Posted in Short Stories
I hope you'll enjoy this fictional short story by my friend, Jessica (age 14)
Adam awoke from his slumber to the sound of a lion breathing in his ear. The lion had fallen asleep on the ground beside Adam the previous night. Adam yawned and rolled over gazing at his wife. “She is so beautiful,” he thought. Only two weeks previously, God had put Adam to sleep, took one of his ribs, and created a being just like Adam called woman. “Eve was a perfect name for her.” thought Adam to himself. “I am glad that God had me name all of the animals because if he had not, I would have been clueless as to what name to give to my lovely wife.” Adam rose up, and walked up to a puddle filled with water left over from last night. He cupped his hands to the water and drank, and then splashed his face with the cold clear water. Every night God made mist to come from the rivers and out of the earth to water the garden. The puddles were made from the leftover water that had not dried up. Adam scooped a handful of water, and gently poured it onto Eve. She awoke and yawned.
“Oh, that is cold water!”
As she looked up she saw her husband and said cheerfully,
“Blessed be this day my lord Adam! The air smells so fresh!” Adam helped her to her feet, and together they walked over to a kiwi bush. They picked a few of its fruits, peeled them with a sharpened stick, and ate them for their morning meal. Afterward they walked around until they came to a great oak tree. Propped against the tree was a sharpened stick and a few baby plants inside half of a coconut shell filled with water. Last week, Adam had started cuttings from a Cholla (a type of grass which produces small beads of chocolate) so he could reproduce them faster. During their daily walks with God, some of the knowledge God had shared with the two humans was how to cultivate plants. Looking back, Adam vividly remembered the conversation about propagating between the three of them.
“My Children, (God had explained), the process of making more of a plant without waiting for it to reproduce by itself is called cultivation. To do this, you must first take your stick and cut a healthy steam or branch from the plant you want to cultivate. Find a container (be resourceful) and fill it with water from the river. (To Eve he said, “You may help by watching Adam and fetching the water when you gather it to drink”.) Place the stem inside the container of water and leave it in a cool spot for a long time. Periodically, check on it and soon you will see it begin to sprout roots.” God went on to explain for a while everything a person could know about roots. Then God continued; “Once the roots have sprouted and grown to a descent size, take the plant out and dump the water. Pack the empty container with some moist soil from the river bank. Finger a small hole in the soil, and place the rooted plant inside and cover with dirt.”
Adam and Eve drank up the knowledge like thirsty deer, and they stored it into their memories so that they would not forget the wonderful lessons that God had been teaching them. Although the garden was perfect, God had left large areas of fertile soil all over for Adam and his Eve to cultivate. Using this knowledge received from God, Adam started the day’s work. He took the baby plants out of the half of an empty coconut shell and hunted around until he found a drier spot to plant it. Afterwards he took the rest of the cholla branches and planted them near the river where it was very wet. Eve had given Adam the idea to experiment with the plants to see where they would grow to their fullest.
After they had together completed their gardening tasks, the two humans went each to their own ways to start new projects. Eve had discovered that to make a tool to untangle her hair, she could use boar’s hair wound together on a sturdy stick. She had completed this project, but she wanted to make another brush, bigger this time, to use to groom her favorite animals. She had a pouch made from fig leaves holding the hair she had already collected. When she had last collected, the boar had become impatient, and ran off to eat. Eve now set off to find another boar to continue plucking hair, along the way gathering several different kinds of foods to tempt the creature.
Adam was cutting branches from a willow tree to use as bedding for the night. Every morning he went out to cut fresh braches and carried them to their designated sleeping place. Adam had picked this spot under one of the great willow trees that was centrally located near the Tree of Life. By the time Adam had finished this task, it was nearly dark. His spent the remainder of the daylight finding Eve and eating the evening meal with her. They talked over the adventures of the day as they lay down on their willow-branch mats. After a while they both dozed off. The first to actually fall asleep was Adam, for Eve sat up for hours gazing at the Tree of Life only a few yards away. God had given permission to eat of any tree or bush in the whole garden including the Tree of Life save for the tree growing right next to it. It was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. When they were told not to eat of this tree, the two humans were puzzled over what evil and good were and why they could not eat its beautiful fruit. However at the time, they were so eager to begin exploring their new world that they never really thought about the Tree of Good and Evil. Yet lately, Eve began to think of the great tree with its alluring fruits. It also held the resemblance of some of her favorite fruits. When she finally went to sleep, she dreamed of what it would be like to know what evil meant and how delicious the fruits of the forbidden tree tasted.
The bright yellow Sun slowly disappeared as the Moon took her place in the night sky. The stars came out too, lighting up the darkness with millions of tiny specks of dim light. All around the nocturnal creatures came out of their hiding places and began to search for their fruits while the diurnal creatures went to their sleeping places to begin their rest after a long day. While hearing the crickets chirping, cows softly lowing, the dinosaurs running around finding a place to sleep, and the great whales singing from the deep; Eve fell asleep.
So ended another day in God’s marvelous Garden of Eden.
