Uncle Wayne
2012-07-06 09:57:39 UTC
“Adamah bara… We came from the soil. We are its children,” said Papagee’s father, when he held a clump of dirt in his hand, rubbed it with his fingers, and examined it. His eyes sparkled against the background of a face weathered by the sun. Gray hair, the harbinger of his death, protected him from the heat rays when he worked on his farm.
Papagee’s mother died early in his life. He didn’t know her except for a picture in a scrapbook. A small woman with short blonde hair and freckles on her face, her picture seemed to hypnotize him as he stared at it for long hours before he slept at night. In the photograph, she stood next to his father, and became the image of love in Papagee's mind. After she died, he lived with his father on the farm and learned the ways of the land.
“Find the mold marks and turn the leaves toward the sun,” his father taught him when they labored in the heat of the day. Soy beans needed the sunrays to fight off mold before the harvest.
“Love the soil ... and it will love you back,” they chanted when they weeded the plants and cultivated the land.
“Why is it important, Papagee?” his father said. They hugged each other and continued to labor in the heat. The expression taught Papagee to ask questions before he made decisions in his life.
“College is the way to go,” his father told him about a thousand times when he was young and home schooled by a computer disc.
The college professors taught Papagee that life forms chemotropically evolved: The soil and its trace elements served as the building blocks of life.
Papagee recalled the words of an ancient song, "Adamah adam adamah,” which meant ‘from the soil we came and to the soil we will return.’
As the years passed, his father grew old and returned to the soil. He died before technology enabled the people on the planet to extend their lives.
Papagee Albright now lived on an island with good soil, but the contaminated dirt on the rest of the planet could not be touched or held in your hand.