll cook it for supper.

#

Ain’t Baldy a gorgeous child? Eve said. Blue eyes, yellow hair, and putted together so nice. He has a excellent shape. I can sit and watch him play all day long. All the animals love him. The monkeys play catch with him. The lions take him for rides, and the horses, my oh my, they’ve tooken him on such long trips I most begin to worry sometimes.

No need to fret, Adam said.

I would like some company now and then. When you’re gone for days on your discoveries, I feel lonesome for you. I don’t know why.

I miss you too, sweetheart.

Can you explain it?

I think it’s the way we’re made. You were made to serve as a helper for me, but often it’s the other way around. I seem to be helping you. You catch on to things so fast, a heap faster’n I do.

Don’t I know that.

We don’t have to bother our heads with wondering why we miss each other. We can just enjoy each other all we can. We have only one thing to avoid.

The fruit of that tree,. I know. We have to avoid it like the plague.

Adam nodded, but added, What’s a plague?

I’m not sure, but I think it’s when everybody gets sick from some kind of a disease. Mostly it’s only an expression, a saying I thought up.

What’s a disease?

There you go again, Eve said.

Gim’me a break, will you? How am I going to learn if I don’t ask questions? It helps you too, don’t it?

I guess so. Anyways, the fruit from that tree, we don’t dare eat it.

I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole, Adam said. There. That’s an expression I thought up.

You’ve learned to love Baldy too, haven’t you.

I sure have. It’s puzzling. He looks a little like me, and every day, he seems even more so. How old is he now?

He came out 2,555 days ago.

Good grief. Your way with numbers, it amazes me.

It’s like I take a pencil and make an X on a piece of paper in my brain. It just happens.

What’s a pencil, and what’s an X?

Adam, forget it. Believe me, he’s 2,555 days old.

#

Baldy had been playing catch with a chimp and an orangutan. They tired of it and left. Baldy sat resting on a bench beside a small stream. God came out from behind a mulberry tree where he had stood with Snake, watching. They sat with Baldy, one on each side.

How are you today? God asked.

I thought you knew everything. I’m fine.

I have to tell you, Baldy. The time has came. I didn’t plan on you and I’ve got to remove you.

Oh? To where?

To nowhere. I’m taking you out of the picture. You will cease to exist. It will be like you were never borned.

God leaned back and behind Baldy’s head, nodded to Snake. Snake stood and moved behind the boy. In half a second, he whipped his tail around his neck and choked the life out of him.

Good job, God said. Take him away and get rid of him. I don’t want no evidence. Not a shred, Understand?

Snake nodded.

#

Have you seen Baldy? Eve asked.

No.

He’s been gone three days.

He’s probly gone on a long horse ride. Same as always. No need to worry.

Five days passed.

Seven.

Ten.

Eve, darling, you’re white as a sheet. Every day you look worser.

Something has happened to him, she said.

On the twenty-first day, God appeared once again and accosted Eve. My dear, he said, you must quit worrying. Baldy no longer exists.

What?

He’s gone. He ain’t no more. It’s like if I vaporized him. I din’t want him in the first place. I din’t plan for him. Your love for him was misplaced.

In a pig’s eye! He came out of me and I loved him. So did Adam, and the animals all loved him.

That’s just too bad. In any case, he’s a goner. You’ll have to learn to live without him. And don’t get smart with me. Or else.

Or else what?

You’ll be sorry.

With this, God blinked and disappeared.

Eve called for Adam. Adam!

Ya!

Get your hinder in here. We need to talk.

Yes, my love.

Where’s that tree God ordered us to stay away from?

In the middle of the garden. That’s all I know.

Come on, let’s go find it.

They had searched for an hour when Snake showed up. Hello, kids. What’s happening?

Eve said, That tree with the forbidden fruit, where’s it at?

God didn’t mean it when he ordered you to leave it alone, did he? Snake said.

That’s for you to know and us to find out. Where is it? Or don’t you know neither?

Of course I know.

Show it to us.

Snake led them to the tree. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

Lovely, Eve said. God gave us orders to leave it alone. If we ate its fruit, we’d die.

Bosh, said Snake. Surely you wouldn’t fall into death.

What does ‘death’ mean? Adam asked.

It’s when you stop breathing and can’t wiggle anymore.

From eating one of those apples?

They’re not apples. They only look like apples. God knows that if you eat any of it, you’ll become like gods and know good and evil. He doesn’t want that for you. It’s his privilege, fit only for his position.

Get out of my way, Eve said. She yanked off a choice specimen and after several big bites, she handed it to Adam. It tastes great, she said. Try some yourself.

Adam finished it off, right down to the core.

In a flash, they realized they were naked and felt ashamed. Eve! Look at yourself. You’re barebutt naked.

Dear me. So are you. She grabbed handfuls of fig leaves and made them into loin cloths.

In the evening, God wandered out for a stroll. They heard his voice and hid in a patch of huckleberry bushes.

Adam, where are you? God said.

How come you have to ask? Adam said.

It makes a good story better.

I hearn your voice. Who were you talking to?

Nobody. I was just mumbling to myself.

I hearn your voice and I was scairt because I seen I was naked. Eve too. So we hid. I should say we tried to hide. You’re hard to hide from.

How did you know you were naked? Who told you? Have you et the forbidden fruit?

Adam turned to Eve. The way it looks, he don’t know everything after all.

Shut your face, God said.

Yeah! We et the fruit. Eve tried it first and passed it on to me and I et it also. It tasted swell.

To Eve, God said, What are you trying to pull here? What’s the big idea?

Snake tricked me. It’s his fault.

That does it, Mr. Snake. You are now cursed above all cattle and every critter in the field. From now on you’ll slither along on your big fat belly. You’ll lose some weight, I’d guess, living on dust.

"But I don’t like dust. Please."

No buts about it, God said. "Down you go. And you, young lady, You’re in for it. You and all women. When you have babies, you’ll scream your heads off with the pain. What’s more, your husbands will rule over you.

"You don’t get off neither, Buster. Because you listened to your wife, I curse you both. I repeat my order for you to be fruitful and multiply, but you and all humans forever will fight fourteen kinds of venereal disease and a thousand more diseases I ain’t thunk up yet.

"I curse the ground you walk on. You’ll fight thorns and thistles. You won’t make a crop without working your butt off. You’ll earn bread in the sweat of your face until you