Our Chance was Called Adam

Our Chance Was Called Adam

Adam B. was living one of the unhappiest days he could remember in the last several years. The truth is that everything contributing to his misery, now all at the same time, had happened to him now and then during his life, but always separately and in particular, leaving one or two weeks between them, for him to have time to recover and start creating illusions again, illusions which destiny would destroy very quickly.

Adam's bad luck had begun that morning when he discovered in his mailbox a letter from Camelia; of course, it had arrived yesterday, but he always looked in the mailbox in the morning and in this way spoiled his entire day. It was not the only time he had received such incendiary letters, but that time the sweet child from Dambovita's branches was very categorical in expressing her feelings.

She wrote him, among other things, that she did not understand why for a few moments of sweet loss she had to endure his presence every time he came to Bucharest: "That's enough!" she wrote him at the end of her letter, confessing to herself through fine illusions the happiness which would embrace her if she did not have to see his toady look nor his face like a suspicious rat.

As odd as it may seem, Adam was not bothered by Camelia's intensions of breaking off the relationship, but more about the uncompromisingly vehement style in which it was all written, not to mention the very exaggerated comparisons at the end of the letter.

So, she considered his intense look, through which he tried to pay a modest tribute to the absolutely charming way Mother Nature had arranged Camelia's fifty-two kilograms, seemed to her a simple "servile" look. And more than that, his life-weary face, that of a distinguished intellectual, which doubted on principle women's fidelity and the great truths of science, seemed to her a vulgar, suspicious face.

At that time, remembering a few sweet intimate moments when ontology's problems did not matter, he was tempted to forgive everything and write a letter in which he would try conciliation. Unfortunately at that very moment, his eyes fell on the words "suspicious rat." Well, no! That was something that his outraged dignity could not tolerate, so he gave an imperative order to his neurons to interrupt the synapses leading to any memory of her.

At the office was waiting for him an urgent paper whose coefficients had to be recalculated according to the new expenses. More than that, his supervisor was waiting for that paper so he could communicate the new coefficients immediately to the foreign partners. But instead of coefficients and expenses, Adam saw only Camelia's letter (he had put it above the file so it was obvious) and he had just decided that it would be better to concentrate his attention on another girl, who would know how to properly appreciate his qualities. He was already thinking -- looking, actually

-- at Nina, an enchanting brunette full of locks and temper, who was frantically writing something at a computer nearby, and studying a possible approach to the problem when the boss entered the office to ask for the coefficients. It is very possible that Adam's thought had passed the initial phase of exploring the grounds,; in fact, we are sure about it because Nina's annoyance at his stare was obvious, and because he did not see the head of the office until he was in front of him. Much too late to remove his gaze from the locks of the chosen variant, but soon enough to remember that Nina was his boss's secret passion. The boss glanced at Nina and then at the untouched file, and hissed:

"Come outside, Adam!"- with the same tone that another boss at another time had used on Adam when he had caught him courting his secretary, and more than that, eating fruit from the apple tree on which he made phytotechnical experiments.

Knowing the story in detail, Adam shook remembering that after all of that, the two of them were transferred to a much worse location.

Fortunately, the conflict with the current chief was less serious, and Adam was just taken out to the corridor. The boss was known to be a discrete person, and in the office were too many young girls to show, as he wished, the linguistic rarities kept for such occasions. But once they had reached the corridor...

Well, there are moments in life when it is better to be discrete and it seemed this was one of them...

As if all those well-aimed strikes of destiny were not enough, destiny had prepared for him on the same day two or three more of the same calibre, as if to demonstrate that although the probability for all that to happen in the same day was pretty small, once in a while Miss Chance leaves to have tea with her friends and forgets to come back, and the probabilities, left on their own, amuse themselves making such jokes ton the unfortunate people.

