Adam’s Atoms

I do not know a better way of describing their lives between the ages of 300 and 400 than the Kumáran teens. Of course, the English word teen describes the human age which ends with -teen, such as fourteen, fifteen, etc. This is obviously not the literal case here. But a 300-year-old Kumáran looks like a 15-year-old human. A 400-year-old Kumáran is theoretically comparable with a 20-year-old human, even though to a human he still appears like a teenager and will continue so pretty much for the rest of his life.

There is, however, an important distinction to make right at the start. The humans undergo serious physiological changes that happen gradually during their teens. The Kumárans also undergo serious changes but not gradually. Physiologically, a Kumáran child turns into a Kumáran adult virtually overnight, or, more exactly, “overweek.”

Moreover, various human teens develop at different rates, not all 15-year-olds are at the same developmental level. For the Kumárans the transformation always starts on the last summer solstice before their 300th birthday. That means such a transformation occurs exactly twice a year on Planet Kumára, once on its Northern Hemisphere and once on its Southern Hemisphere. It does not matter what hemisphere a Kumáran was born but which one he is on at the time of his transformation. Theoretically, if he travelled and avoided both Summer Solstices, the transformation would start on his 300th birthday. But he would be at a great disadvantage, as being within a large group that transforms all at once is very important for them to cope with the changes.

Now, remember, we are talking about “children” only in the physiological sense. These “children” have lived for almost 300 years, 275 of which they spent going to school. They are extremely intelligent. They value logical thinking. They are well versed in mathematics, sciences, philosophy, arts, even disciplines for which there is no earthly name. And, of course, they know what kind of changes they are going to undergo. Yet, no amount of preparation and education can prepare them for the changes. Further, the Kumárans consider it a certain test of their maturity to let their teens-to-be cope with their transformation entirely on their own.

The day before the Summer Solstice, the “children” gather for a great feast prepared for them by their parents, teachers, friends and family, as well as many other people. This is not a private family matter. This is a regional matter. In every geographical region of Planet Kumára there is a Regional Wildlife Park. As you know, the Kumárans live in perfect accord with nature, so such parks are very popular. Depending on the size of a region, several hundred to several thousand “children” gather in their own Regional Wildlife Park, along with everyone they know and many they do not.

The main activity during the event is food. Lots of food. This is very important, because once the transformation begins, the newly transformed will not get to eat for a while. And when they do, they will have to provide for their own food, since, as we know, the Kumárans leave them to cope on their own. So, they eat till they are full, and then their parents insist on them eating more and more and more.

Inevitably, in the early evening the “children” become extremely sleepy. This is really the nature taking its place and getting ready for the transformation. Their parents take them to small bunks that they have rented from the Park. They undress their “children” naked, and tuck them under the cover. The parents then continue to visit with others, but eventually return to the bunk and also go to bed.

It does not take long for the morning to come. The Summer Solstice night is the shortest night of the year. When the parents wake up in the morning, the transformation of their “children” has already started and been going on all night long. But the transformees do not wake up. They just keep on sleeping. The parents pack up their own things and return to their homes. The only things they leave behind are leftover food, of which there is plenty, the sleepers’ clothes, and a shoulder bag inside of which they place a ribbon, a comb, a bar of soap, and, embrace yourself, many packs of cigarettes, plus a golden cigarette lighter with their son’s name engraved. They kiss their sleeping son and off they go.

The rest of the day is very quiet. The only people left in the Park are the sleepers. Of course, it is a Regional Wildlife Park, so there are plenty of wild animals roaming through the Park. And why wouldn’t they. The leftover food, who wouldn’t feast?

And the sleepers continue to sleep. Altogether, they spend an entire week, more exactly, seven days and eight nights sound asleep.

On the eighth morning each and every sleeper wakes up. It has been a very long sleep, so he is not immediately up and running. He stretches in his bed. He feels different. He is different, but the idea needs some time to kick in.

