Eve in the Garden of Eden (creative writing)

Our story begins with the endless stars and a sense of completion, Eve knows the garden because she is part of it. Every morning the sun rises and every evening it sets, the days unfurl like flowers within a greenhouse, this place knows no scarcity and no adversity.

Eve and Adam spend their days tending the plants, like animals they eat, sleep and sing kept within the rhythm of Utopia. Their world and in turn their minds are made up of things they know, divinity is one of these things as these beings walk beside them - for after all, they made the garden. They also know there are exceptions in their paradise, trees that hold secrets and they know these are not only forbidden but deadly.

What brought about the first act of free will? Was it a quiet stirring within the female body, the original liminal space? Had Eve always wanted to eat the fruit and needed only be enticed by the serpent? Was it truly the original sin, our first corruption? Is it a metaphor for genetic mutation, sex, drugs, aliens or spiritual enlightenment? Will we ever know?

Eve in the gentle sunlight making her way through the garden, clear water flows in small rivulets, she is aware of the movement of it and the gurgling sounds it makes as she slowly walks upstream. This is a place of lush greenery, plants are an ever presence in the garden, so much so, Eve can't be sure she isn't a plant. She knows them all, not just by sight but smell, touch and sound too. She slows her steps as she arrives beneath a huge fig tree, she loves this tree, it has large green leave that smell sweet and milky, they filter the sunlight into impossible shades of emerald. Looking up she notices the fruit, she knows these are not for eating, she's been told they are forbidden, deadly. Something rustles in the branches and her attention snaps to a large smooth shape unfurling itself through the leaves, her first reaction is an animal one and she freezes. But as the snake reaches towards her it's head level with hers, it opens it's mouth and speaks. Up until now Eve has had very little need for communication, she works with Adam in a predictable pattern, tending to the garden so well, she is not even aware she is doing it, or - that this is what she was brought here to do.

She is surprised when the snake talks to her, this, is a circuit breaker.

Don't believe everything you've been told the snake says, it's eyes glittering in the dappled light, not all of it is true, even this tree...

Eve looks again at the huge soft leaves and pendulous fruit.

Eating this fruit will not kill you, the snake continues, it will give to you the knowledge of good and evil. What is the knowledge of good and evil? asks Eve.

It is an awareness of all things, it is the secret of a mind that can work beyond itself. The snake replies.

But my mind works just fine, what else could I need to know? Eve replies, looking into the snakes eyes.

You are only so sure, because you do not know, what you do not know.

Eve says nothing in reply and instead stands a long while, her naked body perfectly still and green under the fig tree.

The snake waits with her, motionless, for it is made of rivers and eternity and uncharted journeys, like all snakes. Deep within Eve's heart she feels a stirring, the stirring is a seed and she feels it uncurling as she uncurls her own arm and hand, slowly reaching up to pick a single fruit. The act of picking the fruit itself is the first separation and although she knows it's supposedly off limits, once holding it, she has no doubt she is going to eat it. It fits perfectly within her cupped hands like an egg, tentatively she raises it to her lips and bites into it.

As the juices explode in her mouth she is winded by the feeling of being pulled away and towards herself at the same time. Suddenly she is aware of her thoughts, which crystallise around her, expanding infinitely into themselves. She looks down at her body as if seeing it for the first time, as if seeing it through somebody else's eyes and feels an urge to cover it up. The sunlight begins to burn her skin, she starts to feel less like a part of the garden and more like a finite vessel of flesh and blood. She has lost a sense of knowing, in it's place she feels the contradiction of a mind aware of itself and it's environment, of pain, of fate and mystery. Creation is a process of separation and connection, born within the multiplicity of a woman's body. She looks up and the snake smiles knowingly at her, the way all snakes smile. Leaving the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she turns towards the forest, taking care not to hurt herself as she makes her way through the garden of Eden towards the great unknown.

Writing and Illustration by Maya Carroll-Tischler

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