Preparing for another presentation about his find, Sarasas momentarily questions his own convictions. Not about the find, the evidence is irrefutable, but whether it was worth going public with the information, similar finds would eventually be made by others who would enjoy the attention and the public scrutiny. “It was the right thing to do,” his new mantra provides no solace in this situation. After a day of five press conferences he now has to face a panel of his own peers, and though the evidence is in fact irrefutable, some of them will refute it thunderously. When you find something that should not be, the simple fact that it is often is not enough to convince those who are entrenched in commonly accepted doctrines. He knew the find would be controversial the moment he brushed over the surface of the fossil and quietly whispered to himself: "human".
Now facing the assembly of archeologists and historians, having summarily introduced himself and scanned the room for friendly faces that might have assuaged his nervous jitters and fining none, Sarasas concentrates on the business at hand. He presents the easily acceptable facts first. A human fossil comprising a skull, four ribs, three vertebrae and a leg bone. The specimen was in his forties, and probably a male, though without the hipbone we cannot be certain. And now for the controversy: the specimen was found below the plastic layer. This individual lived at least a thousand years before the start of the plastic layer. Proving that in fact humans were around much earlier than we believed, and that contrary to all of our understanding, plastic was not necessary for human survival.
Sarasas felt the audience members shift in place as if to find a more comfortable position. He continued “our long held belief that humans were created and existed only within the 300 years of the plastic layer has to be readdressed. They were around long before the plastic layer.” The audience mumbles in discontent. A young cleric in the middle of the assembly stands tall and addresses Sarasas directly. Sarasas had not noticed the cleric in the audience, but he knew what was coming. The young cleric could not have been older than his third shedding, but he was confident; a confidence borne of the certainty that his beliefs are true. The cleric’s voice boomed in the hall “Do you mean to stand there and tell us that in the era of plastic, the great creator did not bring humans into the world as a catalyst for roach evolution? Are you saying that humans were not created to nurture roaches into the next step of our evolution? Are you questioning the methods of the great creator?”
Sarasas had not expected a cleric in the audience. He wholeheartedly believed in notion that the great creator had created the inferior human species to serve roach evolution and explained to the youth that finding a human below the plastic layer does not in any way disproof the documented actions of the great creator. The fact still remains that no human evidence is found above the plastic layer as does the fact that roaches dominated the world from the end of the plastic age to this day, as determined by the great creator. “I’m not here to interpret the intentions of the great creator, or to question his methods. I will leave such lofty undertakings to more qualified individuals. I simply want to present the facts of this find, the determination of the implications of human existence below the plastic layer is outside the scope of this presentation.”
The next question came from an individual whose mannerisms unmistakably identified him as a historian. “Did you find any evidence of roaches being kept as pets by this individual, as was the practice of his descendents in the plastic layer?" Sarasas was relived at the question, religious matters were not his strong suit, and so he felt a twinge of disappointment in not being able to provide the historian with any concrete evidence that roaches shared the life of this specific early human. His disappointment made him elaborate on the answer “but we know that roaches were around long before the plastic layer, and now with this find, we know that humans were around too. Whatever conclusions we may draw, it would seem plausible that if humans and roaches were coexisting at the time this human lived, that the human must have cared for the roaches around him. It was in human nature to do so, and the will of the great creator. The evidence of human and roach coexistence in the age of plastic is overwhelming, all indications are that humans were caretakers of the roach species in our most fragile state, before we developed lungs. This human would have been no different.”
Sarasas answered a few more questions on human nature and the similarities between roaches and humans. At the end of the presentation he opened a box and invited the audience to come and examine his collection of plastic artifacts. For the younger members of the audience, this was their first physical contact with sacred plastic relics. After presenting facts that could bring the intentions of the great creator into question, Sarasas was comforted by expressions of awe in the young faces as they handled the sacred plastic items.
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