He lowers his legs toward the ground. Chances are he hits the ground hard because he touches it earlier than expected. Strange... Has his bed become lower while he was asleep? He reaches out and grabs his clothes. He tries to put his underware on. It does not fit. He cannot even insert his legs into his pants.

Finally he is fully awaken and realizes what it is that changed: He did! The bed is not lower, his legs are longer. His children’s clothes do not fit because he is not a child. He is a fully grown Kumáran.

He stands up and realizes just how tall he is. His legs and arms are full length. So is his torso. His muscles are strong and athletic. His male part is grown and surrounded with a full and thick brush of long curly red hair, even though there was no pubic hair on him before he went to bed. He touches it instictively and notices new and unusual feelings in that section.

He looks under his arms and notices that there, too, he has a nice full brush of hair, even though there was nothing there before. Instinctively he moves his nose toward his hairy armpit and smells. At that moment he realizes he has been sweating and some of the sweat got caught up in his newly grown armpit hair.

He takes a look in the mirror that is hanging on his wall. The first thing he notices is a full bright red beard and mustache. He also notices that his hair has grown quite long. He realizes that as he fell asleep and his body started to change, his hair growth rate was reset to its default, which is fast. He looks into the shoulder bag his parents left him, hoping to find scissors. None are there. He switches his hair growth rate for his scalp back to slow. He looks at his armpits again. He thinks that he should switch their hair growth rate to slow as well. But his instinct tells him to keep it growing fast for now. He follows his instinct.

He definitely does not want the beard. This is natural instinct of an androgynous race with a male look. A beard would feel just too male. He, of course, is male and female at the same time and prefers a look that is both male and female. So, he stops his facial hair from growing. He shakes his head and his facial hair falls out. But the shake also makes his scalp hair move in gentle waves. He notices something he has never noticed before: His hair is beautiful. He runs his comb gently through his hair, then ties it to a pony tail with the ribbon he has found in the bag. To do that he needs to raise his arms. He notices the mirror image of his arms and, again, notices that they are beautiful. He looks at his face after he has shed the facial hair and realizes that he looks completely different than before. That face is a face of a stranger. But what a beatiful stranger that is! The look at an adult face excites him. These are completely new feelings that he has never experienced before. Not once in his 300 years.

The thought of his age puts a smile on his face. It’s about time he had a grown-up body!

It occurs to him that he must be a lot stronger than he was as a child. He tries to lift the side of his bed. He almost damages it, the way he pulls it. Oh, yes, he is strong, very strong. He needs to be careful with his newfound strength and not overdo things.

He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his shoulder bag and opens it. In all those centuries he has never smoked, nor was he ever interested in doing so. He smells the cigarettes. It is not what he expected. Long ago he had learned at school that on their first day in adult bodies the Kumárans smoke many cigarettes. But it makes no sense. He is certainly feeling no desire to smoke. And there is no logical reason why he should. He is a logical person. He is a unique person. It does not matter that other brand new teens smoke. After all, there is a first time for everything. He simply will be the first Kumáran teen ever not to smoke. He places the open pack back inside his shoulder bag.

It is time to get rid of all that sweat, he decides. He needs to walk through the outside to get to the common washroom. But... he is naked and his clothes do not fit him. He wraps himself in his bed linen, hangs the bag on his shoulder and steps outside.

He never makes it to the common washroom. As he steps outside, he sees that all the other newly-transformed teens have stepped outside. They, too, are undressed, only wrapped in their bed linen, bag hanging from their shoulders.

He looks around, trying to identify his close friends. Much to his chagrin, that is virtually impossible. The last time he saw any of his friends, they were children, as was he. Now they are grown up and they are surrounded by other grownups.

He notices that as he is staring at others in total confusion, all the others are looking at each other as well as at him. He thinks about asking a question. Perhaps someone else can tell him what is going on. But it is obvious that everyone else is just as confused as he. It is not logical to ask if you know that those you ask do not know the answer. He still is a logical person.

