Sylvia was an evolutionist. She was not an evolutionist by
profession; she was an evolutionist by nature. (By profession, she was
a flight attendant on a rather run-down airplane flying people back and
forth from Los Angeles to Tahiti for $450.) Charles Darwin was not so
much a subject of awkward conversation for Sylvia but rather a godlike
figure whose message was her life's duty to spread.
"The Tree of Life is a tree of many branches," Sylvia said with an
obscurely monotone voice to a bewildered passenger, a businessman who
hails from Bangkok. His mouth hanged open, and he was frozen except to
blink. He couldn't quit staring at Sylvia's amazingly over-painted
eyes. There was so much plastered-on mascara that her eyelashes must
have weighed a ton. "The bacterium and the amoebae lie at the bottom
and from there come the algae, fungi, and then the eukaryi." She
somberly slid her knobby-knuckled hands into her apron pocket and
grabbed a mysterious object locked in her fist. She opened it to reveal
something surprisingly passive. "Would you care for a peanut?"
Even though Sylvia is a flight attendant with a life mission, (indeed
one of the very few flight attendants who dare possess a life mission)
her life so far had not exactly been the path of righteousness and
glory.
She had only gained a true glimpse of her purpose ten years ago in high
school-her sophomore year when she won a creationism/evolutionism
debate. (Her opponent's counter-arguments consisted basically of "If
you like evolution so much, then why don't you marry it?")
Nevertheless, the moment when her befuddled debate instructor announced
Sylvia's victory, was when she knew she would spend the rest of her
life being an evolutionist and fulfill the important role in society to
counter argue anyone who dares question the noble works of Sir Charles
Darwin.
Unfortunately and frustratingly for her, she since discovered most
people she runs across either support the idea of evolution or would
rather not talk about it. This irritated her to no end and frequently
causes screaming fits during her flights (and loosely throwing around
the term 'creationist bastard'). Even worse, it indirectly inspired her
to over-burden her eyelashes. She does seem to have an awfully
difficult time keeping them open.
