Story 33
Couples
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Damascus and his scribe vet entrants into Noah’s Ark.
To be honest, the true story of Noah’s Ark has never been told. At least, that is what we now know after the finding of more fragments of the Dead Sea scrolls announced in March of 2021. After many hours of deciphering and putting together the jig-saw puzzle of the fragments, we slowly began to realize that the fragments we found were in fact a retelling of the story of Noah’s Ark. In a retelling, we admit, there may be some embellishment. But we ask you to bear with us while we reconstruct the story to the extent that the fragments allow. Carbon dating, by the way, suggests that these fragments date well before the bible, old testament that is, as we know it. This story predates the bible, probably by several thousand years. But the measurement of time so distant remains malleable, something like a time fog. We walk into it at our own risk, arms extended, eyes lost in time, feeling our way with each uncertain step.
A further -- embarrassing to some -- difficulty is that there is much argument over what the ark looked like, how big it was, and, horror of horrors, there is no way such a boat could fit all God’s species. Not to mention that the pundits of history insist that the number that got off the boat after the terrible flood subsided, was the same number as got on. Are you kidding me? Especially as they were on the ark for whatever number of years, how is this humanly or earthly possible?
The preoccupation of experts with the size, structure and building of the ark blinded them to what is by far the most impossible, certainly hugely challenging problem, of how to actually select and process the candidates for entry into the boat. Here are just a few small details. We know that there are countless species of life in our world, from plants and insects, to birds, animals and humans, not to mention microbes. Indeed, we can assume that in biblical times they had not yet discovered microbes as individuals, but rather only knew them as plagues sent by Gods of one kind or another, to punish humans for their existence. Just imagine the chaos. Every living thing learns of the impending disaster of the biggest flood ever to occur (in the past or future what’s more), so wouldn’t they all be clamoring to get on the boat?
Indeed, they were. And that is why Noah in his wisdom (obviously guided by God) immediately hired the best bureaucrat he could find, whose name was Damascus, who founded the city of that name. That’s right, who begat, and begat, and begat after many thousands of years, the eventual progeny John Damascene, who became the Chief financial officer to the Caliph of Damascus.
And Noah said to Damascus: “I need you to select as many couples up to about three hundred, as I will be able to fit on my boat.”
“How big is the boat?” asked Damascus.
“I won’t know until I’ve built it,” said Noah, impatiently.
“You must have some idea,” complained Damascus, looking at Noah, trying to discern what was going on in that head, ninety percent of which was covered by hair, whiskers and a beard growing in all directions.
“Honestly, I don’t know yet. I’m waiting on instructions,” said Noah impatiently.
“From whom, may I ask?”
“You may not,” snapped Noah. I prayed last night, and I usually get an answer after a few years.”
Damascus rubbed his closely shaven chin. “You must have some idea, even a rough ballpark figure would help.” Damascus wanted to tell his boss to get his hair done and have a shave. But he resisted. He was beginning to regret having taken on this impossible task.
“All I can say is that there have to be couples, male and female couples, all from different kinds,” muttered Noah, annoyed by this fastidious bureaucrat.
Damascus turned away, grumbling, “All right, I’ll see what I can do. But you better hurry up with more information, or I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” asked Noah, shaking his hammer, clearly a threat.
“Never mind,” called Damascus as he hurried away into the small town, if that is what it was, more like a honeycomb of caves.
Noah dropped his hammer and fell down onto his rough, leather-like knees, to pray yet again. Surely he must get an answer soon.
In fact, no sooner had he dropped on his knees than a huge flash of lightning struck the rock beside him, accompanied by a few drops of rain.
“Count the drops and you will have your answer!” came a voice from somewhere inside his head.
And so Noah counted. And counted. And counted. He made it up to one thousand and sixty nine, but then had to stand up because his knees were hurting, then lost count and had to guess where he was up to.
Damascus hurried to the caves, looking inside, trying to see how many beings were in there, asking any couples who were there to come forward. All he found were scruffy humans, a snake or two, though no snake couples. This was going to be a challenge, he could see. It would require expert organization and most of all, an effective way to communicate the availability of a free ride on the only boat that will be afloat when the great flood arrives. And who would believe that the flood will be so big that it will drown everyone and everything? Was that really going to happen? Damascus decided that he needed another information gathering interview with Noah, whose communication skills seemed wanting.
