Roaches. We were simply called "roaches," though perhaps even then we should have been called "cockroaches." Our tradition is that only the male figures into historical accounts. The progenitor of our species, Ed, lived googolgoogol generations ago. In the beginning, he was there in the Garden of Eden, notwithstanding the apocryphal accounts of people.

In the garden, Ed hovered about openly on the lookout for crumbs and dribbles. Back then, there were no cupboards to hide in and no sudden bright lights to skitter away from. And we weren't afflicted with the demeaning stereotype propagated by bigoted speciesists, like K. So, in the beginning, Adam and Eve were pretty relaxed with Ed around, and Ed, for his part, was usually pretty good about not crawling on their naked bodies when they were following God's detailed instructions on how to make Cain and Abel.

Things were ideal—they'd never been better. On the other hand, since there was no comparison, some detractors point out that they'd never been worse. Ed, the father of our race, was an optimist, though. From him, we learned that a crumb under foot is better than ....

That part has always puzzled us. Even our intellectuals are baffled. Anyway, Ed, regarded as Methuseleh by generations of his progeny, who were also his contemporaries, promised that through his descendants he would live forever, come hell or high water. Noah gave us a helping hand on the high water thing, albeit unwittingly, and it's received wisdom among Adam's and Eve's offspring that we — alone — will survive hell.

Back to the story.

It was a perfect world. Absolutely perfect. Better than Malibu. Then one day, Eve got a little tired and bored with the straight and narrow and scampered over to the apple tree, which was a no-no.