Eve and the Well

by Richard Simonds

“He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.” — Genesis 3:24

Eve has dark eyes and long black hair. She wears a dress of white gauze, and white sandals. A thick black cord winds around her waist and up upon her shoulders. She is full of magic, and we travel through the desert to find the mystical places where she can commune with the energies of the sand and the wind.

As we walk, she speaks to me: “I am very, very old. No one is older than I am. And yet I do not age, nor do I suffer, and I do not die.”

We travel through the endless desert, walking on the sand, from oasis to oasis. The sun beats down on us relentlessly, but Eve is immune to the heat. I suffer under the strain of carrying her things on my back, stopping to rest for a drink whenever I can.

She tells me again, “The man was banned and sent out from the garden and told never to return, but nothing is said of me, for God knew in his omnipotence, that I would return and partake of the Tree of Life and live forever. And both God and Satan watched me come back and take a second apple from that second tree without a word, as I was fulfilling both of their purposes.”

The feeling inside me for her is deep: it is love, but not love. It is a quiet admiration of her beauty, the way she moves, the way her eyes sparkle, the way she gently touches me. My legs and back ache with the burden of her possessions. From her I am learning patience and sacrifice. I ask only to hear the spell of her voice, to be drawn into her darkness.

She continues, “And then one day I stopped, I was tired of it all, the pain and the wailing, and the Earth was full of saints and sinners, and I chose to walk forever, through the endless deserts, for they are empty, empty as my soul, and they do not remind me of the garden, and I live off the life of my children and cannot find rest or peace, but I am at last free of my burdens.”

Some say she is a crazy desert witch or si’lat, but I believe her every word. I have been with her for many years, and it is true, she never ages. The people of the desert fear her, and they should. I have seen her with a gesture of her hand send those who would do us harm fleeing in terror. But some also say she is an angel sent from heaven, and I have seen this, too, in the way she cares for those in need. She can be kind and sympathetic, and her magic can be used to heal or to alleviate the pain that sometimes comes with dying.

She says, “They once cursed me as the cause of the downfall of Man, and then they made me a saint. They painted me in innumerable pictures. There I am, naked with the apple, the snake in the tree behind me. It was just like that too, but my expression is always wrong. You see, I was just so incredibly bored at the time. People call it the ‘original sin’ but, in fact, it was the original curiosity.”

We arrive at the next oasis, which is abandoned. The well is surrounded by desert. Dunes hover in the distance. A pair of dead fig trees linger by the well, the wood blanched by the sun and wind. It seems lost, the circle of stone. We let the bucket down, but the well is dry.

“I visited the Son of Man. I saw the star in the sky and went to the manger. I wanted to see if God had spared His mother from my curse. Mary recognized me, she thanked me, and I felt her deep empathy toward me. And love. Of course, God spared her, but I forgave this. It was not truly her decision, to conceive and bear the Child. The Holy Spirit appears? A blessing, the ultimate blessing. She deserves her prayers, but no one prays to me.”

Eve stands by the rim, her eyes closed, barely whispering the words that will draw the water near. She beckons me to come closer, to look into the well. Then her knife cuts into my neck. As my blood drips into the darkness, quiet rumbling sounds are heard and water rushes to fill the well. The bucket is filled, and we drink the cold, crisp liquid.

She continues, “And then I watched as my children, and children’s children, did all of their beautiful and horrible things all through to the present day. Sometimes I was happy and proud, especially at their great works of beauty and acts of love. But sometimes I am ashamed, and sometimes I wonder why I was created and scream at God for doing so.”

The camel-colored dunes and pale blue sky contrast with Eve’s dark eyes; she is an unearthly thing, a first and most perfect creation. The sun setting behind the dunes turns the well-stone black, and the dead fig trees cast shadows, drowning us in nightfall. We lie in the open under blankets with pillows. She comes over and licks the wound in my neck with her tongue until the life comes. I sacrifice my body; I sacrifice my blood. This is the way, the only way.

“Science then became their new master, and it told them that I must exist, and they figured out it was 150,000 years or so, at the dawn of Homo sapiens, and that Eden was in Africa, and they found the part of me in every cell of every person who has ever lived, where the energy is created, giving life to their bodies. I am immortal not just myself, but the part of me in everyone. I look at the billions in every corner of the earth, and wonder, how He created just two, but the rest belong to myself?”

As I fall asleep with my immortal Eve, whether dawn will wake me does not matter, for she holds me close, and I give her my love expecting nothing in return. I dream of my life ending, never waking up, as my eyes close in darkness under the starry night sky beneath the fig trees, as I dream of the darkness of Eve’s eyes, as dark as the darkness at the bottom of the well.