After doing the rounds of the caves, followed by a scribe he had hired on the promise that he would be allowed on the boat when the flood came, so long as he was accompanied by a partner making an acceptable couple. He described the couples to the scribe and their rough location identified by an X he had made on a rough drawing of the cave locations. He could see that this was not a sensible way to record this information, so he immediately set about numbering all the caves and giving names to the inhabitants. Many did not have names, they just referred to each other as “this,” or “that” and pointed. The snakes kept biting at his heels until he stamped on one and warned that if they did not behave he would not select any couples from snakedom. That had an immediate effect, and to his amazement, the snakes quickly proffered up a few couples of different looking snakes, pythons, tigers, adders etc. Those are the names Damascus gave them. But he had heard that there were many more strange animals, big ones with four legs, some with long noses, or long necks, striped, and of course there were birds, some of them he had seen roosting way up the top of the cliff, eagles or something like that he called them, huge things that swooped down on the snakes and gave them a terrible life, living in constant danger of being grabbed up and eaten.
Damascus turned to his scribe. “You need to go off to the jungle and see what else you can find. Spread the word that Noah is prepared to take legitimate couples only — that is, male and female couples — no hermaphrodites or whatever. Just keep it plain and simple. And if anyone argues, strike them off the list.”
“What if they don’t want to come? I mean, who would want to get on a boat for who knows how long, maybe several lifetimes if what you say Noah said is true?” asked the scribe.
Damascus looked at his scribe, now well washed and shaven, according to his orders. “You have to tell them all that a huge flood is coming, so big, according to Noah, that it will drown everyone and everything in its path. That should scare them.”
“But if what you said Noah said that he hasn’t got room for everyone, only one couple of a kind, we’ll have a riot on our hands with everyone wanting to get on the boat,” complained the scribe.
“Scribe,” sighed Damascus, “please do as you are told, and let me worry about the rest.”
The scribe, hunched over and frightened of his boss, trotted away mumbling, “all right, all right, I was only asking.”
*
“Noah! Are you there? Where are you?” Hearing nothing except hammering, Damascus cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled again. “Noah? Noah?”
A faint voice came from somewhere inside the almost complete boat, somewhere deep in the bottom of the tremendous structure, nearly as big as an aircraft carrier, a huge monstrosity. “Come down here. I can’t come up right now. Lining the hull with bitumen,” came the muffled cry.
“I’m coming,” answered Damascus as he carefully picked his way through the timber planks, some laying loose, others nailed (wooden nails of course) in place. He descended a long ladder down to the bottom of the boat and there was Noah, filthy with bitumen all over him, applying it to the cracks between the boards of the hull. It was hot and steamy. A dreadful place, like Hell, thought Damascus.
Noah put down the wooden bucket of pitch, and said, obviously annoyed, “well, what do you want this time?”
Damascus stepped carefully off the ladder and stood in the one spot he could find that was not covered in tar. “Just need a clarification. You said two of everything. Do they have to be perfect couples?”
“There is no such thing as a perfect couple, ever since Adam and Eve. You should know that,” growled Noah.
“By couple you mean…?”
“Don’t you know anything? Male and female, of course. What else is there?”
Of course, Noah could not possibly know what we know today, that there are at least six variations on the idea of coupling. So he should have accepted six by six instead of two by two species representations.
Damascus bowed his head. “I’m sorry, Noah. I will have my scribe look for the closest to perfect couples he can find. Male and female. It’s just that I thought…”
Noah interrupted him impatiently. “It’s not your job to think. It is your job to find and count what you have been told to do. Now, off you go, and don’t come back until you have your selections all lined up and ready to board.”
Damascus bowed his head even more. “I apologize, sir, great one…”
“And none of that great business. You think I’m God or something? Don’t be so blasphemous, or I will not allow you to join us on the boat when we set sail.”
Damascus retreated, but could not help asking one more question. “Noah? May I ask, when is the flood coming? How much time do I have?”
Noah took a large handful of bitumen and sploshed it on the boards of the hull. “It will be ready when you have them all lined up, and not before. The flood will come only after we have loaded the boat. Stop your worrying. It’s my job to worry. Yours to get the species all lined up. Now get out of here and do your job.”