But a strange thing happens. He feels relief in the fact that everyone is just as confused. Now, that is not logical, but, for the first time in his life, it does not bother him that his reaction is illogical.

He decides to investigate. Now, that is logical. But, strangely, it is not logical reasoning that makes him to investigate. It is an impulse, the action of an animal who does not need to think to act—he just acts. He steps closer to the others. They do the same. They get very close.

He extends his arm. His finger gently touches someone on his chest. Someone else’s finger is touching his. He feels energy flowing through his entire body, excitment he has never felt before. He feels his heart beating fast and loud. He starts breathing deep. He presses his entire hand against the other chest. He starts massaging the chest in circles as his heart is beating even louder and louder and more energy is running through every tiny cell of his body.

He slides his hand up the other teen’s front and runs it around his face. As he is moving it down, the other teen wraps his thick lips around the edge of his hand. He does the same to whoever’s hand is running around his face.

He moves his hand behind the other teen’s back and touches his left shoulder with his nose, then moves his face and wraps his own lips around the edge of that shoulder. He now feels around the shoulder by sliding his lips all over it. He bites it ever so gently, then licks it with his tongue.

He moves his face downward and his nose enters the other teen’s armpit. His nose is tickled by the armpit hair. He sniffs and smells the teen’s sweat. To him it is the most beautiful smell on Kumára! His heart continues beating hard and fast. He can feel the blood flow into his face. He is feeling very hot.

Momentarily he lets go of the other teen. Without hesitation, his left hand pulls out a cigarette from the open pack inside his shoulder bag and inserts it between his lips. The hand reaches to the bag again, takes out the golden lighter and lights the cigarette up. He has never done this before. No one has ever taught him how to do it. But he does it perfectly naturally as if he had done it a thousand times.

Now, when an Earth teen lights up a cigarette for the first time in his life, he is somewhat carefull, as he does not really know what he is doing. He may take a small puff of smoke into his mouth and blow it out. Then he may take another and yet another. But he does not inhale his first cigarette and probably not the second, third, until one of his more experienced friends laughs at him for smoking like a sissy. Not so with the Kumáran. He pulls in and fills his lungs with smoke right the first time. He pauses and savors. Then he exhales. He fills his lungs for the second time. This time he does not pause. While holding his cigarette between two fingers of his left hand, he wraps his right hand behind the neck of the first teen standing next to him. It may be the same one he was with before or another one. He presses his lips against the other teen’s lips and exhales into his mouth. The other teen inhales the smoke, he pauses and then exhales. Then their roles reverse. The other teen now fills his lungs with the smoke of his own cigarette and exhales it to our teen’s mouth. They keep doing it until both of their cigarettes have burned to ashes. And since, unlike their Earthly counterparts, Kumáran cigarettes come with no filters, they just drop their ashes on the ground. This is the first time they have done it, but certainly not the last, though not necessarily with each other. This practice is so common on Kumára that all over the Universe it is known as the Kumáran kiss.

As soon as he has dropped the ashes on the ground, he lights up another cigarette. He smokes this one by himself. But that does not stop him from touching others. He just holds his cigarette in his left hand and uses his right hand to do the work. He presses his leg against someone else’s leg, while he feels yet another leg touching his. By now, his bed cover has slipped off and he is completely naked, as is everyone else. He slides his right hand down to his own crotch. He feels his male part growing. Suddenly thick white liquid sprays out and spreads around his hand. But that does not stop him from using that same right hand working its way through different parts of different bodies. He just keeps going and going. He chain smokes one cigarette after another and works his way around the crowd all day long.

As the evening draws in, he has experienced the most exciting day of his entire life. But he is also exhausted. He cannot even stand on his feet. On his knees, he crawls to his bunk and sits on his bed. His heart is still beating so fast that he cannot just lie down and sleep. He lights up yet another cigarette and inhales very deeply. He holds his breath, trying to calm down. He exhales. He fills his lungs with more smoke, waits a bit and exhales. After he has smoked several cigarettes that way, his heartbeat starts to normalize. He just drops in his bed and is sound asleep.

