Tears of Eden

    The man wandered the desolate landscape, crawling over the dead bushes and blackened rocks.  His bloodied feet scrabbled over the sharp stone, trying to find a foothold among the wreckage.  His lifeless eyes looked ahead, not seeing, not looking.  The remains of a tie hung around his neck above a ragged shirt that was singed beyond recognition.  The tie snagged on a tree branch, which was brittle from lack of moisture.  The man kept walking, not noticing the final thread on the tie snap in half, leaving it hanging on the branch.
    The man kept walking, over fields of formless mush, through dark and violent storms that spouted black rain and green thunder, taking out their rage on what remained of the Earth.  The man hardly noticed; there was nothing left to notice.  Everything that had once been Earth had been destroyed, wiped out.  He was all that was left.
    Finally, his battered body collapsed, falling into the muck.  He barely had enough strength to turn his face out of the muck so he could breathe before the darkness of the earth faded away from his eyes.
    The first thing the man noticed was the warmth of the air.  It had the feel of summer, when the oxygen grew thick and hot.  A faint breeze was running through his hair, gently blowing away the heat.  Raising his eyes, the man gazed out on paradise.
    He was on top of a mountain ridge overlooking a valley with two rivers winding through it.  On the banks of the rivers, beautiful trees hung heavy with fruits that the man had never seen, while exotic birds chased each other through the trees.  Deer crept through the orchard, bending down to eat the herbs covering the ground.  The valley, somehow safe from the destruction that had ravaged the world, was vibrant with life.
    The man pulled himself to his feet, and walked down into the valley in a daze.  The deer looked up at him as he entered the grove of trees, but didn’t move away; instead, they returned to their grazing, as if nothing had happened.  The birds kept chirping, the water kept flowing, continuing as if he was just another creature of the garden.  The man knew this meant they had accepted him here.  He was part of the valley now, its keeper, the tender of the garden, the guardian of the paradise.  The man walked on, deep into his new home, and the forest opened before him, accepting him in.
    Time never passed in the valley; there was nothing to mark the passing of time, save the rise and fall of the sun.  Gradually, the memories of Earth faded from his mind.  Everything he had ever known did not need to be known here; here, it didn’t matter what had happened to him, for nothing had ever happened besides the beginning.  Gradually, his ragged clothes faded away, and his earthly identity with them.  He no longer needed a name; who would there be to call him by it?  Now, he was Man, and the valley was God.  God granted all he could ever need- food, rest, and peace.  He walked with the deer on their secret paths, and swam with the fish in the rivers.  He never took their lives, for they were his brothers now- he ate only from the trees and grasses, the plants that willingly gave their seed to feed him.
    One day, Man saw a strange creature standing beside the stream.  She had pale skin, like his, and long, beautiful hair that ran down her body.  She turned when he walked up behind her, and smiled at him, her beauty radiating around her.  He held out his hand to her, and she gently extended her own to take it.  Turning, he led her into his valley.  He did not ask where she had come from, for he already knew; the valley had provided her for him, just as the valley had provided him for her.  They did not talk; there was no need for words, for everything in the valley spoke through feelings.  Whatever she might have been, it no longer mattered; in the valley, she was Woman, and he was Man, and they, the keepers of the garden.
    There was only one place in the valley Man had never gone; a dark cave in the far end of the valley, its entrance basked in shadow.  Whenever Man had gone near it, the deer had come to the edge of the garden and brayed wildly at him, as if warning him not to go in.  Man heeded their warning, but always glanced back curiously at the opening.  He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw someone inside, moving just out of the light.
    Man showed Woman the valley, bit by bit.  He introduced her to the deer, and showed her how to sit still enough that they would walk right up to her.  He taught her how to call to the birds without speaking and how to swim in the river without being carried away by the current.  Eventually, he had shown her his entire kingdom except for the cave.
    Finally, when they were walking together through the valley, they passed the dark place where Man had never gone.  Woman looked curiously at the dark hole, intrigued by this place she had not been shown.  Man started to pull her along, but suddenly she pointed into the cave.  Man saw it too; a human figure, standing just inside the cave.  The figure motioned with its hand, and walked farther into the cave.  Curious, Man and Woman began to follow.
    Suddenly, the deer came charging out of the woods and halted a few yards from the cave entrance, braying at them in despair.  Man waved for them to go back, and the deer sadly returned to the edge of the woods, their ears hung low in grief.
