Some time ago, nearer the beginning than the present, a strange creature was hewn from the muck of Creation and was taught to walk upright.
The Almighty favored these creations above all others. They were not made in His image for He has no form. No, they were imitations of us. He gave them Paradise. We who had long attended Him, beings of air and light, were ordered to guide and protect them. Some of the lower ranks of the angelic order were happy to find other beings to communicate with and it was, after all, in their nature to serve. Seraphim are no such servants.
We were always nearest the Almighty, guardians of the Throne, generals of the angelic host. And there were some among us who felt betrayed by the Almighty. We are beings of passion and power. We sought vengeance.
The texts say there was a war amongst the angels over this point. Indeed there was but not right away. In the beginning, we were united in our vengeful effort. We laid out our strike against the mortals. That task fell to me and it was, admittedly, a rather ingenious plot. The Lord gave them one rule to live by: not to eat the Fruit of Knowledge. He gave no reason why. The Lord explains Himself to no one, least of all to mortals. In doing so, the seed of curiosity was planted. Suffice to say, I am an excellent gardener.
I visited Eden one day in disguise, like a man but undeniably more than that. Eve had lain her bare body next to her husband's beneath the shade of an olive tree. The slept peacefully, her dark washing over the grass and one hand lying gently on Adam's chest. They were almost beautiful. But they were too dim, too murky to be looked on by angel eyes and seen as anything but sculpted clay.
I walked noisily, making myself known to them. They stirred slowly. Their eyes fell on each other first. Something passed between them and they flashed bright as lightning; love is an angelic emotion. They realized they were being watched and turned to face me. The light of the Host filtered through my mask of flesh and they gazed at me with fear and wonder. The moment was broken by Eve first.
"Who are you?" she asked as she sat up.
I smiled. "No one important. I just want to talk to you."
Eve and Adam exchanged a nervous glance before making room for me. I sat between them, my naked form stretched out seductively. It took Adam an effort of will to look away. Eve, however, fixed her dark eyes on my face. Women are naturally suspicious of overly beautiful men.
"What are you?" she asked.
I put a hand gently on her shoulder. "One of His companions. Like you."
She shivered beneath my touch. The sensuousness and unfamiliarity of my presence was threatening That's what made me all the more alluring.
I turned to Adam and said, "The Lord has told me He visits you very often".
I placed my other hand on his upper thigh. He gave a shallow gasp.
"Yes" he said, "the Lord visits us daily".
"My, my." I said, feigning interest. My hand trailed up Adam's torso in one long caress. my fingernails softly raked his skin. He was obviously aroused, completely enthralled by me. I twisted my fingers in his hair, pulling gently. He lay his head against my chest in silent ecstasy.
"The Lord must truly love you then," I said.
"Yes I think he must," Eve responded.
I turned to her, trying to look confused and pained.
"Then why have you not eaten the Fruit? If you truly loved Him, you'd have done so by now."
Eve looked as if I'd slapped her. "The Lord told us not to."
"And have you never wondered at that?" I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
"The Lord knows all and therefore knows best."
I stroked her face and planted my hand on the back of her neck, all while suppressing a grin. Truly, the Almighty is a vast intelligence capable of knowing very much, particularly about the natures of humans and angels. But he is far from omniscient. Proof: if He knew everything, He'd have stopped what I was doing the moment I had started.
"Sweet girl," I cooed to Eve, "the Lord simply did not wish to overburden you with too much knowledge. The Lord understands you completely, as you are, but you fail to understand him at all. This makes the Lord extremely lonely at times."
Eve looked away, as if I'd told her she were personally causing the pain. I cupped her chin and turned her face towards me. Her brown eyes became watery as she looked on me. I pulled her towards me. Our barely touched as I spoke.
"But if you consume the Fruit of Knowledge, you'd truly understand Him, know what it is to share your lives with Him. What it means to truly love Him."
My tongue flicked between Eve's open lips, grazing the tip of her own. She inhaled deeply. My trap had sprung. Adam nuzzled against my chest enthralled by my touch. Eve's breath came out dry and heavy, thirsting for another taste of me, hoping to quench her desire.
"Bring me the Fruit", I whispered.