Damascus retreated up the ladder, thoroughly confused. He had received no real answers to any of his questions. But at least if something went wrong, he could blame it on Noah. He came away from Noah feeling humbled, actually worse than that. He feared Noah’s wrath, and resented that such a bully was so close to God. It did not seem fair to him. But, a job was a job, and he was prepared to put up with the abuse if it meant that he was assured to have a spot in the ark, along with his extended family. They would be the only humans on the boat.
And so the years went by, who knows how many. Noah was supposed to have lived for some 950 years, so you can imagine the challenges Damascus faced ferreting out and lining up his couples, supervising his scribe, recording every species and its couples, lining them up. Then there was the superhuman challenge of keeping the couples all in line, well fed so they would not start eating each other, entertained and engaged. All in all, the species behaved themselves. After all, they were promised a spot on the ark, all the rest of their species doomed to drown in the coming flood.
Unfortunately, there was just one problem. A species, just a single, not a couple, showed up and insisted to the scribe that it must be included. The scribe looked it up and down. “Can’t you read?” he asked impatiently, The sign says Couples Only, No Exceptions.”
“What?” asked the single again, ‘read’? What’s that?”
“No wonder Noah only wants couples,” thought the scribe to himself, “if singles are all as ignorant as this one, the world would be better off if they went down with the flood.”
The scribe repeated, “you have to be a perfect couple,” said the scribe, “step aside” and he scratched away at his enormously long scroll of papyrus.
The single species refused to budge. “I am a perfect couple,” it said.
“You can’t be,” said the scribe looking up and around. “There’s only one of you.”
“I should be at the head of the line,” complained the single. “I’m super special. There’s nothing like me anywhere.”
“I’m not surprised,” mumbled the scribe, writing away. “In any case, even if the boss let you in, you’d have to be at the back of the line. No pushing in allowed. You have to wait your turn.”
The single stood (it had legs, body and arms, looked suspiciously like a human) and refused to move. “I demand to see your supervisor,” it ordered.
“He’s busy counting the couples right now. Has to have the count by sundown, and ready to board at dawn tomorrow.”
The single grabbed the scribe’s stylus and threw it away. “I demand to see your supervisor!” it yelled, hands on hips, a most threatening manner.
The scribe stood up and stepped back, frightened. “All right! All right!” But I can tell you it will be of no use. He’s around the other side of the boat. But don’t blame me if you don’t come back.”
The single pushed his way past the scribe who fell back on the rock he usually sat on, and the first couple (foxes) kindly retrieved his stylus for him.
The single hurried around the side of the boat, an immense construction, walking towards where he heard hammering.
“Hey, are you the boss around here?” it called.
Noah continued hammering. He was putting up a welcome sign on which were carved ten principles for behaving on the boat.
“Are you deaf or something?” yelled the single. “Haven’t you got any manners? Answer me when I call you.”
Noah had certainly heard this grossly indecent individual. He continued hammering.
The single impatiently ran up to Noah and grabbed the hammer just as Noah’s arm was at the top of its swing. But Noah, a very strong man if ever there was one, his tough muscles well formed from the years of building the ark, easily shook the single off and swung the hammer so that it just grazed the chin of his assailant. The single fell back, and found itself sprawled on the rocky ground, trying to push itself up on its elbows.
“This is species abuse!” cried the single in a pathetically thin voice.
Noah at first ignored the single and turned his back, but then thought better of it. The individual was clearly an unsavory type and should not be trusted.
“Who are you and why have you jumped the line? And why are you not a couple?” asked Noah, swinging his hammer to and fro.
“Because,” said the single, “I am a couple, but my other is inside me. I am really two. Actually, more than two, potentially.”
“You speak gibberish,” said Noah. “Get away and be damned! I’m surprised you even made it this far. You can’t get on the ark unless you have been checked in by Damascus. And since you are clearly not a couple, you are not welcome here.”
“You mean I’m doomed?” asked the single, now contrite, starting to sob.
“I wouldn’t put it that way. But yes, you’re doomed, both of you, if what you say is true.”
“But have you no pity? Mercy even?” cried the single.
“I do,” replied Noah, “but such decisions are up to God.”
“Then can’t you at least ask Him?”
“No, I can’t. I’ve only been able to speak to Him a couple of times in a few hundred years. Anyway, He speaks to me. I don’t get to speak to Him. Now get out of here, and let me get back to my work that will save all of humanity and animality.”
