Eve dream. Chapter three. Adam – part three

Masaccio, Cacciata di Adamo ed Eva. Detail

Eve dream first episode (Lilith part one)

Previous episode (Adam part two)

 

Eve spread her arms wide on the lawn. She found a stone. She clutched it in the fist of her right hand and struck Adam’s face with all her strength; Adam collapsed with a groan, rolling to the side and freeing her.
Eve got up and ran away, stumbling over stones and roots, falling repeatedly. The low branches of the trees scratched her face. Her feet hurt on the stones, which, like everything now, were hostile to her.
The rustle of her footsteps sounded like noise produced by something hitting dry grass.
Dead grass.

Adam knew pain, for his first time. He brought his hand to his swollen lips and sensed his blood gushing from them. He tasted it for the first time. He reviewed with his mind Eve’s wounded knees, her blood, vermilion.
In the comparison, he understood everything.
He saw now clearly what had happened. What he had done.

Adam was a good man.
Adam was the Man, and the Man was good. He had been made good.
He had been made good before Evil was in Eden.
Because He created Man in His image; in His own image he created him;
male and female he created them.
So Adam was good, simple. Today, you would say naïve, indeed.
Adam was a kind man, happy with life and with the work assigned to him.
Adam was the keeper of Eden.
Adam was very sweet to his partner and loved Eve tenderly.
Because Eve was his equal, yet different.
Because Eve was the light of his eyes and the meaning of every smile.
Because Eve was the peace of the night and the breath of the day.
Because since Eve was, he knew no more solitude.
Eve was the most wonderful gift he had been given, an unimaginable gift.
A gift that had filled his life with joy, because it is not good for man to be alone and Eve was flesh from his flesh and bone from his bones.

Yet, the horror had happened and Adam had been its instrument, like Eve before him was.
Worse than Eve: because Adam had offended Eve.
He had treated Eve worse than a beast.
He had been a beast.
No: not a beast, because everything in Eden was good.
He had been a demon.
He had tasted the fruit and transformed it into the fruit of Evil.
He could see the deception clearly, while the horrible laughter still echoed everywhere.
He had turned love into violence, good into evil, light into darkness.
He had turned his beloved into prey, in helpless plaything for the satisfaction of his underbelly.
What was supposed to be the culmination of the purest love and the perfect gift had changed into oppression, hatred, violence. Offense.
Lucifer’s victory could not have been more complete: now the Seconds were his, his property.
Man was lost.
The horror had happened and the Ancient Serpent was laughing now.
He laughed and with that laughter, within that laughter, because of that laughter, the horror spread everywhere.
That laugh that Adam had made possible.
That rotten laughter corrupted everything.
Death had come into the world.
Everything became dangerous, ugly, hostile. Deadly.
The man got up, slowly, because he now knew the fatigue.
He too, like Eve before him, burst into tears.
He wrapped branches around his crotch, as Eve had already done, and he understood everything.
All things.
What could Adam do at this point?

He began to walk aimlessly, and with each step he saw change grafted into everything; the meadows became stained with rusty and dry grass, the pool of cool, perfect water had become muddy, stagnant, and smelly.
Dead branches hung from the trees.
The she-wolf was devouring a fawn and the blood soiled the ground.
He felt with his bare foot an object yielding under his weight and break: the zuffolo.
He hoped to find Eva, the only company now possible.
He saw her. He walked toward her, but kept his distance, dejected with shame.
She, still crying, looked at him and saw him crying. She saw the weeds around Adam’s groin.
Now they were the same. Lost. Both of them.

While they cursed the Serpent, the horrible laughter echoed even louder, mocking, victorious.
They had to flee away from Eden, away from Him.
He, perhaps, would have forgiven them, for He was Love, but pride had been instilled in their hearts. Pride, son of shame for one’s own inconsistency.
Because after a fall you can rise again, but often the fall is shame too great to be accepted.
Because fragility, fallibility and inconsistency are within men and women.
Because, above all, they do not endure such characteristics.
Because fear and scandal over one’s own frailty are the mothers of pride, of hatred, of violence.
Of war.
So they had to flee.
They had to flee, forever.
Away from there.
Away from Him.
They had to hide.

Silence was born that day.
The silence between the Seconds and Him.
That day, indeed, properly, the Seconds became the Men and Women.

 

(to be continued)