The Tarnished Hairpin

By John Smalldridge

A thrilling debut novel from John Smalldridge.The Tarnished Hairpin is the story of Adam and Eve and their excursion into the unknown world outside of the Garden of Eden. A mixture of characters, views,religion,trials and tribulations, love and war make this book a compelling read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GA&P ePublishing
• Release date: Jul 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781849893596

Book preview

1988.

In The Beginning

In the beginning. Well I’m not sure if that is the right way to begin this book or not. Trying to begin this story with In the beginning brings up two questions that man has wrestled with since the beginning. The first of these has to do with the origin of God and the second one has to do with the origin of man.

In the first, we are told that God had no beginning and will have no end. Having no end we can understand and accept, after all, we’re all here now and we all live like we will live forever. Right? The mountains and the rivers and the oceans and even our very lives are here now. They haven’t ended. That’s enough. But the idea of God or anything for that matter, having no beginning is impossible for us to grasp. How can it be that something or someone just always was? Everything that we know had a beginning, even the earth and the rest of the universe. In answer to the first question, how can it be that God had no beginning? I don’t know. I don’t know nor do I understand it. But I do know that this story is not about God directly. It’s about the first people to inhabit the earth and so I guess the words, in the beginning, are appropriate. At least that beginning to this story would be better than Once upon a time.

Having that settled, however, opens the door for the second question. You know the one about the origin of man. If it happened in the beginning as the original account recounts it, my question is why. Not so much the why as in, why did God create man? but the why as in, why did He create man then? If God had existed forever and never had a beginning Himself, why somewhere in His infinite past did He decide to create man. What great event all of a sudden caused Him to desire to have man around?

Did the angels talk Him into it? And why did He create the angles? And when did He create them? And who then talked Him into creating the angels in the first place? This brings us right back to our questions about man and his origins. Or maybe it was His Son and the Holy Spirit who talked Him into it. When He said let us and our, He seemed to be talking to someone on a higher elevated stratum than the angels.

And then, perhaps it had nothing to do with a decision based on some need He had for us. Maybe we are an experiment. And if we are just an experiment, are we the only such experiment. What if there were many Adams on many planets revolving around many suns in many galaxies. Maybe, at this very moment, while you are reading these words, God is forming another Adam in another garden somewhere in this vast universe.

And if we are just an experiment, what happens if that experiment fails? I can’t answer these questions. Just thinking about them gives me a headache. All I can do is ask the questions. I think that it would take someone with far more intelligence than I possess to give us answers. And then, I’m not sure I would understand them.

It is from this arena where the cosmic and causality collide that my story erupts. It is truly a story of fiction, with a thread of truth running through it. The truth is accepted throughout the western world and the fiction can be neither proven nor disputed. There are many what ifs floating around about the creation of the world in general and man in specific, and this is just another one. So here is my own what if.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The universe was a huge endless void. Or so it seemed. Throughout all of this limitless space were tiny particles. These particles were small, almost invisible, but there none the less. God took a handful of these particles and molded them into a tight ball that was so tight and dense that it became a magnet to the rest of the particles in the universe. He threw this ball into the center of the universe, if the universe can be said to have a center, and it immediately began to grow. As it drew the other smaller particles to it, it grew even faster. With the growth of the ball also came heat. The energy of each small particle was combined with that of every other particle until it began to glow with the heat. The more it grew the denser it became and the harder it pulled on all the other particles until, eons later, all the particles were combined into one huge white hot ball of super dense, super hot matter.

With all the matter and energy combined into one place, the power was too great to continue holding it together. The result was one gigantic explosion that hurled parts of the single mass in every direction.

God reached in again and arranged the chaos into order. He created relationships between the masses that formed the spinning galaxies. He formed the larger, hotter masses into stars and set the smaller ones in motion around these stars. These were to be the planets. He even set the yet smaller ones spinning and revolving around the planets to form moons.

He made the relationships between these masses so perfect that they were all held together in a perpetual system of checks and balances.

These movements, that he created, were so precise that the temperature on each revolving orb could be controlled to His desire. It was this temperature control that formed the water out of the steam generated by the intense heat of each sphere. The water first appeared as clouds and then later as water on the face of the planets as it cooled still further.

Reaching out His hand, God caused great movements to take place in the crusted cooling planets. This movement folded the surfaces and made the water flow to the lowest levels on each surface. All of this was accomplished with what was already there.

