The Man from Earth Page #3

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were done with that.

No! Let's go on with it.

It's interesting.

Besides, I think he's making

a certain amount of sense.

Like hegel-- Logic

from absurd premises.

That Van Gogh?

He gave it to me.

I was, uh, jacque bourne at the time,

A pig farmer.

A pig farmer?

( Laughing )

I like to work with my hands.

He would come out to the place, paint.

We talked about capturing nature in Art.

Turner, cezanne, pissarro.

Oh, the nolde landscapes.

Not in Van Gogh's time.

He would have loved them, though.

Yes.

Well, I don't understand

Why you can't remember

where you're from.

Geography hasn't changed.

I learned

that in--

Professor hensen's tepid lectures.

But you're right.

Where did you live when

you were five years old?

Little rock.

Your mother, she took you to the market?

Mm-hmm. What direction was it?

From your house.

I don't know.

How far?

Um, three blocks.

Were there any references

That stuck in your mind?

Well, there was a gas station

And a big field.

I was told I could never go there alone.

And if you went back there today,

Would it be the same?

No. I'm sure it's all

different and built up.

Thus the saying-- "You

can't go home again"

Because it isn't there anymore.

Picture it

on my scale--

I migrated through an endless flat space

Full of endless

new things--

Forests, mountains, tundra, canyons.

My memory sees what I saw then.

My eye sees freeways, urban sprawl,

Big macs under the eiffel tower.

Early on, the world

got bigger and bigger,

And then...

think what I've had to unlearn.

And now you're moving on.

As you've said, there's

talk of my not aging,

And when that happens, I move on.

Well, it might make sense

to set up your next identity,

Your next ten years, and

then just drop into it.

I've done that a few times,

Even passed as my own son.

"Oh, you're an engineer, too?

You're ben's son. He was a good man."

Saves trouble with

credentials and references.

On the other hand, I've

been busted a few times.

Spent a year in

jail, Belgium, 1862--

I won't

forget that--

For faking a government application.

When'd you come to america?

With some french immigrants...

moving on.

An answer for every question.

Except one, John.

Why're you doing this?

A whim. Maybe not such a good idea.

I...

wanted to say goodbye to you as me,

Not what you thought I was.

Well, since this isn't funny,

We think you might have a problem.

A very serious problem.

I've got boxes to move.

I'll give you a hand.

Wouldn't you have

some relic, an artifact

To remind you of your early life?

Like this, maybe?

Thrift shop.

Really.

If you lived 100... 1,000 years...

would you still have this?

What would cause you to keep it?

As a memento to your beginnings,

Even if you didn't have

The concept of beginnings?

It would be gone, lost.

No.

I don't have artifacts.

Keep that.

Interesting.

You could have lied about that.

Don't talk about me while I'm gone.

Is he serious?

If he is, I'm sorry to say he's...

oh, how could he have

concealed that for ten years?

Least he doesn't appear to be dangerous.

What are you doing?

Checkin' for a hidden mic.

Candid camera.

He's fabricating these wild stories.

I've never seen him acting like this.

Oh, it's crazy.

All right, all right,

as soon as you can, then.

I love you, you know.

I know.

Since my first week at the office.

And?

I care very much about you,

But now you know what

you'd be getting into.

Do you really think you're a caveman?

Do you?

Could you love me,

Or don't you believe in that anymore?

I've gotten over it too many times.

Fond of you...

certainly attracted to you.

That's it?

I can work with that.

If what I'm saying is true,

You and any children will age.

I won't.

And one day I'll leave.

You'll go back to your

May-December romances.

The simple fact is

That I can't give you forever.

How long's forever?

Who ever really has it?

My parents split up before I was born,

And then my mom's next marriage lasted

What, a whole three years?

Then there's death,

illness, acts of god...

no one knows how long they have.

Or how little.

I love you.

Take whatever you can get.

Like ten years?

Ah! Ha ha ha!

( Yells )

Uhn!

Oh.

Why did you do that?

I wanted to see how fast you

were. Check your reflexes.

I don't have eyes in

the back of my head,

I can't hear a flea walking,

I am not in any way superman.

Well, I'm a second-degree black belt.

Give it another thousand years.

Well. I got it, I got it, I got it.

Jesus.

Smooth demonstration, Harry.

Sit on it, Dan.

I still have questions.

I-I do too, John.

I mean, are we done with prehistory yet?

Remember any of your original language?

A little. One thing

hasn't changed much...

( wolf whistles )

Did you ever do any cave Art?

Do you know the rock Art at les eyzies?

Mm-hmm.

It was the work of a man named...

giraud.

He did a pretty good job.

He would draw the animals

That we hoped to find to eat.

One day after a fruitless hunt,

Our chief stomped his teeth out

Because his magic had failed him.

After that, someone had

to chew his food for him.

Finally, he

got-- I suspect--

An infected jaw,

And he was abandoned.

That's awful.

You have to know what to kill.

Is this why all your students

Say your knowledge of history is...

so amazing?

No, that's mostly based on study.

Remember, it's one man,

one place at a time,

My solitary viewpoint

Of a world I knew almost nothing about.

Well, let's talk about

What you say you

do know about--

Historical times.

Don't encourage him.

Edith.

Next few thousand years, it got warmer.

A few thousand

years--

See, now, I know you're guessing.

You can't get there from here, Art.

Well then, pray, continue.

We hunted

reindeer, mammoths--

Bison, horses,

The game retreated northward

As the climate changed,

You got the idea of growing food

Rather than gathering it,

Raising animals rather

than hunting them.

Am--Am I getting

warm, here?

I bet I am.

Lakeside living becomes commonplace,

Fishing,

fowling-- Come on!

John, this is out of any textbook.

Even yours.

You got most of it right.

Eventually I headed to the east.

I'd grown curious about the world.

I'd gotten the hang of going it alone,

Learning how to fit in when I wanted to.

East.

Towards the rising sun?

Yes. I thought it might be warmer there.

That's when I saw an ocean.

The mediterranean, probably.

It was around the

beginning of the bronze age,

So I followed the trade

routes from the east,

Copper, tin,

Learning languages as I went.

Everywhere, creation myths,

New gods, so many, so different.

I finally realized that it was...

probably all hogwash,

So I was sumerian for 2,000 years,

Then finally babylonian under hammurabi.

Great man.

And I sailed as a phoenician for a time.

See, moving on had been

easier as a Hunter-Gatherer...

difficult when villages emerged,

Tougher still in city states

where authority was centralized.

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