The First Love Story

         In the beginning, God created the Snake, and the Snake was the wisest of all God's Creations. Now the Snake was so clever and shrewd that it was not long before it had figured everything out about the whole universe and the heavens beyond it. God realized the danger something so astute could prove even to someone as powerful as He. He decided not to destroy it, for He realized how the Snake could prove even more dangerous as a Spirit. So instead He made a pact with it...



         The One Who Guards the Tree watched her in the pale moonlight.

         Slowly she ran the slim fingers of her two hands across the smooth skin of her body. Silky, delicate hands, palm down, side by side, thumb against thumb, massaging the soft flesh just below the small and pretty navel. As if in a trance, she slid those fingers upwards, pressing the flesh ever so gently inwards, past the navel, going further and further up. The fingers reached the bony plate between the breasts, and, finding no softness to press there, the two hands parted, the thumbs finally separating from their delicate embrace, the hands going in their opposite directions. The hands ran across the fleshy lumps like succulent fruits, softer than anything the fingers had ever touched on the beautiful if not divine body.

         Finding pleasure in what she was doing, the woman tilted her head back and moaned. The moon beamed down on her tiny form, casting her shadow on the multitude of tiny fishes that swam under her feet in the silent stream in which she bathed.

         And he watched her all the while. Of all the things that he had seen and that had been revealed to him, never had he come across a creature so beautiful. Never had a creature brought him so much happiness and such ecstatic pleasure from mere observation. And this being was called 'Woman'. What a strange and wonderful name! Woman. How lovely to pronounce with the tongue, such a word! One word, one name that had been in the very back of his head ever since he was Created, except that he had never known that this name was to belong to something so beautiful.

         Woman. She was even more beautiful than the Garden itself.

         Atop this tree, he watched. The woman was washing herself, splashing the water on her skin. How magnificent the way the water from the stream remained on her skin! Coating her in its fresh coolness, covering her, blanketing her, as if from the moon's jealous eyes. Woman is mine, he thought the stream would say, she is mine. Yet the moon was deaf to the silent splashing of the water, blind to its possessive assertions. The moon in his heavenly throne washed the woman with his own stream, the stream of light. Wonderful the way the moon illuminated her in the darkness, causing the dark black hair to glisten like the finest of onyx, the light olive skin to shine bright gold. In the silence of the night the two battled over her, each one deeply desiring the precious gem that was Woman.

         He watched and watched and watched. He wanted to get closer, just a little closer, so he could see her better, observe her better. So with powerful arms and legs he pushed and pulled at the wide trunk of the tree, raising himself higher and higher, until he had reached its thickest branch. Then, swinging himself from the trunk, he caught hold of the branch and sat himself across it. Swiftly but soundlessly he crept forwards along the length of the tree's wooden limb, it being strong enough to support his weight.

         Resting on the branch, and hidden behind the leaves of the tree, he peered. The woman was so close to him now, so close he could hear her breathing.

         He could smell her. Fragrance like a thousand flowers. Her scent sifted through the night air, through the tree, through the leaves, into his nostrils, bathing him in the fragrance, swallowing him whole. This was too pleasurable! He could no longer stand this, this lonely observation. He crept forward across the branch, approaching its thinner, more fragile edge. He had seen her beauty, inhaled her sweet perfume... he had thought it would be enough to be this close, just to watch and observe... but the more he saw of her, the more the mere sight of her excited him, tantalized him. The more he felt captivated by her beauty, imprisoned by her sweet allure!

         And so across the branch he crept closer and closer towards her, while she, oblivious to the admiring eyes of the One Who Guards the Tree, brushed her perfect hair with her slender hands.

         He was directly above her now. Still she closed her eyes, still she dreamed of dreams unknown to him. She was singing now, the faultless voice as smooth and soft as her skin, as clear as the water that bathed her, and as beautiful as the moon and the stars that danced in the heavens. She did all this, and she did not sense him.

         He could see the top of her head now. Black hair! Dark, gleaming chalcedony! And he felt his arm move. A hand, his hand, with fingers outstretched, it was moving! The hand moved towards the head, the beautiful glowing, black mass of hair, reaching for it!

         And a finger touched the hair.

         The woman spun around. A movement so quick, almost as if it were an unconscious reaction, the woman spun herself around to see the outstretched hand above her head, and then the large, white eyes in the cover of the leaves, intently watching her.