No, this time he does not sleep for seven days. His physical transformation is already complete and permanent. In the morning, he wakes up quite refreshed. He is now his usual logical self and is trying to sort the memories of the day before out. He is hungry and he is thirsty. He can still feel the residue of all the cigarette smoke inside his lungs. He is also aware of how terribly dirty he is. He figures out that his fellow teens are feeling the same way and that if he wanted to go to the common washroom, he may not make it again.

He sets his feet on the ground and stands up. He looks around his bunk and notices something new: While he was asleep, someone has brought in a pitcher filled with ice water and a drinking glass, a washbowl filled with warm water, a washcloth, and a towel. He wishes they had brought some food as well, but he is quite grateful for the unexpected gift. He drinks the ice water. He takes the soap out of his shoulder bag and washes up. Oh, how refreshing!

As he is washing, he looks in the mirror and notices that he has grown a full beard again. Not as long as before, after all it did not take a full week to grow. But clearly, while he was out of control, all of his hair switched to its default growth rate—fast. The hair on his scalp is visibly longer, as is his armpit hair (of course, he left his armpit hair growth rate set at fast the day before anyway). He resets his scalp growth rate to slow. He decides that his armpit hair is long enough and sets it slow as well.

But as he is looking at his beard, he sees himself in a whole new light. Why not try something different? After a brief consideration, he sets his mustache and the goatee section to a medium growth rate. He then stops the growth of the rest of his facial hair and lets it fall out. He takes a good look at his new image and decides that his goatee is there to keep. He has no logical reason for it. But he likes it that way. He is discovering that there is a whole new way of looking at the world beside logic.

Thinking of doing something without the need for logic, he remembers how, just the morning before, he was convinced he would be the first Kumáran ever not to smoke. He laughs and opens his bag to count just how many cigarettes he smoked. The amount varies of course, they all do not smoke the same number of cigarettes on the first teenage day of their lives, but a Kumáran never smokes less than eighty cigarettes on that day, most of them counting closer to a hundred. Whatever the number is, it is high. So high that most Kumárans never smoke that many cigarettes in a day again, even in those rare days that they do happen to chain smoke.

Now I can just see some of you shaking your heads. It does not matter it was his first time. If he smoked close to a hundred cigarettes the day before, the first thing he would have felt this morning would not have been hunger and thirst but a strong urge for a cigarette. He would have reached for it still half asleep. He would have lit it up before pouring himself a glass of water. He would have smoked while he was washing himself up. And he would still be smoking, lighting up one after another, not just today but for the rest of his miserable life.

Now, there is no doubt that if a 15-year-old Earthling smoked close to a hundred cigarettes on the same day he smoked his first (or on any other day, for that matter) and inhaled to wit, then, assuming that he even survived it, he would certainly be so addicted that he would become an instant chain smoker for life. So, does that mean that the Kumárans somehow do not get addicted to nicotine? Quite the contrary, nicotine is extremely addictive to the Kumárans. But there is no nicotine, or any other addictive substance in the Kumáran cigarettes. They are not made out of tobacco but a mixture of various herbs.

The Kumárans do not crave for cigarettes. They find cigarette smoking naturally irresistible whenever they are in heat, but it is the feeling of the smoke entering their lungs that gives them satisfaction, not a brain reaction to a chemical. When they are not mating, they do not feel the irresistibility. Most adult Kumárans do smoke for the rest of their lives, but only at home during a special evening meditation, and only one or two cigarettes. It is like incense to them. Their teens, however, usually find the experience new and too exciting, so they choose to smoke on a regular basis and especially when in the company of other teens.

Our teen is no different. Continuing his search for the enjoyment of things without having a logical reason, he finally lights up a cigarette and steps out of his bunk.

