Eden Dream

         I had a dream.  A dream of Eden.

         Eden was an oasis in the middle of a desert.  It was grand and lush and tall and wide and very sharply bounded by dried and cracked earth and sand.  And in this dessicated landscape could be seen the forms of statues and altars and lecterns and cathedrals.  What kept the desert at bay, I couldn't tell.

         A woman was walking toward the gates of Eden.  There was no wall or fence, but there was only one way in, through gates.  And guarding these gates was an angel with a sword of fire.

         The woman was hard to describe.  She had a slightly hooked nose, lush lips, almond eyes, red skin and long hair the color of gilt-edged mahogany.  She was stately without being tall,  graceful without being thin, primal without being primitive.  Withal, she was dying.  Food she had, but water she had not.  The well from which she had drawn the water of her lifetime was spent.  She had not even the power to hasten her doom; she could only walk.  She dropped a dry waterskin with a hopeless gesture, and then she saw the garden.

         A desperate hunger showed in her face, but she saw the angel.  He was no trifling guardian.  He was an agent of the throne of creation, and his straight back and stern expression showed well the authority of heaven.  A fearsome weapon was in his fists, shining so brightly his features were indistinct.  His percipience was evident, but the woman wondered how he could see past the light before his face.  She crouched, moving forward quietly in hopes of going unnoticed, but ready to fall on her face in abject submission if she was challenged by this holy Cerberus.

         When she was closer, she dared rise - the angel was scarcely taller than she - and look as well as she could upon his countenance.  And though she could see little, she saw one feature that explained much.  That was a band of cloth wrapped around the angels eyes.

         The guardian of Eden's gates was blindfolded.

         The woman sighed with relief and revelation; she strove to stay quiet, but she was so close that the angel felt her breath.  Drawing one foot back, he brought the sword's pommel to his hip, lowering the point in savage readiness.  But the woman was too quick for him.  Ducking under the sword, she reached quickly out and ran the tip of her finger down the bridge of his nose.

         The angel shook his head, then turned it to one side to hear whatever he could.  As the sword swung heavily first one way then the other, the woman ducked beneath it again and crept past the angel's leg.  Once her back was to the gate, she reached out and impudently stroked the angel's wing. 

         The angel turned and stabbed her with his sword, pinning her to the gate.

         The woman strove to scream, but her innards were no longer equal to the task.  The rictus on her face told what she was suffering, but there was a strangely joyful resignation in her eyes.  This is what she had knowingly provoked, the fate she had chosen.

         She grasped the sword's blade in both her hands and pulled it deeper into her, through her.  The touch of the sword was melting the gate behind her, sundering it's protection, but the blade protruding from her back was no longer flaming.  It's metal was hot but quenched. 

         The woman was extinguishing the sword that was meant to extinguish her life.

         When the blade was entirely buried in her, it's blade quenched with her blood to burn no more, she reached out with a charred and bleeding hand and shucked the blindfold from the angel's face.

         His eyes were opened, and he saw.

         He saw her, and in that same moment he released the sword.  The sword disappeared, leaving her to fall into his arms.  As her hands touched his skin, they were mended and no longer burned.  As his hands touched her body, the wound of the sword was closed and her blood no longer flowed from her.  He bent as if to kiss her, but the touch of his lips had a subtler intention.  He breathed into her, and his breath restored her life.

         She raised her head to kiss him, and he permitted it as if humbled.  She stood, and her hands on his head were a blessing and a benediction. 

         The angel and the woman parted, stepped back from each other for one final look, then each turned away.  They would never meet again; there would never again be a need.

         The angel took flight, returning to the empyrean heights.  The woman walked gingerly over the ruined gates, into the garden. 

         In the center of the garden there was a tree, it's branches bent with fruit.  The woman could see it only imperfectly, but knew that it was her destination.  She went thereto, but between her and the tree there was a serpent.

         The serpent arose and walked toward her.  It was shaped and colored like a man, as indescribable in his particulars as the woman, but there was no question of his nature.  Serpenthood was in his every movement, in every glance of his carious eyes.  He was a serpent just as if he were a piston of ravenous muscle.

         His eyes were fixed upon the woman, and no sooner had she met his sight than she seemed to be thrown into a kind of trance.  Scarcely sensate, she walked into his arms as unknowingly as a fly into a flytrap.  He showed no fang or weapon, but his face declared his intention - he would take from her what he wished, heedless of whether it was more than she could give.

         They began to dance, a ballet of heartless appetite.  She moved like a lovely automaton, every limb responding to his will as a puppet to it's master.  They barely touched, yet there was a kind of peril at work, as if she only awaited his will to yield up her life to him. 

         Then, as if by chance, her eyes glimpsed the fruit of the tree.  For the first time she saw it fully, and woke.

         They continued to dance, but although the serpent found continued pleasure therein it was clearly not the pleasure he had sought.  She moved as she would, gripping his back and turning him one way then another.  She admired his beauty, but she was no longer enthralled.  Now they were dancing to his ruin, not hers.

         He strove, but never missed a step.  He was panting, almost whimpering with need, but the dance was still what bound them.  The first one to succumb would stop dancing and the other dancer would have the hoped for prize.  Although it was clear that he would lose, he did not utterly yield.

         And so it was that when he snapped and strove to take his prize unearned, her response was joyful but alloyed with loss.  The woman forgave him and made her farewell, and as she continued toward the tree she did not look at the broken-backed serpent behind her.          

         The tree was before her, and one of it's fruits was within her reach.  She only gazed into it for a time, and it showed her pictures. 

         Images flashed across the fruit as within a crystal ball.  Images of keyboards and printers, telephones and radios, submarines and atomic bombs and genetically modified crops. 

         She took the fruit, seeing within it megaphones and revolutions and peoples mowed down by mass-produced weapons and ground underfoot with newspapers and pamphlets and cameras and concealed listening devices, and she saw also that these implements were in the hands of all the people. 

         Then she bit the fruit, her teeth gouging out a piece like a tectonic plate from the world.  She chewed slowly, luxuriating in the flavor, making pleased little noises in her throat as the juice ran down her chin.  She swallowed, then bit again, almost seeming to dance slowly as she ate.  There was nothing in the garden or in all the world that could intrude in this lively indulgence; her dining was undistracted and only interrupted by the seeds.  As she encountered each seed she took it from the core, palming it as she ate more of the fruit itself.

         At last, dappled in the rich juice of the fruit and letting only the stem fall to the garden floor, she walked back to the gate.  She departed the garden, straightbacked and sleek and healthy and joyful and calmly alert.  She would hunger and thirst again someday, but never again would she despair.

         She walked forth into the world, carrying the seeds of the fruit with her.

         And by this dream I came to know that if we should return to Eden, it will not be to rest or play or recollect our innocence.  There will be work to do, and though the rewards will be great the price will be high.  For that fruit can never be stolen, not really.  Those who take it will always pay a price.

         I had a dream.  A dream of Eden.