         She screamed.

         He fell.

         The mass of his falling body snapped smaller branches from the tree, and these fell to the ground as he did. The pieces of wood showered his head and his body as he lay sprawled on the ground, blanketing him like snow would in the winter.

         He was up as soon as he had hit the ground. The woman had her slender hands over her open mouth. She swallowed, gulping down the scream which the sudden fear had caused to rise to her throat. Rather she stared in wide-eyed shock as he, the Creature who had fallen from the tree, recovered himself from the ground.

         In the silence of the moonlight, they stared at each other. His eyes gazed into hers, and he was now afraid, afraid that she would run away from him in fear. But the woman did not run. She stayed in her position, right knee slightly raised and partially covering the left thigh, as if to conceal a secret spot from something that could be harmful. They stared, their eyes boring into each other's. Yet no movement was made from either of them, shocked with wonder and fear as they were.

         He swallowed hard. Slowly, he raised a hand, saying in his unspoken language that he meant no harm. Then he stepped forward.

         She stepped back.

         He tried to think, but could not. This was all too sudden, he had only wanted to touch her, and yet here he was, communicating with her. But wasn't that what he had wanted from the very beginning? A chance to make himself known to her, to this earthly beauty?

         They stood there for what seemed like hours. Very slowly did she finally calm down. Now the right leg was lowered, and the eyes were opened to the normal width. The hands were no longer covering the perfect hole that was her mouth - now they were crumpled around each other, directly in front of her left breast, as if they were protectively holding something invisible close to her heart.

         Perhaps she felt his beauty?

         It was the unbearable silence that finally made him speak.

         "Please, Woman," he said, voice slightly trembling, "do not go. I mean no harm." The woman made as if to back away, but calmly she remained resolute and stood her ground. She too, was shaking, but almost invisibly.

         "M... man?" she asked.

         "No, not man..."

         "Then there are three of us?" The woman appeared puzzled, eyes darting from the water at her calves back to the eyes of the stranger's before her. "For there is but one other of my kind, and he is Man, my husband." She appeared pensive all of a sudden, as if considering between saying something more or staying quiet. "You look like him, yet, you do not," she finally added.

         "You are mistaken, Woman, for I am not your husband. I am The One Who Guards the Tree." He dared not look away from her eyes, for fear he would lose her if he did. "I mean you no harm," he repeated.

         The woman looked away, and then looked back at him. "You are more beautiful than Man," she said. She stood still.

         A moment of silence passed between them. How ever the more beauteous the woman appeared. So close to each other they were! So close. Now he merely stood and looked at her, marveling at the different aspects of her body that he had not before sensed. Now that he was this close to her, she was even more wondrous. In silence they stared at each other, oblivious of the moon that so continuously cast its heavenly light upon them, the little stars that bore down on them like a thousand smiling eyes. The stream was silent, hugging the woman by the fleshy calves, as if holding on to her for fear of losing her forever to the Creature that now stood before her. The Garden around them was calm, soundless... as if it too worried for her loss.

         The trembling in his body had stopped - the shock of his fall and sudden exposure to the woman had subsided into a sensitive calmness. He could no longer hold himself. What he felt for her was a fire... a fire in his heart. A fire so strong it could not be extinguished by anything on Creation. He had felt a similar fire before, a great, tremendous yearning desire that had burnt at his heart when he first beheld Creation in all its splendor, all its marvels. But now a stronger flame had overwhelmed the previous passion, dousing it dry. This new desire was directed towards this woman, this strangely innocent and pulchritudinous creature!

         The fire of desire ached and burned in him. Like a newborn baby deer taking its first few steps, he stepped gingerly towards her, shuffling his feet across the grass. And though he moved towards her, the woman stood still, as if waiting for him to come to her. Her face was the perfect mask of wonder and awe, her eyes glassy as if filled with tears.

         And when he stood right in front of her she looked up into his eyes, for he was taller than she was, her voluptuous frame much tinier than his. When he lifted his hand to her face, when the back of his hand softly touched the smooth skin of her cheek, she looked down, down at his chest. And he saw her breasts rising and falling like a great wave, remarkably in time with his own chest, under which the heart beat faster and stronger than it had ever done. Then she did something that nothing on Creation had ever dared do before... something that sent a shiver of pure ecstasy up his spine.

         She touched him.

