The Annals of Civilization
THE ANNALS OF CIVILIZATION
PART ONE - IN THE BEGINNING
In the Beginning was the Word. Unfortunately for the wisdom-starved denizens of planet Earth, the Word was badly garbled as it squirmed its way through the crude quasi-electronic guts of the rudimentary receiving sets the residents had rigged up to receive the Word. Since the Word was incomprehensible, no one could figure out what was What or what was Right or Wrong or even Possible in the very Beginning of the world, most creatures continued to crawl, stagger, or lurch ignorantly along their merry ways, munching up the shrubbery, squatting to befoul the landscape, and generally making nuisances of themselves in their relentless search for something vastly more important to them than meaning: Lunch.
The lowest land creatures, a taxonomically lush assortment of thousands upon thousands upon freaking thousands of nameless invertebrates, were far too distracted by the chaos and danger of being constantly “underfoot” or “gobbled upon” and expressed no curiosity whatsoever about the Word, nor anything else that happened higher than 3 inches off the ground. They ignored the more overtly ambitious, rapidly-evolving types who spent every waking hour methodically re-wiring their primitive receivers to be able to tune into the Word and, just maybe, figure out What was What. In the Beginning there were no arguments about What Was Going On because no one had the least idea and, except for the voracious giant lizards, most creatures had neither the size nor the dentition to press their views on the rest of the locals.
It wasn't all that fun at first, Life that is. There was Dark, sure, and Light, but that was about it. Since most of the residents of the planet at that time were occupied with raising their standard of living, or trying to establish one in the grim geological chaos of the Paleozoic, they didn't pay much attention to what was happening.
Well, what was happening was Reproduction. It didn’t take long, measuring on a geological scale of time, before there were so many energetic yet genetically superfluous creatures bulging Creation to its limits that God had a hard time keeping order. Disapproving of the utter chaos that was threatening to break out at any moment, God decided that some discipline was needed to help the residents of Creation define the limits of their behavior.
God created a colossal piece of Cardboard, whipped out His Crayons, and wrote out The Fundamental Rule of the Universe in large block letters. God then positioned the sign high in the vast firmament where every living creature could see it. The sign read:
NO SMOKING AFTER LIGHTS OUT
Frankly, most of the inhabitants of the earth were semi-nonplussed by such an admonition, but some of the unusually phlegmatic types, those suddenly feeling themselves to be a little less securely ensconced on the evolutionary ladder, suddenly turned churlish, and, in a peculiarly passive-aggressive expression of dashed hope, stabbed out their cigarettes in exasperation, and tossed the still-smoldering butts into soggy take-out containers. Others, less socially adept, were unsure as to how to apply The Fundamental Rule of the Universe to their own lives and resorted to high-pitched chortles, throaty scoffs, and great whoops of indignant aggravation. God took in this whole scene with a look of Eternal Grizzled Sufferance, noisily cleared His (or Her) Vast Cosmic Throat and sent the whole insufferable, cheeky lot into an eons-long coma with one mighty blast of Heavenly Halitosis.
PART TWO -THE COMING OF CIVILIZATION
Before the dawn of Civilization, life was wonderfully simple, but it wasn't all that much fun. In the Beginning, there was nothing to do. You couldn't go anywhere, there was nowhere to go. You could go out, sure, but once you were out, that was it. You either went out or you stayed home.
Most people stayed home, huddling in drafty caves with way too many of their relatives. They spent most of their time eating or arguing, sleeping or yawning, and scratching, grinning and grumbling, belching and farting, shrugging their shoulders and generally feeling stupid for not having anything interesting to say to one another.
In the Beginning, there was very little in the way of conversation, mostly because people had very few words. One of the most useful words they did have was: "Hey!", as in "Hey! Give me that!" or "Hey! Watch where you're going!" People said it out loud as they stole each other's food: "Hey! I'm stealing your lunch here!" or, to which they might reply: "Hey! Put down my goulash!"
The coming of Civilization threatened to make Life much more complicated, but hopefully a lot more interesting; but since no one had been around long enough to know what to actually expect from ‘Civilization’, or how long before it would arrive, a few of the more impatient types decided to go for coffee while they waited for Something to Happen. At first there were so few words that even though people knew where to go for coffee, they had no idea what to call the thing coffee came in.
In the earliest coffee houses, people shuffled in, sat down, looked round nervously at all the other people nervously looking around, clumsily lit their cigarettes and shouted:
"Coffee!"
and suddenly there it was, in what we now call "a cup".
But since "a cup" of coffee (the one) is never enough, people wanted more. So, God created the Refill. At first, God smiled on humanity and Refills were free. Then the Pope divided South America between Spain and Portugal, precipitating many exhausting years of Rampant Pillage and Bloodshed, a time affectionately known as the Conquest of the New World. After that, the price of coffee skyrocketed and Refills were no longer on the house.
END