Dirty Eden (32 page)
“You mean...,” I began, searching for the right words, “I don’t....”
“To be a real human woman,” Sophia said, “is what I desire most. I’ve always wanted it. I mean yeah, once you do whatever you’re supposed to do here, I’m sure that dream will be short-lived for me, but I’m willing. At least I’ll get to be one, yah know?”
Her words made me feel terrible for her.
She did not give me time to argue and held Vanity’s Mirror up in front of her face. Her dark eyes bore into the glass. Her hideous face seemed softer in an instant, but her form still had not changed. Everything went quiet. Everything. The wind. The voices far off in the distance. The sound of my breath getting heavier and heavier. The pumping of blood in my ears and in my head. The sky stood still as if frozen in time. And although there was not a single cloud or bird up there, one could still tell that the sky had stopped moving.
Sophia began to grow.
Her rigid brown skin changed to beautiful, pale white. Her legs lengthened and became the slender legs of a youthful young woman. Her hips smoothed into an hourglass, the flesh tight around her new form, yet soft and innocent and beautiful in every way. Her breasts were supple and round. Her doe-eyes green like emeralds set in a velvety, round face. Her hair streamed down past her hips like calm water over rocks; so blond that it was almost white.
I never noticed that I had gone to my knees watching her. I was overwhelmed by this awesome sight.
And then the sky started to move again, but it too was changing. Everything was changing. The endless yellow field turned deep green as plant life of every kind began to sprout up all around us. Fully-grown trees came out of the ground, and even a mountain and rolling hills appeared in the background, shaking Eden’s earth with tremendous power. Waterfalls were all around us, one to the north, south, east and west. There were clouds then, enormous white ones against the stunning blue of the sky.
I could not get up from the ground. The awesome sight of the world and of the woman, Sophia, made me weak in the knees, and like everything else, my mind was different. It was new, delicate and clear. I knew who I was, but the only emotions that were prominent were serenity and happiness. The woman that stood naked before me I saw as another element of nature. There was no lust in my heart. I was also naked, but it felt completely natural and there was no shame.
Behind us, a tree now stood where the large stump had been, its width enormous. Hanging in its thick green leaves were dozens of round, yellow fruits. Beneath it, that magical moss covered the ground.
But Eden was not yet Eden entirely.
If it were, I would have no memories as if I were dead. I would not be here next to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, knowing already that good and evil existed. I would not still know why I had come all this way, or what I was here to do. The Garden of Eden was almost restored. Its beauty and light was there, all around us, but Eden was still dirty, it was still imperfect and I was moments away from cleansing it once and for all.
“What will you do?” another woman said.
She was sitting atop a small moss-covered hill just feet from Sophia and me. Her hair was long and fluid and red as fire. “What will you do once she offers you a taste of the fruit? Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
Lilith’s introduction was unnecessary. I was just surprised it took her so long to catch up, or maybe she had her reasons. I could care less.
“I know that I’m doing what’s right,” I answered. “And I know that you’re threatened by it.”
Sophia did not look at Lilith. The incredible flowers and creatures in our midst occupied her full attention as if Lilith were not there.
“You’ve seen Hell,” Lilith went on, “maybe not your own, but you’ve been there. You yourself have done nothing in your life out there, or even the one in here, to warrant an eternity in Hell.”
I listened.
“Dear ol’ dad was only trying to scare you.”
“And right now,” I said, “you’re trying to persuade me to eat the fruit because you know you’re going to lose everything if I don’t.”
Lilith descended the hill and approached me. Sophia still did not look up. She sat sideways atop the moss, her sinuous body held up by one hand.
“Yes,” Lilith admitted, “but if you do not eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, you will also lose everything.”
“I already have,” I said, laughing. “There’s nothing left for me to go back to. I won’t live anyway and even if I did, I would have no life. My body is burned. My limbs no longer work. I would rather die than live like that.”
Lilith smiled softly. It was not a befitting smile from one so terrible and wicked.
“If you cleanse the Garden of Eden, it will be like Heaven on Earth.”
“Then why wouldn’t I want to do it?” I shook my head.
She continued, “Every day will be the same. The world will always be beautiful. No danger will lurk in any corner. There will be no sadness, no anger, no plight. Every single day of your existence, which will be eternity, will be happy and blissful.”
I thought that Lilith was digging her own grave here.
“There will also be no pleasures,” she went on, “unless you consider sunshine or the chirping of birds, pleasure.”