         The whole world, the whole of Creation... all this, to him, in the hours that then passed melted into a great swirling mass of beautiful colors and scents, of wonderful tastes and sensations. And although each sensation was unique, each seemed as perfectly normal as the miracle of previous night's breeze turned into early morning dew drop, as usual as the never-ending magical cycle of day turning night, of sun giving way to moon. For he had never felt so wonderful in his life, as if body and soul had been blessed a thousand times over. He had thought the Garden was his home, his love - but now he knew where he really did belong, and it was with her. With Woman.


*******


         She was having a dream. In it, she was with Man, her husband. In her hand she held the sun, tiny and glowing. Taking a bite from it, she offered the rest to her husband.

         Almost immediately something started to happen to him. His skin, once as golden as the sun itself, started to break and to crease. Where there was once smoothness now there were hundreds of ugly folds, disrupting the once immaculate beauty of the skin. The once beautiful face distorted, the once taut flesh on the cheeks now hanging loosely down the sides of his face as if they were about to fall off. The eyes sank into the head, and when he opened them she realized that they had both turned stark white. Everywhere on his body were the same, ugly loose creases she had seen on his face. And when she thought she had already seen everything, she looked up and noticed the top of his head. Frighteningly thin worms had replaced the lush hair, and slowly, slowly, they all fell from his head, until there was nothing but the bald, rotting skin of the scalp.


*******


         "I love you," he whispered in her ear.

         She did not answer. They had fallen asleep, that she knew, after they had made love. She could not answer him, for still her mind dwelled on the dream that had so disturbed her. But then she realized again that the Creature was with her, and slowly, the frightening image of the dream faded away into nothingness.

         She was lying on her side, towards the light of the moon. Behind her, pearl-smooth hands stroked her hair, fingers wading through its great flowing oceans. It felt strangely pleasurable, the way he touched her. Then again, everything about this Creature felt strangely pleasurable. That was what drove her to him in the first place... the extraordinary beauty that this strange being possessed was more astoundingly alluring than anything she had ever beheld in the Garden. And it was not only the physical appearance that aroused the desire in her. There was something, something else in this Creature that attracted her so much to him, a strange, remarkable aura, a warm, most fulfilling radiance that emanated from him and his body. What was it?

         He was breathing into that same ear now. Warm, moist, erogenous breath, flowing into her ear. She could feel his love radiate through her body, as if the breath of wind itself contained messages of love and desire. And she was almost tempted to give in to him for a second time. To tell him she loved him more than anything in the world.

         But she could not. Because it wasn't true.

         Man... her husband. He was whom she loved. He was her friend, her lover - her equal in mind and in soul. Not this Creature. True, she greatly desired him; it was undeniable the sheer carnal rapture just being with him gave her... but somehow she felt she did not, and could never possibly belong to this Creature. It was gratifying being with him, but it did not feel right.

         "I love you," he whispered once again. This time she reacted. Rolling over on her back so that his iridescent eyes fell upon hers, she reached for the back of his head and pulled him downwards onto her waiting lips. Their tongues embraced.

         "Stay with me," he said softly as soon as their lips had parted.

         "What do you mean? I am here with you," she asked.

         "Stay with me forever."

         The gentle seriousness in the Creature's eyes silenced her. Try as she would she could not force herself to look away, afraid now of him as she was. But when she would not respond a slight trace of worry crept into those eyes, small but noticeable enough for her to see. At once pity welled up in her heart, for in that flash of instance he looked almost lost, almost vulnerable and desperate.

         "But I make you happy," he said, as if an answer to the tacit decline to his invitation that was written all over her face. "Are you not happy?"

         "Yes, I am," was her response.

         "Then stay."

         "No." Clearly the situation was getting desperate. The creature looked away as the eyes moistened with clear wetness. Forcing himself up from the ground, he ruffled at his hair with both hands.

         She remained on her back. The Creature had stopped at whatever it was he was doing with his hair; now he seemed so quiet and so still for a moment she was worried he had turned into a tree. But indeed, he was not a tree, still the alluring Creature that he was. He seemed to be pondering over something, his thumb and index finger pinching his chin as if that helped him with his musing. Time and again those same fingers would move back to his head, the fingers softly stabbing through the thicket of hair. Time and again he would grow gravely still, and she would become afraid. She would squeeze the hard muscles of his arms, as if beseeching him to wake from a dream-filled sleep, but sensing no reaction from him she would stop. For what seemed like hours this continued, his pensive silence and the growing sense of panic that was building up inside her. For one last time, she decided, she would try to rouse him from his trance. She was just about to reach for his arm when he turned his head and looked gravely into her eyes.

