Human Stories, I

When SeedAdam was first formed he lacked for fingerprints. He would leave no mark of identity, nothing to be misinterpreted. Experience was clueless, a dim tunnel, tumult had only-just turned austere, and time was still-yet frozen. It was decreed: humans are not beings, they are stories. ManchildAdam knew not the stupidity of infancy nor the divisions of puberty which would curse his childrens^children. He simply materialized from earthstuff, as if dropt from the sky.

Even before his sin of GodFruit (carnality of certainty, spiritual arrogance), as if woven into the fabric of creation itself, he meditated on a nameless loss, a burn of yearning. There was yet-no concept of rationale, Adam was simply stuck where he was found. "There is a place," he promised to himself, "there is an other place." At times overwhelmed, he howled at the new-blue sky, "born with a loss!" but no creature could sympathize. This is the burden of actuality . . . whys and whats and the born loss.

* * *

Formed from his primordial want: a woman of godless beauty. By nature InvigoredEve was elusive, too elusive, perfectly ungraspable. Even though she was cast for that unity, the fate of her species etched in her loins (and he the last man on earth!), she could not share with him matters of the heart. HairyAdam was large and malformed with appendage. At times, without reason, she was truly afraid. Even his gentle footsteps among the carpetmoss, intended to be playful, intimated a subtle urgency. As she dodged from his chase through the fruiting trees of the garden, her fear was turned to the surface like the rich peat of a ploughed field. Descending downwards, into the mute survival of bodily organ, she meditated on the kingdom of her womb and the code of bounded fate.

* * *

Such was the first love affair; an incongruous puzzle. It seemed to Adam that Eve was always looking away. It seemed that though she was always looking away she had only just averted her gaze. A game, the very first game.

Both dark people, quick in movement, his heart jumpt as they played among the garden mazes. He imagined a fleck of pupil at the corner of her eye, appraising his naked body: "with desire!"

Then he watched her drift away, entranced by the play of flowers in the wind, the musical rustle of grain. "It is only my delusions," he thought, "she is not a starer, she does not want from loss, for the female in her bearing is born complete." Even when captured and held with force to look eye to eye, she remained superior (the caste of angel?). She would gaze through his face, wisely into the far distance, or thoroughly into his empty core. He could not tell what she saw, but knew there was no hiding the born loss. Worse, he learned that with handling it grows; its placelessness must be ignored. Adam descended into a torture. Life is full of slippery items, survival a glossing over confusion. He began to wonder if his counterpart was a HumanStory like himself, or rather, if she was really a creature of the night, established in limbo, storyless.

* * *

One day, the lusty snake arrived carrying folktales of black magic in a leather sack. Spineless like a pleasure organ it flowed absurdly—more like oil than beast—movement with no appendage. The human couple heard the dark tales and ate the fruit. The snake became the ladder of their blood, their sentimental encore, and taught this lesson: "Perfectly divided you will never evade a belief in the simplicity of earlier times, The Myth of the Universe Household. It will be for you the Story of Stories."

* * *

A new glint appeared in Eve's eye. Knowledge exists! And beyond existence, it can be used to effect change, to curry favor, to change the hearts of others into footpumps. She saw that seduction and repulsion were released for public consumption. And Adam could not see! How bizarre some knowledge is not fathomable by all. But the TreasureFruit was two-sided: FrustratedAdam's curiosity waned and she was terrified. She came to...