She hit a nerve, subtly but obviously.
“Sex is not a sin when with your wife,” she said, “yet He will even take that from you. He will strip your ability to dream and to yearn. There will be no such thing as ambition because anything you want will be available to you at any time.”
Lilith reached out with the back of her fingers and pretended to brush them down the side of my cheek, but she did not touch my skin. “Then again, want and need are also two emotions that will not exist.”
She had succeeded in quieting me.
I stood there, thinking as deeply as ever.
“Hard to imagine, is it not?” she said.
I felt a twinge of struggle. Temptation was much stronger than I could have imagined. With only a few words and little persuasive tactic in them, she was able to make me think twice about my agenda. Second-guessing the dark and the light side in this particular situation was as dangerous as parachuting without the parachute.
“I won’t fall for it,” I said, looking away from her.
“Oh, Norman,” said Lilith, “this is no trick, although I doubt I can convince you otherwise. You have grown up hearing the stories about how my father tempted Adam and Eve. In this very place. In this very spot. There is no way to make you believe that my intentions are not trickery and temptation, but only to tell you the truth.”
“So then why still try?”
“Because I am not here to prove my reasons,” she answered, “only to speak the truth and let you decide for yourself if my words have substance. It is all I
can
do.”
I faced her again. “So, that’s why you never killed me yourself, why I’m still alive right now. You can’t touch me, can you?”
Lilith nodded once, slowly. “Like my father, I have so much power, but can only use it to influence.”
“Ah!” I said, “So then you
are
trying to influence me!”
“Of course,” Lilith admitted, but her expression remained undisturbed. “But influence is not the same as trickery or temptation. Surely you understand the difference.”
I became distracted by Sophia and how quiet and uninterested she was in Lilith’s presence.
“Sophia,” I said, “what do you have to say about this?”
I had a strong feeling something was off.
Sophia looked up. Her silky blond hair fell around her breasts. Her smile was radiant and soft.
“To say about what, Norman?”
I glanced at Lilith curiously and back at Sophia again. “A-about the land....”
“It’s wonderful,” Sophia replied.
When Sophia saw that I had nothing left to say she continued brushing her fingertips over the tiny flowers near her.
“She can’t see you,” I said to Lilith.
Lilith shook her head.
“I can offer you anything,” she said as she lowered herself next to Sophia and began combing her fingers through Sophia’s hair. “I can give your life back.”
That struggle was getting stronger.
I can’t let her get to me. She’s lying.
Lilith seemed about to say something, but then she stopped with a peculiar and even slightly worried look in her eyes.
“I must go,” she said. “Remember my offer, Norman, and remember who it was that sent you here.”
Lilith walked away on the outskirts of the green field. I watched until the trees eventually enveloped her. How could I let her get to me like that? But her words did, in fact, hold substance. I sat against the base of the Tree of Knowledge. I began to ponder more deeply. Sophia walked around the tree, admiring the greenery and the flowers nearby.
A butterfly landed on my hand. I studied it. Its wings were a rainbow of colors. I raised my hand to admire it, stroking it between its wings with the tip of my finger. Only when I pursed my lips and blew softly on the butterfly did it flutter away.
How could I even consider letting Lilith get to me?
I thought of the creature in the Forest of the Cursed. And then there was Tsaeb. Although he did not deserve much sympathy, I could not help but feel sorry for him, too. This place, Creation, was a terrible place full of terrible people.
“I like being a woman,” Sophia said walking around the tree. She held a round, yellow fruit in her hand. “I feel new and important. I feel like I can do anything now.” She paused and smiled over at me. “Thank you, Norman. You can’t imagine how much this means to me.”
I smiled back, but it was a forced smile. I wasn’t sure how to feel.
Tsaeb came walking up and he too was naked. His hoofed feet were gone and he looked softer, different and older by at least eight or ten years. Even his smile was more human-like and good.
“I don’t know what you did,” he said, “but I feel wonderful!”
Wonderful? A word like that coming out of Tsaeb’s mouth in a non-sarcastic way sounded odd.
“Where is Taurus?”
“Oh, he disappeared,” Tsaeb answered. “Literally, I mean. He was standing there with me and then he faded like a mist, and was gone.”
Sophia let her hand fall to her side, the fruit still clenched in her fingers. Her smile abandoned her. “He was one of Lucifer and Lilith’s children,” she said staring out ahead. “He can only exist in one place.”
I looked upon her curiously. “How did you know that?”
“...it just came to me.”