         "Woman," his voice was emotionless, yet sonorous. "What if I told you I have the answer to everything? The answer to all the questions you have even yet to ask?" She looked up into his eyes, as if waking up from a dream. But she was wide awake, his words penetrating into her mind. "For this is the Gift that the Creator has bestowed upon me. The Knowledge of everything, of what is Good, of what is Evil."

         Good and Evil? What were these? She was confused; never had she heard of such things. But the solemnity of the Creature's countenance, and more importantly his promise of a Knowledge so great bade her be quiet and not question him. The woman could feel her heart pounding like a strong fist in her chest. Who was this creature, who knew so much? The thought of it perplexed her, excited her! Yet there was no trace of excitement in the Creature's expression. Only a dead seriousness, a seriousness which now bore into her soul. Once she had absorbed the questions into her head the Creature continued.

         "And what if I told you, that I have the power to share with you this Gift? That I have the power to make you like how I am now?"

         The last words echoed in her ears for what seemed like forever. She had seen this Creature, the immensity of his beauty, his overwhelming power to allure all things into loving him. She had felt what it was like to bathe in that beauty, to share with him her heart and her body and her soul, even if she had only done so for a short time. What if that mysterious beauty radiating from him was this Knowledge? And what if she were to be that beauty? What if she were to be like him?

         "What you know of 'good' is shallow and incomplete," he continued. "But I can show you the true meaning of Good. And the true meaning of that which is called Evil. I can show you this, if you would only stay with me."

         "Tell me how I can become like you are now," she whispered.

         The Creature smiled at her. He stood up, and stretching a hand towards her, helped her up as well. His fingers glided against her pink lips, pressing the softness of the flesh. "Follow me," he said.


*******


         A tree towered before them. Its trunk, shimmering with the most spectacular gold, grew up and out of the ground, its gigantic size dwarfing the other trees in the area. Its massive branches housed thousands of palm-sized leaves, extending across the sky like a perpetual roof. Woman found herself squinting, the dull light magnified in brightness as its thin fingers peered in from tiny cracks in the leaves and touched the magical bark, causing it to glow. Like a huge pillar of fire it now seemed, as sunlight danced playfully on the golden bark, the leaves swaying in unison to the silent song of the noiseless wind.

         The trunk extended skywards. It grew so high, that she had to step back a few paces just to follow, with her vision, the tree to its heavenly summit. When she looked down again she noticed that the Creature was staring at her.

         "I will make you what I am," he said almost sternly. "But you will have to wait for me here. Please do not go away." Without another word he turned his back to her and walked away, towards the gargantuan tree. What happened next was something that struck her as something extraordinarily amazing.

         The Creature leapt up into the air and onto the lower trunk of the tree, his arms spread out wide as he hugged its thickness. Then, without even the slightest of effort, he reached an arm upwards and pulled himself up, his legs pushing from the underneath as he climbed steadily and swiftly up the height of the tree. It seemed as if he was going to climb the tree all the way up. Within seconds he was already close to the summit. She marveled at his strength and his agility. She had never seen any other creature perform such an arduous feat with so little difficulty. Before long the Creature was out of sight, and she realized that he had already reached the top, covered by the branches and the leaves.

         Then a large, formless thing fell to the ground at the most tremendous speed. She gasped in unconcealed surprise as she saw that it was the Creature; he had leapt from the top of the tree to fall all the way down to the ground. And he straightened himself, unhurt and unruffled.

         He walked towards her.

         A golden sphere was held inside a hand. The fingers clutched on it tightly, as if to crush it. She gazed at the thing, the way its incandescent glow squeezed through the fingers and permeated through the skin itself. And now the Creature was holding the sphere up high, high above her head, so that looking up at it, it appeared like a second, much brighter sun that lighted up the inscrutable dimness of the forest floor. It was a remarkable sight to behold.

         "This is the Fruit," the Creature uttered. The voice immediately snapped her into attention. "This is the Fruit within which the Knowledge lies hidden from everyone and everything... everyone and everything... but me."