Because of all that, towards the evening, poor Adam, really disgusted with life, decided to take a short walk in the park at the edge of the town, to find some comfort. Nothing could be simpler: the park was empty; the moon seemed to look for the pair of lovers, but she looked for them in vain. A rock band had come into town and the lovers were at their concert. So the empty park offered a pleasant ambiance for Adam to relax his nerves aggravated by the daily stress and the above-mentioned events. The moon, in the absence of her usual clients, concentrated all her power of seduction on Adam and little by little started to have an effect.

After only a short while in the pleasant park, his outlook already seemed rosier, and he even began to smile with satisfaction, congratulating himself on the idea of coming to the park, when he noticed that he was seeing everything pink because from above a green light shone. As Adam was by nature an analytical person, under other conditions he might have stayed to study the phenomenon more fully. But he could not now afford such a luxury because he realized, as a committed reader of the literature on Still Non-Elucidated Cases, that he was heading very quickly towards a second-degree meeting.

He reached that conclusion when he noticed that the green light came from... yes, being very sorry about it and despite the tradition, he could not name the object hanging above him a "flying saucer," It seemed more like (so that we don't leave the kitchen) a huge salt cellar from which someone had removed all the salt and replaced it with reflectors which indiscreetly lit Adam's face. The flying salt cellar buzzed for a few minutes above him, as if studying him, then went ten meters forward and landed heavily. After all the appearances, Adam's second degree meeting had every possibility of transforming into a third degree meeting, for which from instinct he arranged his tie and hair, thinking to make a favorable impression on the aliens.

In Adam's favor, we must say that at no time did he consider meeting the representatives of the distant civilization violently as he heard some sheriffs from Texas had done. Some meticulous readers might object saying that he did not have the necessary equipment -- our engineers were not equipped with Colts, not even after a terrible fight with their boss. Well, reproaching them that they oblige us to divagate in the key moments of the action, we will just say that on Sundays, towards the edge of town, people would come with picnic lunches; usually the would bring their cars, to take advantage of that time to change a spark plug, an oil filter, even the oil itself, throwing what they did not need all through the park, so Adam found it very easy to gather these items. Not to mention those without cars who would also bring their contribution mostly of empty bottles and cans. If he wanted, Adam could have been busier than a Texan sheriff!

But fortunately, for us also, instead of making violent plans, as I said, he just arranged his tie and hair; after that, he waited to see what would happen next.

From the flying object parked in front of him emerged three beings resembling human beings. (We are very sorry to disillusion those who are fond of tradition, but these beings weren't even green.) Also their behaviour was like that of humans, because the one who seemed to be the boss pushed a small and poor one in front, saying to him:

"Get closer and see if it bites, stings, distorts the space, stops the time, annuls any dimension or ... "-- there followed some notions which Adam, despite his multilingual training, did not understand.

(We don't want to offend anyone by explaining such simple things as the manner in which Adam understood himself with the aliens: this would appear to us to be redundant.)

The smaller, bitter being took a few careful steps towards Adam and stopped at a safe distance.

"He is all right, boss. He is not dangerous!"

"It's all right... it's all right...," the other started to imitate him furiously. "The same thing you told me about that muddy volcano from Venus, and when I got to it... you know what happened to me... Get closer!"

"There is no need to." Adam thought he should intervene. "If you can understand me, I'll tell you: I am a rational being and as a consequence, I am not aggressive."

"Yes, we understand you," said the grumpy one who seemed to be the boss. "On our way here we caught some television transmissions and we saw how rationally you know how to examine one another... However, these are not problems that interest us. We just want to warn you not to make some unwise gesture, because we have means to counterattack. We came here with a mission and we hope that you help us willingly because otherwise ..."- and the eyes, which briefly protruded from their orbits like an exophthalmic, goggled threatening at Adam.

"Of course I will help you," he mumbled unhappily, swallowing the welcome speech he wanted to say to them. "But I don't know how I can help you, who..."