    Man and Woman followed the shadowy figure farther into the cave, walking around the pillars of stone that rose in the darkness, blocking their path.  A fiery light shown up ahead, and Man and Woman had to shield their eyes from its burning light.  The cave opened out, and Man and Woman saw that the light was a fiery tree, twisted and burnt, with a blazing red apple hanging from a low branch.  Man felt Woman’s grasp on his arm tighten, and he instinctively drew closer to her.  He desperately wanted to run back through the tunnel and escape this horrible place, but when he turned to go back, he found many different tunnels stretching away.  Despairing of ever getting away from this nightmare, he turned back to the tree.
    Suddenly, a figure stepped out of the shadows.  It was a man dressed in a black robe, his skin pale and his eyes burning embers.  He looked at Man and Woman, his thin lips twisted in a smile, before plucking the fiery fruit and offering it to the two frightened humans.  Seeing their frightened expressions, the man bit into the fruit to prove it was harmless before holding it out to them again.  Woman hesitantly took it in her hand, then she took a bite from the fruit.  She waited a moment before holding it out to Man.
    Man took the fruit in his hand, looking at its polished red surface.  Two gleaming-white bite marks cut into the apple, one the sharp teeth-marks of the strange man, the other Woman’s gentle bite.  Looking around, he saw that the man and Woman were completely unharmed.  Steeling himself, he dug his teeth into the fiery red surface.
    At first, nothing happened.  All he could feel was a slightly sweet feeling in his mouth.  Suddenly, he fell to his knees, clutching his throat.  Beside him, Woman fell to the floor, also clutching wildly at her neck.  Man felt as if someone had thrust a live ember into his mouth and forced him to swallow.  Images started flowing into his head: young men carrying guns, walking into jungles; women screaming as soldiers poured into their villages, gunning down everyone in their path; masses of people running in terror as a fiery orange mushroom cloud expanded, consuming a city.  Suddenly the terrifying images fled, and Man was left alone in the dark with Woman.
    The man and his burning tree were gone.  Forcing themselves to their feet, Man and Woman looked around wildly in the darkness.  A faint light emanated from a tunnel to their left.  They walked that way, staggering together through the darkness.  After what seemed like a lifetime, they emerged into the valley.  The deer were nowhere to be seen.  Man wasn’t sure that he wanted to see them right now.  All he wanted to do right now was hide, hide away from the horrible pictures of the past… or worse, the future.
    They stumbled around a bend in the path and found the deer herd standing in front of them, grazing.  Man froze and held onto Woman tightly.  He had never been afraid of the deer before, but now, filled with the fear from the burning tree…
    The deer looked up.  For a moment, they did nothing, aside from look quizzically at the two humans.  Suddenly, the deer began braying wildly, their eyes rolling angrily.  The entire herd charged at Man and Woman, who fled down the path, away from the stampeding deer.  Other creatures joined the attack--- birds bombarding from the air, squirrels snapping at their heels, and creatures that Man hadn’t even been aware were in the valley, charging behind them.  Eventually, the mountain loomed up in front of them.  Man realized this was the place from which he had entered the valley.  Though he hadn’t had any memory of ever entering the valley, the flood of memories from his previous life had returned to him alongside the horrible images the fruit had brought into his mind.
    Man and Woman scrambled up the mountain, fleeing up the slope, away from their pursuers.  The deer herd kept coming, bounding up the mountain after them.  Eventually, they reached the peak of the mountain.  The deer herd stopped at the peak, watching as Man and Woman fled down the mountain into the barren world.  Only when the humans were two pale specks amid the brown did they walk back into the valley.  The valley had cast out its evil; the garden was pure again.
    Man and Woman passed into legend. Their descendents told their tale to their children, the story changing ever so slightly with every telling. They gained new names; Man was called Adam, and Woman was called Eve. The valley was called Eden, and the strange man became Satan.  God had cast them out of Eden for eating from the tree, and Satan had been punished for tempting them by being cursed to slither on the ground.  If Man had read the story, he would have said it was correct.  He didn’t know who that strange man had been, though he would have had no difficulty in believing it was Satan.  The changes in the names wouldn’t have bothered him; he would always know he was Man, and he would always be Man, no matter what others called him.  It was truly his story.  He and Woman had certainly been cast out of Eden; Man would never forget how the deer had thundered after them, forcing them to leave.
    However, the legends never told that, as he and Woman walked into the distance, he turned back to gaze upon the mountain. And in that moment, Man could have sworn that there was a man standing on top of the mountain. If he’d had to put a name to him, Man would have called him God.  And as he watched, he could have sworn that God was crying.