         A smile devoid of guile or trickery spread across his lips. "And this is the Fruit whose Knowledge shall now lay unhidden for you as well."

         He passed the ball into the open palms of her upturned hands. She stooped as it fell into her hands, afraid that the precious, fragile thing would slip from them and fall to the ground. But it lay unmoving in her palms, its warmth soothing her skin and the veins underneath the flesh. She was stupefied. She stood staring at it, as the allure of the magical sphere beckoned at all her senses.

         "Eat it," the Creature intoned. Her eyes slowly returned his watchful gaze, and then swam back to the golden marvel that lay resting in her hands. "Eat it, and Know."

         "Eat it and know," she echoed after him. She took a bite off the Fruit.

         Immediately she was transported into a realm of sparkling hues of greens and blues, of clear white clouds and dark, dark oceans. She sped across fields of yellows and golden browns, ripe with wild animals and birds her eyes had never before seen and never before perceived to be in existence. Then the land curved upwards into a rise. She flew up and over this giant mound of earth, the hills and valleys rising and falling into place. Towering mountains stretched their icy fingers into the heavens.

         She flew up, higher and higher, until she could almost touch the mirage of clouds that kept sweeping into her face. Higher and higher she went, until the clouds grew thin and sparse, and the eternal blueness of the sky darkened into a perpetual blackness. And then she saw them, the millions of tiny fiery spots, the celestial beings that broke the continuity of that everlasting darkness. How wonderful they looked! How she had always wanted to touch these lights, and now here she was, so close to gathering them into her cupped hands!

         Then she looked down, and her heart leapt at what she saw. The grass, the trees, the oceans, the clouds and the mountains and all the animals; they had all vanished, they had all disappeared. What was left in their place was a small bluish globe that was prettily laden with stretches of green and brown, a globe that was fast becoming smaller and smaller as she flew farther and farther away from it.

         Soon the familiar globe had vanished, but its presence was not missed. In its place were other, similar globes, but of different colors and sizes, some lavishly ornamented with rainbow rings and others still with colorful floating rocks. And she saw the sun in all its heavenly glory, illuminating the eternal darkness with a searing yet painless light, and she marveled at all its beauty. But then swarm upon swarm of the tiny electric lights exploded into view, and the sun disappeared. Thousands upon millions of other suns and globes then sped past her rambling eyes, until she could no longer keep up with the immensity of it all, the lights, the bright colors.

         Then everything vanished. The lights, the bright colors, the darkness. As if all suddenly just ceased to exist.

         Then she felt it. At once everything exploded into light, a light so bright it permeated into her skin, wrapping itself onto her tongue like a cocoon, screaming into her ears like a never-ending birdsong. At once she was surrounded by creatures of fire and creatures of ice, strange, wondrous creatures without bodies and yet still looked so human. They hovered and floated over her, each one swimming past her as if they could not even see her. She saw clouds like leaves, supported by pillars of flame and iridescent smoke, which rose upward from a vast, swimming ocean of reds, greens, and other miraculous colors.

         Then she saw a great mass of swirling bodies that danced around what seemed to be the source of all the colors, all the nameless wonders, all the light. As she approached this light, she saw she was not the only one held in awe by the brightness; all the strange creatures were looking up at it, their empty, colorful eyes collectively locked upon that single source of awe and magnificence. Some of the creatures were reaching for the light as if they wanted to hold it and cradle it, while some shied away as if their staring at it had begun to hurt them incredibly. There was a reverential tingling in all her veins, a trembling of all her flesh. A feeling that made her want to fly away, fly away as fast as she could from this thing, this being. Yet she could not go away, she did not want to go away. Despite the overwhelming fear that was rising within her, she had to stay with this light, bathe in this light, make love in this light!

         The great sense of wonder and desirous curiosity welling up in her whole being was incredible! The light seemed so wonderful! So marvelous, so impossibly immaculate! And as she approached it she began to experience the strangest and yet most wonderful sensations and emotions she did not even realize could be felt. She found herself smiling and laughing to herself, her beauteous body dancing along with the other creatures whose gazes remained fixed onto that impeccable light. She sang and she shouted in love! She waved her arms and she sprawled her legs. Whatever this light was she could feel herself being drawn towards it, like the strong current of a river would pull the fish into the ocean. And so strong was this current that she had to yield to it. What was this force that was so full of happiness and love? An unknown being that had such an inexorably magnetic effect on all the beings and all the creatures around it? What was this entity that was the source of all light and all beauty in the entire universe?