Noah returned to his hammering and the single, crushed, retreated. He would have to find another way. So he went back and as he turned the corner at the bow of the boat he ran into Damascus.
“Oops, sorry” said the single.
“What are you doing here? Only couples should be behind the boat. Who gave you permission?”
“I don’t need permission. I’m special,” answered the single.
“Couples are special, singles are not,” said Damascus impatiently.
“And I suppose you’re a couple?” asked the single, sarcastically.
“My wife and I. Of course we are,” answered Damascus.
“So where is she, then?” asked the single cheekily.
“None of your business. Anyway she’s with our children.”
“And they are all couples?” persisted the single.
Damascus looked him up and down. “Who are you, anyway?” asked Damascus, “why should I waste my time talking to you? Get away from here, go back to where you came from.”
“I will not leave. I insist I have a right to get on the boat. Just because I’m special, different that is. I am a couple in myself. There’s nothing else I can tell you.”
“That doesn’t give you the right. The rules are the rules, and they’re made by God.”
“But I have a right.”
“Says who? I’m the boss here, and I say get to the back of the line where you belong.”
The single now became very cross. “I have every right. I’m a human. I have every right.”
“You can’t be human, because if you were there would be two of you.”
“There are.”
“I see only a single. Where’s your other? How can you procreate if you have no other?”
The single looked away. There was no answer to this. Damascus continued, seeing that he now had the upper hand in this silly argument. “I’ll tell you what.”
“Yes?” asked the single full of hope.
“Find a partner, and when there’s two of you, I’ll let you join the line.”
“But I am two, even possibly more.”
“Let’s not start that again. You are obviously one, otherwise you would be two. And Noah said that no hermaphrodites were allowed. Now go!”
The single reluctantly withdrew and slouched towards the end of the line, though it snaked away to the horizon, where the end was, maybe.
*
“All aboard!” called Noah. He stepped back to peruse his sign with great satisfaction. The sign said in large letters:
NO COPULATION ALLOWED ON DECK
COUPLES MUST STAY TOGETHER
NO CROSS-SPECIES INTERMINGLING
HUMANS MUST NOT STRAY INTO ANIMAL QUARTERS
SINGLES WILL BE THROWN OVERBOARD
“Don’t all rush at once, now!” called Damascus, “keep in line, there’s room for everyone.” At that moment, he felt a small drop of rain. He looked towards the horizon. How on earth would all these couples fit? Damascus and the scribe stood at the entrance, making sure that all the couples were perfect couples, the scribe checking each one off as they entered. But then out of nowhere, the single appeared tugging at the scribe’s elbow, jostling to the front of the line.
“I’m back, and we are a perfect couple” announced the single with much satisfaction, almost cocky.
The single had found a mate, who looked like it had come from the ice age, some kind of prehistoric thing, maybe a human. Now the rain came down in torrents. Damascus squinted through the rain at the single and its partner and pointed in the distance, “then get to the back of the line and wait your turn,” he ordered. They were hardly visible through the torrents of rain, accompanied now by frightening thunder.
“But I was here before a lot of the others,” whined the single, “it’s not fair.”
“Go to the back of the line,” ordered Damascus once again, with a very tired sigh. “You may be different, but that doesn’t make you special. Go to the back of the line and wait your turn.”
As the end of the line appeared, the scribe, exhausted, but still checking off the passengers, hardly noticed the unpalatable couple shimmering through the rain that poured into his eyes and down his face. He was overjoyed that it was the last couple. Too tired to bother questioning them, he simply entered into the ship’s manifest, “couple, species unknown.” Damascus was so tired he fell asleep, and unbeknownst to him, the scribe with the assistance of the last couple dragged him on to the boat just as it broke away from its mooring.
Now, God sent great flashes of lightning to indicate that the voyage was beginning. And the ship sailed to who knows where, and to this day has never been found. But we know that it must have survived because couples abound everywhere and in every species all over the world. And the singles, who, having remained silent for thousands of years, have at last come forward and pleaded for their recognition as something special, and continue to demand that they be placed at the head of the line rather than relegated to the end. But as humans have developed the wonderful system of democratic government, there is no line with a front or an end. There is simply a mass within which everyone must find a place; of course, an impossibility.
Moral: Being different might be special, but equity makes no allowances.