Could it have all been different?

And in that garden, the man saw that the tree was good for food to eat, pleasant to the eye and a tree to be desired to make one wise; and he took of the fruit and gave some to the woman, who said to him, “Don’t be so stupid, put that down now!  Has God not told us that in the day we eat of that tree we will surely die?”.

Then the man was afraid and regretted what he had done and resolved to crush me, the snake who had led him on, with his heel; but the woman spoke to him calmly, “Haven’t you caused enough trouble already?  I will speak to God when She walks amongst us in the coolness of the evening”.

When God heard what had happened, She smiled and picking up the fruit went down to the Pishon river; and after She had bathed God ate that fruit, the fruit the man had desired and chosen.  I crawled away to another garden.

The man remained with the other species, naming their variations as if they’d been created as separate animals and plants.  The woman looked up into the moon, planets and stars, imagining them to be lights that shine in the heavens, just signs to mark time and the season.

We can all imagine that other Eden, a golden garden on the river Pishon where God smiles down on ignorance.  Today, tomorrow, next month or next year, we can squint our eyes and say, “That’s where I should have lived – that land without thorns or snakes or sacrifices!”; but please, for the sake of everything we should all hold dear, do not ever try and go there.

2014.