I am Earthman
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– Eva?
The girl looked at him in surprise and spoke in his own native language, quite clearly and clearly;
– How do you know me, you are not from our tribe and we have never met before. Who are you?
When he heard his native language, he came to himself a little, but still stuttering and very loudly;
"I… I … am from your tribe, I came in peace, I just left you a long time ago. I am infinitely happy that I have returned to my native places.
Then he, directing his eyes upwards and raising his hands, as if addressing the almighty, joyfully began to utter words of gratitude to God; Oh God, forgive us, your children, I will never, never leave my native Land created by you, because there is no other such planet in the entire Universe. Forgive all my fallen relatives.
The girl did not understand why, raising her hands up, this naked stranger was happy and shouting at the top of her voice, and she thought: "maybe this man is crazy, but, in any case, he does not pose a danger to her with his behavior." So thinking, she turned around and started to leave, because she needed to get at least some food for food by the evening. When he saw that the girl was leaving, he immediately fell silent, lowered his hands, following her with a confused look, at first he stood as if rooted to the spot, but after realizing that she was moving away from him, he stumbled after her, and on the run he turned to her;
– Please, girl, don't leave me here, I don't want to be alone anymore, please take me with you.
The girl stopped, and at first he approached her a little timidly, but at the same time a little shyly. She turned away and said;
–At least with something to cover up.
Only then did he realize that he was completely naked and blushed shamefacedly. She took out a battered, terribly smelling flap of skin cloth from a bag for collecting food and gave it to him. He somehow covered himself with this skin flap. After that, they went on together in silence, and came to a mountain spring, around which there were stunted trees and many different herbs. There, the girl, taking a stone knife in her hands, with the usual movement of her hands, excavated the earth around the spring, extracted earthworms and collected them in a small bag. He hung around her awkwardly, wanted to help her, but didn't know where to start. After that, she gathered fragrant green herbs around the spring. After collecting earthworms and green herbs, she sat down by the water, washed her hands, face and, looking at her reflection in the water, put her long hair in order. It was felt that the girl already feels awkward with a man. Then she filled another leather bag with water from the spring and gave the bag into his hands. When it was dark, they came to the cave where Eve lived. The entrance to the cave was small, the entrance opening was like a corridor, about three meters long, one and a half meters wide and two meters high. As we entered inside, it was felt that the cave itself is quite wide and the ceiling is high. In the middle of the cave, around a small black stone, a light smoldered. Eva put dry twigs on the fire, quickly built a fire. And then, by the light of the fire, he saw that in the middle of the black stone on top there was a natural, smooth, oiled dimple that served as a cauldron for cooking hot food. When the stone was warmed up, Eve cooked hot food from worms and greens in its dimple and put the food into a stone cup with a wooden spoon. Eva, putting the wooden spoon to the side, began to eat food with her hands and at the same time made a tin in his direction, "eat". Only after that, he also began to eat with his hands, like Eve. They ate in silence. It seemed to him that he had never eaten such delicious food. He could hardly believe that he was seeing all this in reality, and not in a dream. He shed tears of joy and almost cried.
After finishing the meal, Eva asked;
– What is your name, stranger?
– Call me Adam.
– Why "call me Adam". Isn't that your real name?
He blushed because he was lying. His name wasn't Adam, but no matter how hard he tried to remember his real name, he couldn't do it. At times, and then for very short moments, he remembered only the good-natured face of his mother. Every time he remembered his mother's face, the same picture appeared before his eyes, as his mother addressed him and began his name with the letter " A " a, then only the movement of her lips without a sound. Even when he was with the aliens, he thought that this amnesia of his memory would never pass, that he would never again remember his name, his loved ones, and always, and then for a very short time, only the tender and kind face of his mother would appear before his eyes. When the aliens brought him to Earth, he could not even imagine that he would meet a living person here, especially a woman named Eva. Now, having met her, that is, the earthly Eve, he also wanted to become Adam, that is, the first man-man after the thermonuclear catastrophe. Therefore, he quickly regained control of himself and replied;
"That's my real name. I don't have another name.
