THE LOST GOSPEL OF ADAM
For Liz, because she encouraged me.The future was everything they expected it to be. Flying cars, oppressed clones, damned dirty apes—the whole lot. Teleportation was the standard mode of transportation, and walking was passe. Exercise was a thing of the past, though no one ever got fat, because it was the future, and honestly, who's ever seen a fat person in visions of the future?
Everyone knew The Truth in the future. This was because people were sick of being lied to. Lying was the only criminal act for which one could be put to death in those days; even murder wasn't so horrible, as long as you 'fessed up right away.
A side-effect of this frantic thirst for Truth was the slow elimination of all forms of story-telling. Novels, movies, television sit-coms and cop-dramas, all were considered a kind of lie. The only information exchanged was News in brain-to-brain transmission to ensure that no details were omitted or adjusted. Everyone knew everything there was to know about their world in the future.
Religion was a tricky subject, though.
On the one hand, you couldn't really prove that anything said about religion was True.
On the other hand, you couldn't really prove that anything said about religion was False.
In the end, it was rather left alone, left as something that happened in the comfort of everyone's home, and pretty much ignored in public.
And then one day, a bright sunny day—though all the days were bright and sunny because the atmosphere was thin and there just weren't as many clouds in the future—an amazing discovery was discovered.
It was called the Lost Gospel of Adam, and it described how Adam saved the world by stopping the Apocalypse. Despite intital thought, everyone soon learned the Truth that this was not Adam-and-Eve Adam, but rather a most surprising Antichrist Adam, an Adversary, Destoryer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness Adam.
The gospel told of how this Antichrist Adam was mistakenly raised by the wrong human parents, and therefore became unaccountably human in his personality, and so when the time came for The End and the Horsepersons Rode and Frogs Fell in Flying Saucers, Antichrist Adam did not in fact lead a Revolution of Lucifer's Minions to the battle of Heaven and Angels All, but rather decided Life was quite fine as it was, and left it be.
The people of the future found this to be rather touching, when they got right down to it. After all, Jesus had died for their sins, but His Opposite had let them all live despite them. Rather touching, and humbling, indeed.
And so, since no one could deny that the Apocalypse had Never Happened, there was no course but to accept this all as Truth, and a new wave of enlightenment followed.
At least, that is, until the following Saturday, which is when the Apocalypse happened For Real.
Pity, that.
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