Just like the day before, he finds himself face-to-face with all the other new teens. Three things are different:

• No one is wrapped up in a bedsheet;
• they are surrounded by a thick cloud of cigarette smoke; and
• they all have some kind of facial hair.

It is the last of the three differences that places a smile on our hero’s face. He was not the only one who decided to be different. They all did. And they all are different: Some have chosen a goatee, others a fu-manchu, yet others sideburns of various lengths. And so on.

The fact that he is staring at a large group of beautiful, young, and completely naked Kumárans is producing the same kind of animal reaction as the day before. But this time it has not caught him by surprise. The feelings inside him are not new to him anymore. Still, he cannot restrain himself completely. And just looking at how everyone’s male part is inevitably growing and standing up makes it visibly obvious that they all are experiencing the same difficulties.

Nevertheless, he would really like to know which of these teens are his friends. He has spent a long time going to school and playing with them back during his childhood, well, actually, just a little over a week ago, though it strangely feels so far back. And now he cannot quite recognize them. Nor they him.

For the first time since his transformation he opens his mouth for something other than a cigarette. He approaches those closest to him and simply introduces himself by name. He immediately realizes how much even his voice has changed. The last time he spoke, the pitch of his voice was quite high, the voice of a child. Now the pitch is lower. He has the voice of an adult Kumáran. Now remember, the Kumárans are androgynous. They may have the outward appearance of a human male (and it is never more obvious when looking at this large group of naked Kumáran teens), but there are no basses among them. And very few baritones. Very few sopranos, too. Most Kumárans have a very sweet and soft voice with a pitch right in the middle between a typical human male and a typical human female.

And that is how his own voice sounds now. There is no period of breaking the voice among the Kumárans. One day they have a child’s voice. Then they go to sleep and the next time they speak, they have an adult voice.

Anyway, they all start talking and soon they find their closest friends. They form small groups of old friends. They start a live discussion of all the changes they have gone through. They notice that much more has changed in them than their appearance. Until a week ago, all of their discussions tended to be abstract academic constructs. Philosophical theories. Physics and metaphysics. None of that interests them now. They are talking about their innermost feelings. They are saying how much they like what they have become. They are laughing and having a good time. But they are not just talking about themselves. They talk about each other. They admit quite openly how they are attracted to each other.

And soon it is not just talking. Their control is gone once again. Smoking one cigarette after another, they start rubbing their bodies against each other, petting, hugging, Kumáran kissing, smelling each other’s armpits. Except, now they are doing it with their friends. They know who is doing it with whom.

Their live chatter is replaced with growling and purring. They are getting more and more physical. After finishing his twentieth cigarette, our hero drops the ashes. He does not light up another. Instead, he uses both his hands to embrace a friend. The friend does the same. They let their shoulder bags slide and drop on the ground, out of the way. Soon they are on the ground, a small group of close friend all over each other.

As if on command, suddenly they all shift. They turn into big felines. But no, these are not the familiar red felines. Their fur is the purest and silkiest black.

Our hero starts waving his tail and walking around his friends, looking at their blue eyes shining right next to their long black feline noses. Everything he is doing from now on is pure instinct. This is his first time as the black feline. Theirs, too. If there was any kind of logical and rational thinking left in his head just moments before his shift, it was completely gone. While the red feline can talk and think, the black Kumáran feline is a pure animal. They walk around each other. They jump on each other. They run around the Park. All of them have shifted, but they can still recognize their friends. They don’t think of them as friends. After all they don’t think. But they stick to their small pack out of sheer instinct.

They are hungry, very hungry. In whatever physical form they have been lately, they had not eaten since the afternoon before their transformation began. They look around. Their vision is sharper than it has ever been. They can hear things like never before. They can smell the presence of wildlife.

