Making People

Old stories say it came about in a dream. They say two creators made the earth from armpit wax. That’s how strange it was then. The woman was a doctor; the man was a trickster. Stories say they made us from mud that dried in the sun after the great flood. Who says they didn’t make us from sticks and snot or from spit and dung? That’s how funny it was. The doctor searched the world for the right herbs and paints, the right materials, but she knew this would not be enough. Only when she was hurt, when she found at last how much she loved herself, did she love us enough. If any gifted or noble fire burns in human kind, this is because she made us that way.