What?

I just finished reading What is the What? by Dave Eggers.  I'm not writing a book review.  I just pulling out the story of "What?"  You see, when the main character was a boy in Southern Sudan, his father told him the story of God's creation.  After God created man and woman, instead of the woman choosing an apple or not, the choice was a cow, or...what?

 After God created men and women, according to local legend, he gave them cattle, the source of “milk and meat and prosperity of every kind.” But God offered mankind a choice: “You can either have these cattle, as my gift to you, or you can have the What.”


What is the what?  Well, you don't know.  That's the point, because this time, unlike Eve, man chose correctly.  He chose the cow because the cow met all his needs: nourishment, and prosperity.