Dust.

This is a little creative sidebar my editor has me heading down. He was playing with the idea of what if the stories I am writing were somehow connected to Adam, and the beginning. The beginning of Genesis. This is a little play off that.

God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. - Genesis

The great master looked around all the land that was now alive, and growing, and gathered the bare dirt that laid covered around the great land, with one giant scoop in his hand. The same dirt that supported the trees, and held together like a bowl all the oceans of the seas, and made the world round. He took it and formed man like a potter would his clay making a pot. He made a man. Hollowing out eyes, and smoothing out his legs, and his stomache as an artist would his great piece of art. He had his many choices to use, unlimited resources, and any way to the story tell. He could use science, or great undiscovered metals of the earth, and formed polymer bonds that people had yet to discover. But he wanted to make it simple. It was going to be earth. Dirt. Red clay. His final choice. He named Adam that, “red dirt.”

He knew man would one day try and re-invent himself. He would try and rise above it with great buildings and technological and progressive marvels. He would want to make life very complicated and very busy. He would make his own marvels of himself through bronze statues and stones. He also knew man would want to probe the depths of the human soul in search of deep meaning, and go in search of great seas below, but from dust he was made, and that same level ground of dust he would go. The maker thought the earth, and the dirt of which most of it contained would tell the man when he forgot that this was his origin. And where he needed to rediscover.

It was to be a clue to the man. He wanted him always to go back to that. He wanted him to think of it when had a field to plow and farm. And when he needed the rains to come. Or if he had found himself in a cubicle in a great steal building. He wanted to help him understand that it was the earth he needed to understand, and rediscover to find himself. Even when he forgot, when he stripped away the land, or left the land entirely, he was destroying or losing himself. He knew that the land, much like man, would come around to hurt or help him. He wanted man connected to that.

The maker wanted to see that Adam would need to protect, and guard, and take care of dirt, and land, and the earth or his food and animals would run out. The dirt was where he came from, and where he would eventually decay back into.The earth was the composition of man. Yes, there was the DNA, and the neutrons, and protons, and synapses, but all those come from one place, the place you will lay your head, and look for food, and search for the Maker. There was a great story that said the Maker would come down and walk on the dirt, and teach the sons of Adam stories of a Kingdom. He would use the earth and the things growing and being used in it to explain it. He would tell stories of trees, farmers, and fish. All these things connected to earth, and dirt.

The ground was the starting point of man. The base line. The beginning and the end. The dirt was needed for a man to find out about himself. Where he came from, and where he was going.