To the Time Machine! - Part 52

Continued from Part 50


TIME: Before Recorded Time





"You will not ssssurely die," Sanderson said with a smirk. He hung upside down from a branch.

"God said so," Eve protested.

"That doesssn't make it sssso," chuckled Sanderson.

"You mean, you can say one thing, but the opposite is true?" Eve asked, and stepped closer. "How?"

"Bite into the apple," Sanderson told her, holding out the forbidden fruit, "and all will be revealed."

The perfect produce hung in the air. She wanted it, lusted for it, was dying of curiosity. Her life felt so boring suddenly.

Impulsively, she snatched it from the reptile's hand. He grinned and she gazed at it. She only pondered it a moment before she bit into it. He stared as she chewed. A morsel clung to the side of her mouth. He wanted to reach out with his tongue and lick it off her delicious face.

"Now, swallow," he directed her.

She did.

***************

Adam stopped short. What he saw before him made his stomach twist with a terrible sensation he did not recognize - pain.

"Eve, you'll die," he called out, his voice shaking.

She looked up surprised, guilty, caught. She looked around, but the scaly-skinned man was nowhere to be seen.

"I know." She seemed almost as shocked at herself as Adam was of her.

"We were warned," Adam said. "Not to touch the tree."

Eve looked at him, her eyes heavy with comprehension. "Yes, but unlike you I now know. I understand what it means to die."

Adam's eyes were wide with horror. "Tell me."

"You can't know," his beloved explained. "All I can say is that I will no longer exist."

"What?" he asked.

"I will not be," she repeated.

"No!" Adam shook his head in disbelief.

"I will live, yes," she went on, "but I will grow old, and die."

"I don't want that," he stared in shock. Her face was cheerless, but Adam could not even grasp such a concept as sadness. He had never seen her unhappy.

So she smiled a sad little smile. "You will find another wife," she tried to tell him.

At this, he grabbed from her hand the remainder of the apple and quickly shoved it in his mouth. He gulped it down.

"Adam, no!" Eve lurched forward to stop him, too late.

He looked at her anew. "I will not live forever," he said.

He moved to embrace her as he had embraced death. Eve recoiled from him, pushed his hands off her.

"You should not have done that," she said hotly. She took a deep breath, focused on what she had to say.

"Adam, I need to be single for a while," and so it began. "To figure out who I am. I feel trapped in our relationship, like I don't have an identity outside of it." Her words hit like so many blows.

"I love you, but I'm not in love with you anymore," a hail of arrows rained down on Adam, piercing his flesh. "I like you. You're wonderful. But this is something I have to do."

Adam felt like the fruit in his stomach was trying to come back up.

"I want to ask you to wait for me," Eve said, "but I'm afraid that, if you wait and I decide never to come back, it will be worse on you for having waited."

He found his eyes were wet. Eve blurred in his vision. His insides ached. Was the apple disagreeing with his belly? No, it was Eve's words that made his insides churn.

"Please don't hate me," she begged.

"I could never hate you," Adam's voice choked as he said it. He tore his eyes away from her, wiped his mouth and then his eyes with the back of his hands. Stared at the blurry branches before him.

"For a tree of knowledge, I sure don't understand any of this," he blubbered. "We were meant for each other--more than anyone else ever will be." He whipped around, a miserable anger building in the pit of his stomach, bubbling up into his throat like bile.

"All I have are more questions," he cried. "Why are we here? What's the point of it all? Is this part of a plan?"

He fell to his knees under the tree. "Why in God's name should I go on?" he asked no one in particular, his voice barely audible.

"Don't talk like that," Eve stepped toward him.

"No," Adam shook his head, "there's no point." He looked up at her. "Without love." His head dropped. He fiddled with a leaf between his fingers.

"I'm glad I'm going to die some day," he sputtered.

She slowly kneeled before him, touched his hands. "I want you to know," she said. "This brings me no joy."

She touched his face, ran her hand through his scraggly beard. "So handsome," Eve sighed, her face bearing a crushing, fond smile.

"Not handsome enough," Adam said in a very small voice.

Eve shook her head. "It doesn't have anything to do with that."

"You were formed from my side. You will always be a part of me." He squeezed her hands hard. Then, he spoke, his voice a hoarse whisper. "I unbind myself from you."

And with a sudden force that surprised him, he thrust her hands away from him. The up-until-now cool Eve burst into tears, and her beautiful frame crumpled before his eyes.

And though she was ripping his heart out, he felt horrible for making her cry. Even so, he stood up, and brushed the grass off his knees.

"Take care of yourself, wife," Adam told her, his voice soft and calm. He reached down and touched her, his voice now direct and urgent.

"When your Times are Dark," he said, "know that someone misses you. Remember that I would not want to live in a world without you in it."

"Wait for me!" she blurted out, her eyes glassy and wild.

"What does that mean?" Adam asked. "See other people? I can't do that."

"I can't make any promises," said Eve.

"Then I can't wait," said Adam.