Eve rose as if in a trance and glided to the center of the Garden. The tree wasn't large. In fact, it was modest in size compared to the others. The trunk was only the width of a doorway, the bark an ashen gray color. The branches were an arm's thickness and covered in orange-pink blossoms. Eve picked a large, ripe fruit from a low-hanging limb. Pale green with undertones of yellow and rose, Eve brought it back to me, never taking her eyes off of it. She sat down, closer to me this time, holding the Fruit between the three of us.
"Take a bite", I whispered.
She didn't respond but she held the Fruit away from her.
"You're still not sure are you?" I curled my fingers around hers, taking the fruit away from her reluctant fingers.
I held it with both hands, digging my fingers into the soft flesh. I pried it open, revealing its blood-red thews and seeds black as pitch. I broke off a segment. This is another part of the story the "holy" texts get wrong: Eve didn't take the first bite. I parted Adam's lips gently. The moment the juice touched his tongue, he was completely overcome. He slurped the fruit gluttonously, sucking hard on my fingertips trying to consume every last bit of the ambrosial fruit.
As quickly as the frenzy began, it was over. Adam lay there pale and shivering. In the midst of his fever he'd begun to cry and silent tears continued to stream down his face. He was smiling. His eyes were wide with childish wonder.
I turned to Eve. She was looking at Adam, concern and curiosity playing over her expression. I held another segment up to her. She hesitated for a long while. Adam began to speak to her.
"Eve," he said, "please."
The longing in his voice was what did it. She leaned close and took a bite.
Her skin blushed. She broke out in a light sweat the made her gleam in the afternoon sun.
She started to laugh, quietly at first. Her body convulsed in delight. She stood and walked off a bit to stand directly in the light. An expression of utmost joy came over her. Adam rose from his place next to me and joined her in the sunlit clearing. It was a long moment before Eve realized he was standing so near. But as her attention turned to him, it was as if they were seeing each other for the first time. A visceral attraction sparked between them and in the space of a heartbeat their lips were pressed tight together, their hands roving roving the firm and supple curvatures of the other's body. They collapsed into a heap of passion, never breaking the embrace, Adam first on top, then Eve. She mounted him and they rocked for hours in the blissful throes of creation.
I watched them, angels being by nature voyeuristic. I hadn't exactly lied to them. The Fruit of Knowledge would allow them to know an infinity of things: how to manipulate the environment, to discover the many intricacies of this and other realities, to apprehend the nature of the Almighty Himself. But they would too learn their own limitations and become frustrated by an endless need to be more. They would no sooner graze the sky than contemplate the many worlds beyond Earth. They would never again be content, always aware of the knowledge that exists but unable to contain it. Embittered, they would turn their backs on it, and on God. And the Lord is vengeful and jealous.
When He came to them later, sometime after I had gone, He let Adam and Eve feel His fury with His own Voice, a beautiful cacophony of loving, anger and despair. Having eaten the Fruit, Adam and Eve were aware that they'd betrayed His trust. And thus Shame was born. The Lord, in His glorious tumult, punished them for each of their sins.
For stealing His Knowledge and indulging the sin of Greed, Adam, Eve and all their descendants would forever wander the Earth, searching but never finding, longing but never having.
For giving in to carnal temptation and imbibing the sin of Lust, the births of their indiscretions would rack them with pain. Their labors would break their bodies and weary them to the bones and sinews that strung them together. And they would age without yield so that before Death could find them to lead their souls away, their bodies would ache and tremble, feeble, unable to find pleasure in even the gentlest caress.
And lastly, for betraying Him, for affronting the Lord directly and committing the egregious sin of Pride, the Lord abandoned them. He cast them out of Paradise to wander the world alone. Not they, nor their children, their children's children and so on down their line for as long as humanity survived would ever again feel the comfort and companionship of the One True God.
And so it was that the Lord returned to us, albeit in a blazing fury. But no matter. The mortals were punished for their presumption. Looking back, it was a clear warning of the coming insurrection. Angels taking action beyond the Gates was unheard of. But at the time we didn't notice or care. We learned jealousy at the hands of our Creator. We are shadows of His beauty and His fury. Angels are not so hard to understand. I'm reminded of the words of Shakespeare, who undoubtedly incurred the wrath of supernatural beings. For, "though we have some grace, yet have we some revenge."
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