In the beginning…13e. Eden

“Shhhh, Eve,” Adam cautioned, “what’s that?”

“What’s what?” Eve’s rejoinder came back with a teeth-clenched hissing. She was terrified.

“That sound – listen!” Adam continued. “There it is again!”

This time Eve heard it and crouched a little lower in their hiding place. They were as far to one side of the garden as they could go. There seemed to be nothing worthwhile beyond this grove of trees and clump of bushes. “It sounds like footsteps,” she suggested. “But whose footsteps?” She knew, but was afraid to state the obvious.

Adam wasn’t, “His. They must be the Creator’s. He’s coming for us,” he cringed as he said it.

Eve stammered, “What’s going to happen now?”

Adam tried to comfort her, “We’ll just have to wait and see; whatever comes, at least we’re together.” They edged closer to one another and joined hands. The sounds drew closer, then they stopped.

“He must be looking for us, Eve,” Adam’s premise proved unfounded. He had found them.

“Adam? Where are you, Adam?” God paused as there was no immediate answer to his summons. “Adam! Eve, come out here, please. We need to talk.”

Adam and Eve picked their way cautiously through the bushes and around the tree trunks separating them from the place where they now knew God was waiting. They approached Him sheepishly and stood with heads downcast. It was a cool time of day, yet sweat was glistening on Adam’s brow. Eve shivered as though cold.

God began, “Adam, where have you been?”

Thinking in haste, Adam blurted out, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

God said, “Who told you that you were naked?” Adam raised his head for a brief second and his eyes made contact with his creator’s. God continued, “Have you eaten of the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”

With his eyes still looking down, Adam replied, “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

For the first time the Lord God said to the woman. Their eyes met, but only for a second as Eve shuffled her feet and changed her position to a little behind her husband’s shoulder. She found scant comfort in the new position. She finally managed to remark, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

At that very moment the bushes behind Adam and Eve moved as swaying in the wind; but it was a perfectly calm day. Immediately out walked the serpent, tongue flickering in and out, what seemed like a grin on its mouth. The snake settled in at Eve’s side. It seemed about to speak, when God held up an outstretched hand and pointing at the serpent stated, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

As soon as the words settled in the hushed silence of the garden, the serpent was transformed. The stubby legs instantly disappeared and the creature flopped on its belly in the dirt. With a hiss, it crawled back into the bushes from whence it had come. The spirit of Lucifer having already left that slimy body making its somewhat triumphant return to heaven.

The three watched it go.


[to be continued]