The girl looked at him suspiciously and continued to ask questions;
–When we met, you said that you are from our tribe and speak our language, but why have I never seen you, and you are small in height, not like us, and your name sounds somehow not like ours. Where do you live, how did you get to these places?
At first, he did not know how to answer this question of the girl, because more than three hundred years have passed since he, after a nuclear disaster, involuntarily left the Earth. During this time, everything has changed on Earth. He is an ordinary person, like other former earthlings, of average height. And it can be, most likely, it has become high, perhaps due to a decrease in atmospheric pressure on Earth after a nuclear disaster, or because of the long-term influence of an increased dose of radiation on the body of its ancestors, which then echoed on their descendants. According to the definition of the eye, her height was about two and a half meters and compared to his own height, at one meter eighty, she looked like a giant. But, for obvious reasons, he could not say all this now and would explain it to her. All that he thinks about this, leaving for later, he replied;
–It's just that since I left you, I was in very distant places and I didn't feed as important as here, so I probably became small in stature.
–After all, why don't I remember you, you look only a little older than me, or did you leave very young when I was very young, who were your parents, where are they now?
–Yes, yes, I was very young, I almost don't remember my parents and relatives, they are no more. And I don't have a place to live. I am lonely, I lived far from these places, I got lost in search of food and accidentally ended up here. I ask you, if you can, to shelter me for a while. I'll leave later, I won't be a burden to you.
The girl looked at him again and thought that this man did not pose any danger to her from the look and conversation. Moreover, when she saw his pale, pitiful state, she thought, "poor guy, probably really fed is not important" and replied;
– Stay, you're not bothering me. But, you will get your own food yourself.
"I'll do anything if you don't send me away."
She didn't press him any further. After these conversations, he began to explore the cave with curiosity. It was a large karst cave. He could only see the part where the light from the fire fell. It was felt that the cave was very large in size, deep and long in length. The shelter of Eve reminded the shelter of the life of primitive people.
Eve, noticing this;
–I still don't know where the end of this cave is. My ancestors have lived here since time immemorial. When I was still a little girl, I learned from the conversations of my elders and remembered that somewhere far down there is a large underground lake and one end of the lake opens into an open area surrounded by a high mountain with steep, smooth rocks, and that it is impossible to go up and out of the cave from inside the cave. They said that there, the mountain, with the inside, supposedly resembles an open dome a little bit and only the blue sky is visible from the open part of the dome, and at night the stars are visible. And, in that lake there are all kinds of animals that smell terribly, and our distant ancestors, that is, cavemen, once lived there. I've never been down there myself.
– And, where are your parents and the rest of the people?
–They are no longer alive, they are all dead.
After being silent for a while, she continued with a sad tone;
–My mother's name was Elena, my father's name was uncle Kolya. I got the name Eva in honor of my grandmother, who died shortly before I was born. Our tribe was small, I never counted the number of people. Everyone knew everyone by sight and by name. This is not the main thing, the main thing is that people were close, lived together, got food together, children were friends, played together, rejoiced, had fun. It seemed to me that this would go on forever, because my parents were there, many children and their parents, other people. But there was a disaster. It was a long time ago. Once, when I was still a little girl, that is, I just learned how to collect worms and herbs, I got sick. My mother said that it was a cold and would pass quickly, I just needed to lie down. That's why they left me alone in the cave that day. The others all went to get food. It was everyone's daily work. The children also went to help the elders, collect worms and herbs. The mothers took the infants with them. The male hunters also did not go hunting that day, but left together with everyone. As usual, when everyone left to get food, in the evening, and sometimes even earlier, but they always returned to the cave. But none of them came back that day. I was terribly scared and that night I did not close my eyes, waiting for the return of my mother, father and other people. Three more days and three nights passed, but they did not return. I was very hungry, because I had already eaten the food that my mother left me the day they left. Then, although I was very ashamed of my actions at that time, I fed on the leftovers and food supplies of others, drank water, no longer fresh, but