"I will explain in a few words what it is all about. We are laugh prospectors... And we are not talking about that animal you are thinking about now, Lynx Lynx, as you call it, but about the action through which a rational being expresses his joy, happiness... I don't know whether I should tell you... However, I don't think I am wrong to tell you that in laughter is hidden a tremendous energy, but noting the penury of energy in which you struggle, I can tell that you are still far from using it to its potential. So, we would like to test how much energy is contained in the laughter of the beings from this planet because, I must confess to you, there are beings who although they roar with laughter, I think is the expression, they issue very little energy. You don't have to understand any more; the essential thing is that you want to help us, because otherwise..."

"Of course I would, just ..."

Adam wanted to explain to them that he might not be the best example of how happy earthmen are, after all the unfortunate things that happened to him that day.

"Don't tell me you don't know the laughter from the planet," retorted the boss. "I received shows where I saw entire rooms of people laughing at what you call comic movies..."

He turned towards the third alien, who seemed to be a technician, because during all that time he had been quietly manoeuvring some machines.

"Have you prepared the detector?"

The technician nodded his head quietly and brought a complicated device close to Adam.

"Start with test one! Tell him a joke adapted for this planet." The technician went next to Adam, and in a monotone, whining voice told him an old joke about a husband controlled by

his wife.

"Why isn't he laughing?" frowned the boss to the technician.

The latter raised his shoulders.

Adam was not laughing, imagining that he probably would have had a similar fate had he made the stupid mistake of marrying Camelia.

"Shall I tell another one?" asked the technician.

"Leave it at that," said the boss. "Maybe our sample reacts only to visual stimuli. So we move to the second test. Show him that funny movie which we registered."

The technician pushed a button and on the dark wall of the device appeared a rectangular light, where showed a popular comedy about a boss who tortured his subordinates with the finest torments who could find, a movie which raised painful associations in Adam's soul, and not a single smile.

"Maybe he is pretending," thought the smallest and bitter alien who had tested Adam's aggressiveness.

"He is not pretending," said the boss, confused, "I am keeping him under telepathic observation." He turned towards Adam beseechingly. "Here is what I ask you, confidentially. We cannot return to Base and just tell them that we did not succeed in testing how much energy is contained in the laughter of earthmen. We must take a reading, or they will cut our bonus. Place yourself in our shoes and try to understand! Come on, make an effort and laugh a little!"

The technician moved closer with the probe of the device, and Adam burst into an anaemic laughter as he proceeded to concentrate all the miseries that had happened to him that day.

"Stop, stop!" said the technician alarmed.

"What, what has happened?" said the boss anxiously, coming toward him

"That is extraordinary," the technician answered. "I haven't seen anything like it! The laughter has a negative coefficient of energy. When he laughs, he simply absorbs energy from our tanks." Looking frightened towards Adam, he pulled the boss away

and said to him:

"Please, ask him not to laugh until we leave, or else he will discharge our tanks and we will never leave from here."

The boss scratched his head uneasily, a gesture not unlike an earthman in the same situation, but he recovered relatively quickly, proving that he wasn't named head of the expedition for nothing.

"Listen," he got closer to Adam, "try to stop laughing until we leave."

He wanted to threaten him but fearing he might look silly, he preferred to abstain and made a short gesture to the technician.

The technician understood and quickly picked up the devices. In a few minutes, they were ready and got into the salt cellar, throwing anxious looks towards Adam, who seemed as if he wanted to say something but could not find his words. He recovered just as the alien ship disappeared somewhere among the stars.

"Have a good flight!" he whispered sadly after them.

I am sure that some would hurry to criticize Adam for the pitiful way he reacted, blaming him that because of personal motives, he missed a potential contact with an alien civilization. But I don't know whether they would want to spend their rest of their days somewhere in the southern extremes of the galaxy, on a planet with a green sky, closed in a room where day and night are projected comedies, and from their heads emerge main lines of high tension.