The Kumárans follow a vegetarian diet. With their logical minds they figured out that it is a lot easier to grow enough vegetables, fruits, nuts, and grains to feed the four trillion of them than to raise cattle, sheep, and foil, plus grow whatever it takes to feed those before they are ready for slaughter. The Kumárans also prefer vegetarian food because they abhor killing. For the same reason they do not hunt, plus they figured out that if so many of them did hunt, they would destroy the natural balance of Planet Kumára. Alas, the black feline does not have a logical mind.

Very carefully the pack sneaks behind a group of wild animals. No matter how they hide, the animals sense their presence and start running fast. Very fast. As fast as they can. As if their lives depended on it! Our hero had trained running as a red feline many times before. He, however, is not thinking about his training now. He does not think at all. He is hungry and what he sees is food. The only creature on Planet Kumára that can outrun the red feline is the black feline. Our hero speeds up. His food is trying to escape. But his food is no match to his feline speed. And once he catches it, it is no match to his feline ferocity. He jumps and sinks his teeth into his victim’s neck. His lunch just shakes a bit, then stops moving. He takes a bite, then another, and another. Very soon, he has cleaned up his plate. No leftovers today.

Satisfied, he looks around and rejoins his pack. Their small group just lies lazily down. They rub their heads against each other, lick each other’s faces. They purr in satisfaction.

Several days pass by, while the entire group lives the lives of wild black felines following pure instinct and having no conscious awareness of having been rational and logical beings. All this time, they hunt and kill their own food. Living in the wild, they are not likely to encounter any of the humanoid Kumárans. If they did, they would not recognize them as their own kin, but they would instinctively know not to attack or hurt them in any way. They would most likely shy away from them if they happened to see them. But if they met face to face, they would be perfectly tamed like domestic cats on the Earth.

As pure animals, they cannot make a conscious decision of returning to their humanoid form. But eventually return they do. They do so out of instinct which guides them back to the Regional Wildlife Park.

Once in the park, they return to their humanoid form. Again they have the use of their 300 years old intellect, as well as of their recently acquired emotions. And they see that the park is no longer reserved for their use. While they were gone, vacationers have moved to the bunks. Their shoulder bags have all been collected and placed right outside the visitors’ area for them to find.

But remember, the bags is all they had. They still have no clothes and, once again, are completely naked among their friends. But this time they do not start examining each other. Each of them smokes a cigarette and heads for home. Of course, they do not want to go all the way from the park to home naked. Besides, their homes may not even be within the walking distance. So, they each hang their bags securely around their necks and turn into the red felines as they have many times before.

You will recall that, unlike the black feline, the red feline keeps the intellect intact. And that it can run very fast. So, he runs home, his own way. At home, his family welcomes him. His relatives have made a piece of garment for him to wear. Naturally, the last time his relatives have seen him, the teen was still a child. Now he is a fully grown Kumáran. But Kumárans, just like humans, are not all of the exact same size. So, the family has made a very loose fitting piece of garment which could be worn by any adult Kumáran.

Clad in the new garment, he eats his first regular meal with his family as an adult. During the meal he relates the memories of his experience with great excitement, such as he has never known before. His memories include the days as the member of a group of black felines. Though the feline did not remember having been a humanoid, the humanoid does remember the feline experience.

The next day, he will go out and buy some adult-sized clothes.

Though physically he now is a fully grown Kumáran adult, having emotions is still a new experience. And while for the first 300 years of his life he had no emotions whatsoever, now his emotions are very strong. So strong that they easily overpower his intellect.

The Kumáran spends the next one hundred years exploring his emotional life and learning to balance his powerful emotions with his powerful intellect. During this time he becomes very creative. He dedicates much time to the arts. He also spends much time and energy helping others. And he continues spending much time with his friends, sometimes as a humanoid, sometimes as a red feline, and sometimes as the black feline following pure animalistic instincts.

By the end of the teen hundred years the Kumáran has found a complete balance between his intellect and emotions and is a completely mature individual, which he continues to be for the rest of his long life.