Where has the husband gone?

Reading Advisory: Posts in this blog that are labeled as ‘Conversations with God’ are factual accounts of my dreams over the last few months. Dreams, as you know, have this ineffable ‘dream like’ quality and they cannot be blogged as such. So I have done a bit of spicing up to put them together in this blog. However every effort is taken to preserve the actual content and character of the conversation as it was privately revealed to me. I am not responsible for any ignorant bigotry that may arise out of stupidly accepting these dreams as reality.

Conversation continues from here

“It doesn’t matter, Earthling. I don’t listen to prayers anyway” God said.

“Why?” I asked.

“You see, I am a God. I have a divine plan. I can’t change my plan for every bugger who is asking for something that he is confessedly unworthy of”

“Yeah... got you”

“Now tell me, when did you apes start believing in stuff like soul?”

“Well, we evolved those beliefs”

“How?”

“We have to go far back in time to understand how this belief would have evolved”

“How far?” God asked.

“May be 500,000 Years Back. To the Serengeti Plains of Africa” I said.

“Okay”

“Back then Lucy and Jenny were friends. They always went out together for food gathering”

“Good for them”

“One day they saw an elephant carcass on their way back. The elephant had died couple of hours back. The sight of a massive elephant carcass gave them a combined sense of awe and terror”

“I see” said God.

“As days go by, the elephant carcass began to rot. Lucy couldn’t stand the sight of rotten elephant carcass and started taking a long circuitous route back home”

“What about Jenny?” God asked.

“Strangely, Jenny didn’t make a big fuss out of rotten elephant carcass and decided to take the same route back.”

“Hmm… That’s weird”

“Well, she didn’t want to take a long circuitous route”

“Hmm..”

“Soon, Jenny got sick because of this rotten elephant carcass. Her proximity to rotten carcass resulted in bacterial infection and her eventual death”

“Thou shall hate rotten carcasses”

“People, like Jenny, who weren’t disgusted at the sight of rotten carcasses perished soon. But folks like Lucy survived, had children and passed on their carcass abhorrence genes to their descendents.”

“So, what’s your point here?” God asked.

“People are repulsed at the thought of rotten carcasses only because those ancestors who were indifferent to the sight and smell of rotten carcasses did not survive long enough.”

“Well - ” God tried to interrupt.

“The ancestors who were disgusted at the sight and smell of rotten carcasses lived long enough to have children and were able to pass on their genes”

“I have no time for your evolution showoffs, Monkey boy. You aren’t answering my question yet”

“I will get to that in a moment”

“Sooner the better, I am not the sitcom type” God was impatient.

“Let’s fast forward a bit”

“Okay –“

“Fifty thousand years back, in the same Serengeti Plains of Africa”

“Got you”

“Now, all surviving folks are the descendents of people like Lucy who were abhorrent of carcasses”

“Yes”

“In addition to their carcass abhorrence, these women had evolved one more interesting trait over the generations. A trait that still hasn’t evolved in many other non human apes”

“What the hell was that?” God was curious.

“Constant receptivity to sex; Unlike a Gorilla or a Chimpanzee female, a human female is receptive to sex all around the year” I explained.

“How relevant is this to our discussion?” God wondered.

“Very important” I said “Human female’s constant receptivity to sex is the single most important reason why we have a concept of family.”

“Explain.” said God.

“Her continuous receptivity to non procreative sex made it unnecessary for the early man to seek another woman.”

“Okay”

“In this setting of a primitive family, our Lucy Jr. would - ”

“Who is Lucy Jr.?”

“Well, a descendent of the Lucy who stayed away from rotten carcasses”

“Oh I see”

“Unlike her early ancestors, who hadn’t evolved constant receptivity to sex and had no constant male companion in their lives, Lucy Jr. would have developed a strong intimacy with her partner”

“Hmm…”

“She would have adored his hunting scares, unshaven face, rugged hair and muddy skin”

“Understandable” said God.

“And he would have cared for her, provided her with food, protected her from predators and comforted her through those dark dangerous nights of African Savannah”

“Quid Pro Quo”

"Now, if he dies, Lucy Jr. will be in a dilemma”

“What dilemma?” God asked.

“She would have inherited an inherent disgust for dead bodies from those ancestors who had stayed away from rotten carcasses. But, unlike them who were having one off mating sessions with total strangers, Lucy Jr. would have developed a deep intimacy with her male companion” I explained.

“I agree”

“So, when he dies, Lucy Jr. will be so mentally attracted towards his memories and so physically repulsed at his decaying corpse”

“And…”

“This dilemma will force her to conjure up a mental image of her husband devoid of physical body”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because, with this conjured up mental image, she can cherish the memories of her companion long after his body is totally engulfed by bacteria”

“So this conjured up mental image of her husband eventually developed into a soul?”

“Yes, the concept of soul may well have begun when Lucy Jr. woke up one morning, looked at a decaying corpse beside her and speculated where her husband had gone”

Conversation will continue...