Then Sophia’s face filled with anger. “No!” she shouted. “Norman, you can’t let him be damned to that terrible place! Taurus helped you! Look at what he did for you, for all of us!”
“Don’t listen to her,” Tsaeb snapped. “You made a deal and you can’t go back on it. Look at me. This is how I used to look. I was human once, just like you. I didn’t have much and got made fun of. My mother was a stripper and no telling who my dad was
—
”
“Wait a second...” I stopped him, “wait just a minute, Tsaeb.”
I moved closer to Tsaeb and walked two circles around him. Tsaeb looked awkwardly uncomfortable as though he were being undressed with a man’s eyes.
“You say you were once like me,” I said, “but there’s more to that than just meaning you used to be human, isn’t there?”
Tsaeb did not look at me.
“My guess would be,” I continued, “That you were once in my shoes weren’t you?”
“W-what do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. This task was once appointed to you, but it didn’t turn out very good, did it? You failed and then you were cursed.”
Tsaeb was silent for a long time. I had him. That was true and he could not deny it. But Tsaeb also seemed tired; probably tired of hiding what he was for so long. This time however, I couldn’t be angry with him, or blame him anymore for anything. I could relate.
“Yes,” Tsaeb admitted, “I was like you. I met Eve and the twins and a man named Henry on my way from the baseball field.” He turned away from me and crossed his arms. “I was an awesome pitcher, could’ve made it to the big leagues someday if it weren’t for David Callaghan who hit my pitch right back to me at seventy miles an hour. My head caught it instead of my glove. You know the rest.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Tsaeb hesitated and went on.
“Obviously I failed,” he said looking over once, “but I only made it as far as Bastion City
—
every journey is different. They begin in different places, the paths are different, even the clues. Hell, the Tree of Life wasn’t inside a fortress when I met her, she
was
the fortress. I failed after I figured out her riddle.”
He added in a low voice, “They pulled the plug on me in the hospital. I never had a chance.”
“But then how could Lucifer curse you?” I said. “That wasn’t your fault.”
With his arms still crossed at his chest, Tsaeb turned at the waist and looked at me with anger-filled features. “I don’t know; you have to ask
him
that question. Least he could’ve done was take my memories, too, like everyone else.”
Sophia jumped in, “Because Lucifer never plays fair. His reasons for anything, his decisions, his agenda, they’re all only to benefit himself.”
She stepped up and held the yellow fruit out to me.
“Do you really think that Lucifer told you everything?” she said. “More importantly, Norman, do you honestly believe that God would ever make a deal with the Devil?”
Two facts became instantly clear in Sophia’s words. The first was that Lilith was dictating everything that Sophia was saying. Sophia could not have known about the deal the Devil had supposedly made with God. Secondly, regardless of fact number one, the question itself was a revelation. Why
would
God make any deals with Lucifer?
“No,” I answered, “I guess God wouldn’t.”
I never imagined in all my time in Creation that this part of my journey would be the most difficult. No choices or obstacles were as powerful as this one right here: having to decide whether to taste of the fruit. Seeing for the first time that it was likely that I had been tricked. I painfully weighed who was the heavier enemy, Lucifer or his daughter, Lilith.
I thought of poor Adam for a moment. I could only imagine what other factors were at work when he tasted the fruit and damned everything. I thought that the story of Adam and Eve lacked more than it told. Adam was not tempted by the cunning of a woman. There had to be so much more to it than that.
Other things began to tickle my thoughts.
“What happened to Henry?” I said to Tsaeb. “The one you met with Eve and the twins?”
“He was who I chose, just as you chose me,” Tsaeb revealed. “When I failed, I took his place. I really hate to think about what might’ve happened to him.” He looked away. “What might happen to me if
you
fail.”
No matter what choice I would make, someone would lose. If I ate of the Fruit, I would fail and Tsaeb would suffer for it. I would end up in an alley, or a gas station restroom until the next fool came along, or maybe even as an oblivious wretch in this Godforsaken place that is Creation. But if I succeeded and left the Fruit alone, not only would Taurus
—unknowing to him—serve an eternity in Hell, but I would end up an oblivious drone in a never-ending eternity of
predictability.
I knew that Lilith was listening to my thoughts.
And I knew that she would answer to them….
It happened so quickly.
I grabbed the fruit from Sophia’s hand and took a swift bite, catching Tsaeb off-guard. Tsaeb screamed, “No!” and fell to his knees weeping.
Creation disappeared in an instant.