unpleasant-smelling, from the water supply, stored in special leather bags just in case. All this time, although I was afraid to stay alone in the cave, I was also very afraid to leave the cave. I was afraid I wouldn't find them and would get lost like them. And I was also very afraid of losing the fire, my only protection from the dark forces, and I supported it in every possible way day and night. In those distant times, when I was left alone, there were still enough coal reserves collected by our fathers, and therefore I did not present any special difficulties for me as now. Although I was still a little girl, I remember well the day when all our people left and never came back. The day was sunny, bright and warm, but after a while after they left, a strong hurricane wind suddenly blew, dark clouds suddenly appeared in the sky, it quickly darkened around, and then a heavy downpour poured. I went to the exit of the cave and saw how the earth boiled during a downpour. The old people said that earlier, too, sometimes, once every two years, there were such rains, after which the worms and herbs died out, and then after a while they reappeared. Such times, and not only such times, and sometimes as needed, as our grandfathers, old men and our grandmothers told us, that is, children, male hunters went down into the depths of the cave and extracted terribly smelling animals from the lake and we fed on them. Our mothers made bags for collecting food and clothes from the skin of these creatures. And the fat of these animals, for cooking in winter and for a torch, was stored in a stone pit covered with a blanket made from their own skin. I will show you this pit later, there is still a lot of fat stored there and the fat has not yet deteriorated. So, since then I have been living alone. As I have already said, at first, that is, the first time when I was left alone, I was very afraid to leave the cave, and then, gradually, the fear was replaced by the need to find food, feed and survive, and I began, at first fearfully, and then more and more boldly, coming to the spring. This is the spring you saw where we collected food. The spring comes out directly from the belly of the mountain, slightly deepened inside, and perhaps that is why, even in winter, despite the fierce frosts, it does not freeze. The water was clean then, as clean as it is now. I drank only water from the spring every day and chewed skin flaps with an unpleasant smell, there was no other food. Sitting by the spring for a long time, I cried every day and waited for my parents, my friends and other people, but they were not there, as if they all fell through the ground at once. Coming to the spring in the morning and spending days at the spring, I returned to the cave every day in the evening, and then putting pieces of coal in the fire so that it would not go out, I hid between the stones and fell asleep there. I was so scared and lonely, but none of them ever came back. Especially at night, I was afraid of the dark part of the cave, as if dark forces from my mother's fairy tales were about to come out of there and take me deep into the cave, then to take over my soul. But this did not happen, and the fear gradually also passed. The worms appeared quickly. Maybe not all the worms died out, and I started feeding on them. After a while, herbs appeared around the spring. So the days passed, and I gradually, although it was very difficult for me to accept the fate that fell to my lot, but I got used to being alone and to surviving in these difficult conditions. When I became an adult, I went around everything and then I found out that when that bad day began a strong bitter downpour, all the people of my tribe were hiding in a small cave located just below, not far from the spring. But there they were all covered by a dirty mudflow formed after that bitter rain and they all died there. None of them escaped. When I went into this cave, I saw their bones there. That's how I've been living alone ever since. To this day, as if it were yesterday, I remember the last, tender look of my mother before leaving and as if I hear her, soothing my soul, tender words. I also remember my friend Sissy. She wanted to stay with me so much that day, but her mother took her with her, telling her "you will play with Eva in the evening when we return". Here, the Sissy would have stayed with me that day, even if she had also been alive.
Here Eva paused, then continued;
– Fortunately, there were no more such bitter rains, only sometimes there are good rains, after which there are more worms and herbs. But, still, when it starts to rain, I am very afraid and quickly hide.
From her stories about bitter rains, he realized that it was about acid rain. It was obvious that remembering all this, Eva was very sad, but she held firm and did not cry. And he was also very surprised inwardly how, after so many years, the girl preserved her language and culture of communication at a very high level, because she lived and lives in the conditions of primitive man's life, for a long time, that is, from an early age, she did not communicate with anyone, lived and survived alone. Interrupting his thoughts, he asked;