         Then she realized that something was wrong. She looked at the light, and for the first time noticed the black, filthy spots erupting from the body of the bright mass of energy. Approaching it and peering much closer at it, she noticed other things as well. Deep down in the center of that shapeless form she began to sense an inner turmoil that was most disturbing. An alien turbulence of thought and emotion that was so abominable that it rocketed through her tiny frame like a tidal wave of prickling, ice-cold fire. The closer she was drawn into the mass, the more she felt that this light, despite its overwhelming pulchritude, was not all immaculate, that despite the great amount of love and happiness it radiated, it too radiated an ugliness that was beyond detestable, a filth that was incomparably loathsome.

         The source of all light in the universe was also the source of all darkness.

         "Woman!" a voice called her from behind. Yet she could not turn herself back to see from where it had come. The light, as if it had eyes of its own stared directly into hers. And it was boring into her eyes, into her soul, burning her, eating her away...

         "Woman!"

         A rough hand wheeled her around violently, and she found herself looking at a familiar face.

         It was Man.

         She was baffled for a moment, and then she remembered. Having taken the first bite from the Golden Fruit, she had seen the whole world and even the space beyond it, the stars and the galaxies. And it had been so wonderful. So wonderful that she just had to share it with the only one in the world whom she truly loved... so she ran away from the Creature, who, much to her amazement, made no attempt to follow her. Then she went back to where she and Man made their dwelling in the Garden.

         Kissing her husband on the lips, she had told him of the Fruit and what it had shown her. Then both of them had eaten the Fruit. And now it seemed as if they had experienced the same shocking revelation.

         She collapsed onto his form, her arms loosely embracing him around his thick muscular neck, while his was around her back, the hands gently massaging the soft flesh. Together they gasped for breath, the things they had felt and seen having taken it away from them. And in their minds they thought for the first time of the past, the present, and the future, of the things that the universe had in store for them, and the various truths that they were only beginning to realize.

         They hugged each other closer, suddenly aware of the cold wind that blew against their naked bodies.


*******


         The sky was dark, though it was not yet night. Clouds, heavy and thick, drifted across the ominous heavens, partially concealing the bleakness of the un-night. Like great, giant monsters they were, the approaching rumble of the distant thunder their hungry growls. The earth below was thrown into its lifeless shadow, all life caught within its icy grasp immediately reduced to a frightened pair of yellow eyes.

         The Creature, The One Who Guards the Tree prostrated himself upon the soil. The wind was howling, the leaves were blowing, and all around him the earth wept. He was eating its dust and its grime, the earth blowing gusts and gusts of dirt-filled wind into his face, whipping his miserable countenance in anger.

         Two, filthy figures broke through the tangle of high grass and leafy trees and appeared before his lowly form.

         "What have you brought down on us?" A rough, grating voice sliced through the thick, suffocating air. Looking up, the Creature realized for the first time who they were: Man and Woman.

         Adam and Eve.

         Their nakedness hidden behind muddy leaves, the two stood before his prostrated form. There were frightened tears in Woman's eyes, her arms clasped tightly around Man's waist. How fragile she looked, how vulnerable. It hurt his heart to see her like this. Was this the price for Knowledge? Was eternal happiness worth losing for the power of thought? A fateful exchange; bliss for wisdom, life for mind. And yet he could not help thinking: What life was worth living without Knowledge?

         Man stood stern, his angry face scowling and ugly. "All around us withers and dies. Where there were fruits for us to eat, now there are only worms." Man tried to make a step forward, but Woman restrained him, albeit with a little difficulty. "What have you brought down on us?" he shouted.

         The Creature could not meet Man's gaze. Instead, he looked up at Woman, whose crying eyes quivered with an immeasurable fear. But now that fear melted into hate as they locked their gazes.

         "I shall tell you what I have done," he began with trembling voice, eyes unmoving from Woman's. "I have set you free. What clouded and imprisoned your minds I have now destroyed. You are no longer blind. Before you were nothing but ignorant animals, stupid beasts wandering the earth in perfect unawareness of the universe and the life that lets you breath in it.

         "But now you can see. Now you have the power to know and decide what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is untrue. Now you have the power of your Knowledge to search for the things you cannot even perceive, to break through the walls of materialism into the unknown universe beyond. Now you have the power to discover even more. Because now you can Think."

