They Called It Eden

Prelude

The air was thick and damp, pervading with the mugginess that followed a hard rain. But it had not rained here. Rubble covered every inch of ground as far as the eye could see. The only glimpse of order was seen in the vague outline of what was once the main artery into town, as various debris was scattered as though tossed by a giant.
The scene was grey, both in actual coloration and in feeling. No color escaped the confines of their prison cells to show themselves in this place, on this day. No, the confinement was palpable in every fleck of dust as the deficiency of color reminded me of nothing I had ever seen before.
But most notably was the lack of trees. No flowers. No rivers. No chirping birds. No carpets of grass to line the rows of obliterated houses. Nature was gone from this place, replaced by the nothingness that was the expanse of broken homes. A feeling of hopelessness wafted through the air, though I was the only one there to taste it. It stemmed from knowing there was no future, that all that humanity had worked so hard to obtain had disappeared by one of its own creations.
I knew nothing of how I knew this, but it seemed natural, intrinsic even. I recalled nothing of learning this having experienced it personally, but I knew, standing upon a mountain of crushed cars and roofs that only we could have done this. No storm was potent enough nor any hand of God strong enough to do this type of destruction. Only humans possessed this lack of humanity.
And yet they were gone too. I saw not one person anywhere. Not in the streets, nor in the rubble. It was as thought they had all disappeared into the previously thin air. Of everything I expected to see that day, human death was at the top of my hypothetical list, however just like the trees and the birds and the grass and the color, there was nothing to see.
I wanted to scream to run as fast and far away from this place as I could possibly get, but my legs were tied by my knowledge that wherever I went I would only see carbon copies of the scene before my eyes. But that didn’t prevent me from screaming my anguish out to the barren wasteland. I screamed, and screamed, not paying any attention to the world around me until my right foot slipped off the car windshield I was standing on. It caught in the remnants of an ancient fence and swung me around so that I completely lost balance. I felt my stomach wrench painfully. I fell, tumbling down the mountain of broken things and heading straight for the cracked concrete slab below. I flew in and out of my view aw I tumbled head over heels, but drew ever nearer none the less.
My muscles tightened under the stress of knowing of the impending impact, but instead of hitting hard stone I flew forward into the large softness that was my covers.
Just a dream, I told myself, just a dream. But deep down I knew the truth.

Chapter 1-

Dreams are disturbing. Not in their fantasy but in their reality. The Apostles understood this concept with a radical vigor that I could never hope to achieve, and it served them quite well when they were in power. But that’s no longer the case. Thank God for that.
The Apostles performed atrocities that were so unspeakable that only the most well intentioned of people could have committed them. That was another notion they understood: if you state your intentions to be pure and you quoth God stay your back, the public seem to turn more sympathetic towards your actions.
This turned not my head , though. Perhaps my eyes were better than they ought to have been back then, but I cared not for the intentions of so-called ‘Visible Saints’ when the rift between their words and their actions was separated by the Berlin Wall. One murder only creates another, an eye for an eye. That’s one concept that eluded their grasp.
‘The Apostles.’ Even the name was false. My God, if you’re governing a people under a Christian theocratic system, at least have the decency to respect your religious platform figures. I mean, if the real Apostles had seen who had donned glory in their name, well, the truth is that the consequences would be too awful to contemplate.
For my sake I cared less for that name than any decent person of my era ever would have. Most people greeted the name ‘Jesus’ or ‘God’ in the same way you would speak of a beloved family member. With the reverence, the respect, the love, but above all, with the knowledge that they would be at your side when the world proved too foreboding for one person to handle alone. Every person needs a friend in the world when all else has forsaken them, or even when it hasn’t. And there is no steadier friend than God, I suppose.
I supposed a lot of things about God back then, and to some point I still do today. I always wondered how people were so sure he was there. Was it a feeling? A notion? Was it because of years of propaganda imprinting this idea into their heads? I never really asked anyone, so I’ll assume it’s more of a pureed mix than any one factor by itself.
If you hadn’t already guessed, I’m a self-classified atheist. I’m self-classified in many other categories as well, it’s something of a hobby of mine. It’s not as though I hate God. Not at all! It’s just that I never felt that spark of recognition whenever I was read the stories of God and Jesus. Perhaps it just wasn’t repeated to me enough times, but those names felt more like the names of a third cousin twice removed than a brother or a father.
I didn’t know that this was in any way unusual when I was growing up. I merely assumed that everyone else regarded religion in the same light. In fact it wasn’t until I left home-schooling and entered public middle school that I finally realized that people actually believed the Bible stories as truth. At home I had learned solely from the books of math, science, history and English, always studying the Bible more as historical literature than anything else. Perhaps because this was the only path known to me, I expected others to have followed it as well.
Oh how wrong I was. But that’ll be explained in good time. I suppose you’re still wondering who I am. My real name is Blanche Devereux, though those syllables had not touched my ears for years before recently. You could say I’m a dissenter, but one by situation only, not constitution. I’m not necessarily the type to reject my surrounding, but I certainly do have a strong sense of right and wrong that will call me to action whenever impinged upon.
And in my opinion, the Apostles were impinging greatly upon my sensibilities, be they romantic or not. They were the ones who created me, they were the reason my name was lost for so many years. But whatever wrong they did me, they were also the ones who destroyed themselves, a quandary I still ponder as I sit on this park bench.
The Apostles held the most militarily potent regime in the world, and used its might to do God’s work around the world. Yet just a couple years after their fall, the scars are not visible to the unfamiliar eye. Nobody speaks of the old world except to remark on its ‘restoration’. Bullshit. That place is forever lost, and everyone knows it. But to me it seems as if it never even existed. The tree perched over me and my bench seems as pure and natural as was ever seen before the Apostles had their say.
The new world I live in now is promising, but yet there is something missing. As odd as it may sound, it’s simply not home yet. I grew up in Eden. Yes, that’s what it was called; and no matter how I despised the place, there were certain people that gave light to me there, adversity or not. I know it’s just psychological weakness to still be wishing for one of those I lost to show up again, but I can’t help myself. As psychologically unhealthy as it is, until I lose hope of finding someone I knew in the old days, I will live in the nostalgia that happened to be the happiest and most tragic years of my life.