They tell me the book says the snake told me “surely you won’t perish”, but if he did I didn’t even hear it.
I wasn’t listening to the snake. I was listening to the tree.
The fruit called to me… it sang to me. God made man from dust and breath, but He didn’t put any music in us. He didn’t think to. When He put the tree in the garden, He didn’t realize how it would sing. God sees everything else, but He doesn’t see music, for the same reason fish don’t see water.
People have asked me about the fruit. They ask it all the time, actually, when they first get here. I understand… the way it’s written down, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. It looks like the snake talked me into it way too easily.
That’s God again.
He was telling the story, of course. He didn’t know about the music, didn’t know what it did to me. Living in water, He didn’t realize how thirsty we could get.
Sometimes people are angry with me, even after I explain.
They think I ruined things for everyone. They think it’s my fault that they suffered. They’re not really mad, of course. The worst part’s over by the time they meet me. But they still want me to know that they blame me. There’s nowhere else to register a complaint, here, and not much to complain about.
It’s just a habit that some people carry with them.
Nobody ever thanks me. Nobody ever asks me if it was worth it.
If I could go back and do it all over again, I think I’d do the exact same thing. I like to say that I would have spent more time in the garden first, but I know that’s bullshit. I ate the fruit because I couldn’t help it, because it sang and because it offered relief for a thirst I didn’t know I had before I heard it. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Not exactly Christianity’s standard depiction of Eve, but certainly a depiction that one is able to relate to. Love it!
In hindsight, placing both a forbidden fruit and a tempting serpent in the same location with beings who are easily manipulated was probably a pretty stupid error on the part of an all-knowing, all-powerful deity…
Now, a forbidden AND tempting fruit? Now that’s just asking for it.
I think this may be my second favourite from among your flash fiction, after “The Forests of the Night”. A really interesting take on the whole Genesis myth…
You should have named this “Suck it, Lilith.”
haha i’ve gotta admit, it was weird trying to think of how to be grateful of Eve’s decision because of my christian roots. but the perspective is really interesting. if you get inspired to do something like this again on religion, i’m all for it.
re:Christoph
All knowing versus stupid-error — if you stipulate God as all-knowing, then it wasn’t an error. It was deliberately planned.