“P” is for Progresso (The Story of the First)

Writers of Kern Blogging Challenge (A-Z)

Every now and then I get together with some of my fellow writer friends and we send each other stories about all sorts of things just for fun. We usually encourage each other to write short stories from various suggested subjects and then read each other’s works in our spare time. On one particular day, after chatting about the story of Dante’s Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, we decided to rewrite a story that had Biblical elements in it. I decided to pick up an online copy of the Bible and click to the first page, and from there I decided to rewrite the story of creation the way I thought it should be read.

There is no end and no beginning to the boundless spaces of the universe. Time stretched and weaved its way across galaxies bending and reaching but never breaking. Everything that is here now was also in actuality then, and life existed as cycles of transferring energy. In the beginning of the history of our galaxy, the universe made the heavens and the earth. The powerful force created light from the darkness, the land on the shores and the waves in the sea and grew plants and animals from the soil of the earth. Trillions of years had boiled down to create some of the first inhabitants on earth. The universe watched as its work of art spun itself around one of its many stars and it let the next evolution of creatures find their own way across the other astral constellations.

The first humans who exited the trees of northern Africa stood erect and walked as if they were different from all the other animals. They believed that they were special and wandered off alone to create their own community and preached a belief that they were exceptional beings. Among the few homosapians were Adam and Lilith who lived their lives as equal mates. The two humans loved each other and cared for one another constantly protecting the other from danger in the wild forests. There love ran deep like the steady flow of blood pumping through their veins. They were like perfectly fitting puzzle pieces joined together for a clearer picture. The two lived as if they were the only ones of their kind in existence and so they made a strange promise to one another to never mate with anyone other than themselves for all the rest of the days.

Years after the first night Adam had laid with Lilith, a menacing thought came crushing through Adam’s head. Adam became jealous and abusive when he saw other men looking at Lilith when she went picking fruits and vegetables in the garden. Adam watched on from beyond the clearing of the trees convincing himself without proof that Lilith was secretly laying with another human named Samuel. At the end of the day, when Lilith came home to greet her partner, Adam angrily accused her of not being faithful to the promise that they had made years ago to only lay with each other.

“I do not know what you are talking about Adam,” Lilith said sternly. “You know in your heart that I have never slept beside anyone other than you.”

Adam, now filled with an uncontrollable anger, let it wash over him and release itself through his right fist. He hit Lilith for what he thought was a blatant lie to his face.

“Do you think I’m ignorant of what you have been doing out in the garden?” Adam screamed at the tearful Lilith. “You have no idea of the embarrassment that I have had to endure from the other snickering at me behind my back.”

“But no one is snickering!” Lilith proclaimed as she grabbed the side of her face where Adam had struck her. “No one is snickering because nothing has happened between me and anyone else except for you!”

Adam, filled with rage, let his hot blood slither through his veins like a snake gliding across the forest floor. He let the deadly poison course throughout his body, and Lilith noticing the rising frenzy got up then and there to grab the two offspring they had produced and run away never to return. Adam ended up spreading false stories about Lilith breaking their special promise to all the other humans in existence, and he eventual caught the eye of a young woman entranced in the words that dripped like fire from his mouth in the process.

Adam took Eve not as an equal partner, but as a subordinate spouse and spun more lies about a woman who crushed his heart, slept with other men and stole his children. To Adam and Eve, Lilith did not exist as a human, but as an animal-like monster that deserved to crawl back into the trees. However, years of lying next to one another and producing more offspring made Adam restless again. Eve was no longer perfect as he too saw her as trickster. Adam yelled at Eve constantly and hit her as he did Lilith too, but Eve never left. The tiny village of humans living around them in the forest would try to pull Eve and her offspring away from the angry Adam, but she would always run back to find him. It was then that Adam and Eve decided to leave the small clearing in the forest where the first humans grew their fruits and vegetables. They banished themselves from the garden and never returned.