It was at this point that He really created. He made the world of vegetation. He created living things. First simple forms and then more complex. From algae to grass. From grass to flowers. From seaweed to tall towering trees. Soon the entire world was covered with a myriad of lush green plants, with each plant containing life that God took from His own being.

Again He intervened and created animal life. He started with the fish forms in the oceans. From there He went to animal life on the land, until there were many differing forms of animal life covering the globe. Some swam in the oceans and rivers. Some flew in the sky overhead and nested high in the treetops. Others lived and reproduced on the land. Some ate the lush vegetable life all around them, while others ate those that ate the vegetation. From the insects on the land and the microforms of the ocean to the large carnivorous fish and the thick-skinned mammals that walked the dry ground, they all had their purposes in God’s creation. And here again each living animal contained life that came from the Creator directly.

And God created the heavens and the earth, in its entire splendor, but He wasn’t through yet. He still had His primary purpose to bring about. He still had to create man.

He first had to choose the perfect spot for this, the crown on His creation. There was no spot on the earth that was found to be good enough, so He created the perfect spot. He, with the wave of His hand, grew a garden. This garden was the perfect spot. It was safe. It was isolated. It was protected. It contained springs of water that fed the abundant plant life. It was perfect. It was entirely different from any other spot on the earth. He called this special spot Eden.

Not only did He want to create the perfect spot, but also He wanted to have the perfect climate. He had been planning ahead for that. He had created a world where it never rained. There was a protective, layer several yards thick that protected the entire earth from the harmful rays of the sun. This layer was composed of minute ice crystals and surrounded the entire earth. Not only did this layer of ice crystals keep the suns rays out, it held the heat of the earth in. The entire earth was nearly the same temperature from pole to pole, varying only a few degrees.

This protective layer meant that the temperature change from day to night was minimal. Thus there were never the radical atmospheric changes that would later in the history of man bring about rain and snow and many other weather phenomena. For now, the earth was watered by heavy dew that covered everything every night. The two or three degrees of change that night brought were enough to bring the dew but not enough to make it rain. Every creek, stream, river, pond, lake, spring and even the vast oceans were made from these tiny drops of nightly dew.

One of the results of this ice crystal layer was that it created a thick cloud cover. This cloud cover further held the earth’s heat in and shielded the earth from the sun’s harmful rays. These clouds held enough water that if it were ever allowed to drop most of its moisture, the entire earth would be flooded. This could only happen if something were to happen to the icy protective cover around the earth. And this could only happen if God willed it and made it happen.

The whole earth was a delicate balance held together by God’s will.

It was into this garden with the perfect weather that He scooped enough soil from the ground to form man. As he did this, He said that this man would be created in His own likeness. Into that form, He breathed His own breath and Adam, the first man, was created.

Thus like all other living creatures, be they animal or vegetable, man got his living, breathing life directly from God.

Chapter 1

The war had been going on for over seventy years but today looked like it would be settled once and for all. The primitives really had no chance of winning. They were stronger, they could run faster and they could outlast Adam’s men, but they just were not smart enough to defeat them. They used sticks that had been sharpened and hardened by fire. These implements were fine for hunting and fighting among themselves, but were completely ineffective against the metal tipped spears and arrows of Adam’s men. And now his men had horses, if they got here in time. His men could hold the high ground and dispatch the enemy from a distance while the primitives had to come to their foes face to face.

Adam had been dreading this day for some time. He hated the thought of destroying these primitive beings. His whole life had been spent longing for peace and harmony. He really had no choice in the matter, and it wasn’t as if these inferior creatures were actually men after all. This day had been developing for nearly nine hundred years.

The war had started as a few skirmishes here and there and Adam’s people had nearly always prevailed. It had always, until the last few years, involved single families or small clans of the primitives. And in Adams case it had only involved himself and whoever was following him at the time. Adam had avoided the primitives at first because his family was so small and weak. It was only after his family started to grow and he had many grown sons and grandsons that he began to fight back.

He had never had a hostile attitude against these primitives. He had only had defensive battles with them. Never, even when they deserved it, had he ever taken the battle to them in their lands. But he had always fought to protect his land and his family. And he had always won.

Now his family numbered in the thousands and he was once and for all able to rid himself and perhaps the entire world of these primitives. They had asked for it all along with their aggressive behavior and warlike attitudes. They had created many other problems for Adam’s people through the years and it must be God’s will that they be destroyed.

