Speaking of Eve... by Kimberly White

...I know another version of that story.  After he was dumped by his first wife, Adam believed he had found the perfect wife in Eve:  a wife who would stay where he thought she belonged - with him, by his side.  Under him.  Eve was a very young girl when she was handed over to Adam and she didn't know any better.  About a lot of things.  But she took her marriage vows seriously.  Young wide-eyed Eve took everything seriously back then.

When she was first brought to Adam's home, she couldn't believe her young, wide eyes.  Such a garden!  They spent every day wandering the endless garden and Adam took great pleasure in introducing her to everything.  Everything he thought she needed to know. 

What she didn't know, what she couldn't see through her wide eyes was how frightened he was of her.  His first wife's knowledge of the garden was equal to his own, better than his own.  His first wife talked to these plants and these trees and these animals like people and they had talked back to her, so she had claimed.  And his first wife had left him.  Humiliated him by outgrowing him and slipping her leash.  Adam would not make that mistake again. 

Eve didn't know about Adam's first wife. 

There were so many things in this garden, so many flowers, so many trees, so many animals, Eve was overwhelmed.  It was years before she absorbed all he taught her, years before she noticed he had not told her everything.  He had kept secrets from her, he had secret knowledge he did not share.  And suddenly, Eve was hungry. 

Eve left her husband while he was snoring, wandering the vast garden in the dark of night.  Seeing the night creatures, the night blossoms, smelling the fragrant night odors Adam refused to name.  Seeing the things Adam pretended not to see.  Walking through places Adam tried to  hide.  Dismantling fears Adam had built in the name of protection, in the name of protecting himself from her. 

It was only natural that she would find the Snake.  Inevitable that they would find each other.  Of all the things Adam refused to name, pretended not to see, most conspicuous was the Snake.

The Snake knew what was what.  He had been waiting for Eve to start taking her midnight walks.  He tracked her footsteps, traveling in her shadow, watching the wonder of her encounters.  Watched her swim naked in the garden pools, bathing in the moonlight never allowed her by Adam.  Watched her caress the open night flowers and stroke the furs of night- walking creatures.  The Snake knew she would find him, he knew she was seeking him and he was there, he was ready and he was hers.  He knew what she craved and he stood ready to feed it to her, as much as she wanted, any time she wanted.  Day as well as night.  Snake under the sun and Snake under the moon, Snake under Eve and Eve under the Snake.  He kissed her anywhere she wanted to be kissed and he told her anything she wanted to know.  Anything, everywhere.  Eve had found Paradise. 

He told her about Adam's first wife, the one whose wild howls could still be heard outside the garden walls on restless, windy nights.

When Adam found Eve with the Snake, he was understandably furious.  Eve had let her passions carry her away and had grown careless. 

Eve had grown in many ways.  When Adam found her, she was great with Snake-child.  For months, she had felt the little ones wiggling around inside of her, swimming all over each other in her maternal fluids.  When Adam saw her swollen belly, he misunderstood, not imagining it could be the work of the Snake.  Adam assumed paternity with pride, forgave Eve and took her back home.  Eve smiled to herself, pregnant with the secrets swimming in her belly and in her head.  Adam was simply relieved to get has wife back.

But Eve still loved Adam, and was moved by his forgiveness of her infidelities.  She in turn forgave him for withholding so much from her, but he was alarmed by her magnanimous gesture.  What did she know?  What had she learned?  How did she learn it?

The Snake....

The light went on in Adam's head and he was afraid, terrified that history would be repeated.  She would grow bored with him and leave him, just like the first one.  He was in danger, again.  What could be done?  Adam fretted day and night, not sleeping, not eating, worrying over his wife.  How would he keep his wife?

Meanwhile, Eve worried about Adam, worried he was keeping secrets from her again.  He wouldn't eat, he wouldn't talk, he wouldn't even look at her.  He walked the garden without her, day and night, and wouldn't tell her why.  Wouldn't tell her that he, too, sought the Snake.

But the Snake knows what's what.  The Snake knows the difference between Eve's intent and Adam's intent.  Eve sought knowledge in order to break bonds, Adam sought knowledge in order to create bonds.  The Snake would have none of it, slipping out of Adam's sight, out of Adam's reach, leaving him to face what his home had become.

There was only one solution, as Adam saw it, only one way to keep his wife away from the danger of the Snake.  He bound her up, hugely pregnant, and dragged her out of their home, putting a torch to the roof on the way out.  Running from the flames and smoke, Adam dragged her to the very gates of the fabulous garden, setting a torch to the gates on their way out.  Adam dragged her far away, but not so far that they couldn't still see the smoke pouring out of the garden.  No matter how far he dragged her, they couldn't escape the smoke.  Adam and Eve would never escape the smoke from that garden. 

All of that dragging and running finally induced labor in poor Eve.  Adam was forced to stop running long enough for Eve to bring forth her litter of snake children, half Eve, half Snake.  Adam was horrified at the shattering of yet another assumption.  Those children were not his.  Those children would never be his.

When the last half-Snake child had slithered forth, Adam dragged poor Eve to her feet again, dragged her down the road again.  Dragged her far away from her first children, the children of Eve and the Snake, left alone to fend for themselves.  Dragged her into the far, dark desert distance to write a new story, a story in which Eve would finally learn a lesson of Adam's choosing.  Something that could be a lesson to all good wives, for all generations to come. 

But you know they survived, those half-snake children.  They survived and they thrived and became their own tribe, they walked the earth in every direction possible, they joined with other peoples and their descendants walk the earth today.  They don't tell you that in their bible.

copyright July 2002  Kimberly White