By Meghan Proulx.
Convergent evolution is a phenomenon by which two similar-looking species come into existence via completely different strands of evolution. For example: slugs. There are a lot of them, all over the place, all over the ground, crawling and slithering and writhing in various states of amorphousness. They all derive originally from one mollusk which had upon its back a shell and begat all the rest. Time passed. Descendants went in different directions and grew other stuff, like horns, and became different colors, like yellow, and decided to get rid of the shell without telling the others. But then many of the others just so happened to have the same idea, separately, because maybe the shell was heavy. And that’s what me and this one friend I have are like. And I know I’m taking liberties, because I’ve never been in the tiny beansprout mind of a slug before, but my friend understands how evolution works, I don’t have to explain it to her and I never would because that’d be condescending, and yet she doesn’t actually believe it’s real. She confessed this to me at the zoo one time, when we were looking at the gibbons. She’s a new mother and we told ourselves we were visiting for her baby’s enrichment, but between moments of shame at how unethical the zoo is she caught me having fun. Because when I see a gibbon, I get it. I believe in evolution. It’s so obvious we are them and they are us, and also I went to public school, and also that gibbon looks just like me. But my friend was, is, suspicious. Evolution, she says, is too easy an answer. And I know that’s an unpopular opinion, and perhaps a bit offputting, I’ll admit was a little offput, but I never did have many friends, and she makes the prettiest cookies of anyone I’ve ever met and she’s nice to me. She’s peaceful to be around. And also she has a point, because somehow I believe that one day there was nothing and the next there was something? And that something crawled out of the ocean and became a horse? It makes a great story and I love a great story but maybe that’s all it really is. And then at the zoo she said some beautiful stuff about God and her relationship to heaven. And that’s how I learned she had a hard childhood and how she’s not sure, even now, as an adult, if her mother ever truly loved her but her brother definitely does, because he cried when he saw her newborn baby, and now that’s something I can believe in. And she said what. And I said a happy ending. And then we stepped over the slugs which were all over the path, because it had just rained and the air smelled like eucalyptus and living grass, and we shook our heads in unison and fell in love and that’s why I’m not an atheist anymore, I’m agnostic and so is she.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Meghan Proulx is a writer in Northern California. Her stories have been published in Wigleaf, The Offing, Epiphany, X-R-A-Y, and more. She was ranked as a Top Humor Writer on Medium, and won a Silver Anthem Award.