These primitives were shorter than Adam’s people were but much stronger. They walked in a stooped position, which reminded Adam that they were in fact sub humans. They were nomadic in nature and lived in caves and other temporary shelters. They ate raw meat along with the other predators and never bathed. They were in many ways much worse that the other wild animals Adam had encountered in his life. Most wild animals, while being just as ferocious, were predictable. These primitives were not predictable and thus much more dangerous.

Another problem was that some of Cain’s sons had coupled with these primitives. Cain had had so many sons and so few daughters that they were without women. Some became so desperate that they took primitives as wives. The offspring was disastrous. Some of these were giants, as much as ten to twelve feet tall. They seemed to be human, however. These giants along with many other strange offspring of Cain lived among his people instead of the primitives. As the population of men grew, the practice of taking primitives as wives died away but the remnants still existed. Most of these giants that still existed lived in the high country far to the north.

Adam wasn’t sure how these primitives communicated between clans but they must get word back and forth somehow. They had been gathering here in the vast valley for many years and were now a threat to Adam and his people. They weren’t as organized as Adam was and tended to fight in family clans, but Adam’s people couldn’t go into the valley without the threat of being attacked by them.

Adam had had enough as had his people. They had always taken the evasive action when possible, but these primitives had taken that possibility away. They had two choices now. They could run away and leave this valley that had been their home for over nine hundred years or they could destroy the invaders. They were going to stay. They had done too much and worked too hard to develop their farms and their homes to see it all go away just because these primitives wanted to live in this valley. He didn’t think that these primitives really wanted to live in the valley so much as they just wanted to get rid of Adam and his people. And on top of that this valley was theirs.

These primitives neither farmed nor ate the produce of the fields. It was unknown why they wanted to drive Adam and his ancestors from this valley. Adam did know that if they ran the primitives would follow them and try to kill them as they fled. He was not going to run. He would stay and fight until the last primitive was dead and buried. But they would not be buried in his valley. They would be carried to the mountains to the east of the valley and there be cremated until not a bone was left.

He would see that not only was there no more threat to his people, but that there was no vestige of these people left. They had been to a greater and lesser extent, a threat to him and his family for the entire nine hundred thirty years of his life. He was old now and didn’t have many years left, maybe none, but he would see that these primitives were no longer a threat to his family. He would no longer have the responsibility of their safety on his shoulders, but he would be sure that his son, Seth didn’t have to face this threat at every turn.

Adam’s people were gathered at the southern end of the vast valley while the primitives had been gathered at the northernmost tip of the valley. For the past several days the primitives had been forming together and steadily moving south. Their females had been armed along with the males and were taking up the fight with them. Even their children were armed and were as dangerous as the adults. As they steadily moved south, Adam had formed his men into defensive and at the same time offensive positions. The women and children had been moved to another, smaller valley separated from the main valley by a range of low lying hills.

There was a token number of men in the mouth of the valley separating the two valleys while the rest of the men were deployed to the high ground surrounding that narrow mouth. The primitives would have to bunch together to approach the men staying in the protective gap. When they did this they would be sitting ducks for the archers on the high ground. Eventually there would be hand to hand combat and many of Adams men would perish, but that couldn’t be helped. They were under attack.

It was late in the afternoon when the first battle took place. As expected the primitives bunched together and came at a rush for the men at the mouth of the pass separating the two valleys. In those first hours, the primitives took a tremendous loss of both male and female. For some reason, they were determined to destroy Adam and his people. Even wounded they came on. Even with the tremendous volley of arrows, some of the primitive warriors got through and inflicted some damage on Adam’s army.

When the sun went down and the primitives retreated, Adam had lost no more than forty men while there were over three hundred primitives lying dead on the ground. During the night the dead were carried away and the archers came down to retrieve whatever arrows could be used over again. The battle would be rejoined at first light and would last all day. And while the sharpened sticks of the primitives were no match for the metal spearheads of Adam’s men, the dead before them testified to the fact that they were none the less deadly. The primitives didn’t bother to carry off their dead or even their wounded.

Sitting by a fire on a hill overlooking the battleground below, Adam was in deep thought about the coming battle when he felt a familiar body slip in next to him. It was Eve, his wife of these past nine hundred years. They hadn’t mated in some time but it was her closeness that held him together these last few months. They had shared so many things.

They had lost their second son and many other children and grandchildren along the way. They had seen their eldest son exiled by God to the far northeast, over the Tigris River. They had shared the assaults and skirmishes of the primitives. Wild animals, especially at the very beginning had attacked them, when they weren’t aware that the animals were dangerous. They had been swept down river when they tried crossing the Euphrates at a bad spot.

They had learned a lot together through those same years. They had