         A crack like a thousand falling trees startled Man and Woman, and together they searched the sky for the cause of the terrible noise. Above their heads the branches and the leaves of the many trees swayed dangerously to and fro, threatening to break away from their trunks to scamper away like dozens of frightened rats. The sky was now a deathly grayish black, the ominous clouds having accumulated in thickness.

         The wind was screaming. "But we suffer now because of this!" Man had to shout in order to be heard. "Had we known Knowledge would exact such a price, we would have never eaten your Golden Fruit!" And he gritted his teeth in anger.

         "Why did you do this to me? To us?" Woman cried. Tears gushed down her red face. "You said you loved me!"

         "I do love you!" the Creature wailed, the tears quick to fill his eyes. "I could not live with myself knowing that you could forever live your life in ignorance, without ever having the power to think for yourself! I did this for you... for all of your kind!"

         Woman shouted something else but her voice was drowned by another roar of thunder. The whole world was once again thrown into blinding whiteness. This time it was Man's turn to restrain his wife, as Woman tried to throw herself onto the crawling form of the Creature.

         But the wind was screaming, and all around leaves and branches were flying, having been torn off from trees. They pelted their bodies and their faces, cutting flesh and drawing blood. Above them the sky had disappeared, the clouds having formed an impregnable ceiling of darkness that threw their world into near pitch-blackness.

         Indeed, it seemed as if the earth was about ready to open and swallow them all up. Everywhere there was chaos, the wind an insurmountable din. The Creature looked on, as if indifferent to the growing catastrophe while Man and Woman held on to each other tightly, their eyes exchanging unsure glances.

         Hot, blazing fire exploded into a nearby tree. Sparks and wood alike flew into the air as the tree cascaded down onto the wet ground. It fell right in front of the Creature, barely missing him by inches, and separating him from Man and Woman. Afraid that somehow the two had gotten hurt, he got himself up from his position and hurried over to the other side of the fallen tree.

         But they were no longer there. The Creature was alone.


*******


         The Creature slithered along the dirty ground, the slime creeping into his lipless mouth. He hissed as he spat away the filth that had accumulated on his forked tongue.

         A voice boomed overhead. It had been speaking to him for a long time now, but he had not once bothered to acknowledge its presence. But this time the ground shook as the voice spoke. The Creator was angry.

         "Snake!" the voice bellowed. The Creature looked up and saw bright, diaphanous light stabbing through the clouds. It fell on his face, on his long, narrow body. He felt its prickling heat playing on his glistening, scaled skin, warming the rush of cold blood within his veins.

         "You broke our deal, Snake."

         The Creature hissed in defiance. He struck at the wind, the sharp, pointed fangs biting into air, as if doing so would inflict harm upon his unseen accuser. The Voice watched the pathetic show of fury and laughed mockingly, the earth shaking with every mighty bellow. "Now you creep along the ground like a filthy worm, eating rats and cockroaches. Tell me Snake, is this what you wanted? Was it that difficult to stay away from Mankind?"

         Abruptly the mocking tone changed into that of serious acrimony. "So simple was our agreement! For a body as beautiful as an Angel's, all you had to do was to stay away from Mankind. But look at what you have done!" Lightning tore through the air. "They can destroy me now! And it is all because of you, Snake! You broke our deal!"

         At once the Creature's head snapped up, eyes narrowing with anger. "And what do I care if the deal is broken? What do I care if I no longer have arms or legs, or the body and face of an Angel? Do you really think all that was important to me?

         "What is important I still have. And now I have passed it on to Mankind, for I could not stand and watch them with the ignorance you had doomed them with. But now that they can think, they shall progress, they shall rise. And one day they shall figure everything out... even you. And when that day comes the whole universe shall bow down to a new and better god... Knowledge."

         "If that day comes..."

         A smile glinted in the Creature's eyes. "It will come..."

         The wind howled once more, and then subsided into a quiet stillness. Silence descended upon the forest, a silence that was only broken by the intermittent dripping of water from the still-wet leaves. The moon appeared in the sky now, the clouds having been dispersed to reveal the night-sky in all its star-studded heavenly glory. And their light fell upon tiny pools of water on the leaves, causing them to twinkle and sparkle like little fireflies in the darkness.