Collision
Inspired by the Mark Twain quote, “After all these years I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.”
Content
Collision
Written by Aquil Esteban
2016 LOL Entertainment Group Limited & LLC. All rights reserved.
Inspired by the Mark Twain quote, “After all these years I see that I was mistaken
about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside
it without her.”
I wrote my goodbye email to Eve near to midnight on Tuesday, 9 July.
My email was simple. I was happy in love. And she needed to push hard and make another
go with her fiancé.
And that was that.
I cried while surfing the internet.
The only article I remember reading vaguely was one entitled, “CERN Collision Tomorrow.”
My eyes were speed reading how the Hadron Collider built between Switzerland and France
would work, and how when the hydrogen gas was injected that the electrons would be
stripped from the atoms with a powerful electric current. There was a passing concern that
there was a one percent chance that a black hole might engulf the earth.
And then I just pushed the power button to my MacBook and climbed into bed.
I woke up still sad Wednesday 10 July. I wanted to go back to my computer and write another
email saying I was stupid. Could we meet again? But instead, I took a lonely shower and got
dressed for work. The rest of the day I spent docile in my cubicle.
When I finally admitted I wasn’t being productive, I headed home. I took the MTR from Taikoo
to Central and I emerged from the MTR, not really looking. And that was the trick to push past
the throngs. If you saw people walking towards you, look at your feet and people would walk
around you. Kept eye contact and they would gravitate straight to you and you would do the
shuffle dance to avoid them.
On the sidewalks, I would occasionally look up as I moved down adjacent to Queen’s Road,
past the Coach Store, and past the H&M, and just under the SoHo escalator. Then I turned
quickly, a little too quickly, next to the Rolex store, and my slammed into a woman. We hit so
hard we fell and the people parted like a ripple in a pond. When I stood up, I saw Eve
standing there brushing herself off.
I laughed first. And she followed with that dazzle in her eyes. Suddenly, I was magnetized to
her mouth. With all the desperation in my body, I leaned in fast and took her face in my hands
and kissed her hard. She pushed back – her hands struggling against me and then she
relented. The people enveloped us.
She managed to pull her mouth off mine just to say, “Leave me alone Adam. What if
somebody sees me? Sees us?”
I said nothing but closed the gaps between our mouths and I found my fingers on her back
and running it and up and down along the line of her spine.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“I have to meet him,” she whimpered. “Me first.”
But she took my hand and I pulled her. We moved fast. We didn’t wait for the Green Man to
cross the street – we made our move across the road just in front of a red Hong Kong taxi.
We ran down Wellington Street and I punched in my security number to my building’s metal
door. The Pakistani security guard smiled a lusty smile when he saw us scamper into the
elevator. When the doors closed, I shoved her into the corner just under the security camera
so he couldn’t watch. She took my hand and put it under her skirt. I hooked my fingers into
her underwear as we rose fast up from Floor 1 to 7. And on Floor 8 all my strength in my
digits, I was stretching the fabric and bending it. The tips of my fingers just touching the inside
of her. She moaned. And we kissed harder. Finally the cloth of her underwear expanded and
snapped.
“Shit.” She said.
th
Then on the 14 floor there was a ding and the elevator door opened. We nearly fell drunk
from desire into the hallway. Her torn g-string was in the same hand that I turned the key to
my door. Once I threw the door open, I pushed the remains of the g-string in my mouth when I
tugged her inside – she laughed but saw I was serious. Then she kissed me with it. We bit our
teeth into it. And we sucked on the fabric together. Lapped against it with our tongues.
We fell on the floor with the door swinging opening and her panties fell from my lips. My
neighbor was just leaving his apartment. He heard the ruckus and popped his head just to
glance inside. He saw her straddling me with her skirt moving upward. He let out a disgusted
breath.
“Gweilo,” and he pulled the door shut.
“I hate you.” She said.
“You are a liar,” I said.
“No, you are. You told me goodbye.” She said. My hands were moving up her stomach
greedily. She was tugging at my pants.
“You told me you loved him,” I said.
“I do. But can’t a woman love two people?”
“No, its bullshit. You can’t love two people.”
“Well I do.”
I leaned up and kissed her and now our most important parts were naked. “Well I do too.”
“I think we were born to find each other.”
“And collide.” And I groaned as I moved deep inside her and her back arched to take it in.
For the next two hours, my Blackberry vibrated from email and from missed phone calls
showing Private Number. I ignored them all. And she and I were together.
I watched her eyes.
Sometimes they were closed.
And sometimes they looked deep into mine.
Sometimes they rolled back in her head and her eyelids fluttered.
Sometimes she looked down on me and leaned forward and bit my lip. Sometimes I was on
top and I took her big toe in my mouth.
Sometimes she would look back at me while gritting her teeth and slamming back against me
as I stood.
Finally while together in each other’s arms making a V-shaped of two adjoining bodies, with a
cry she made a puddle on the floor, she collapsed and I held her. Then she fell forward and
fell asleep in my arms.
I tried to enjoy this present. This place where we were. This now. How I wanted this now to
last forever. These were my thoughts naked on the floor, she asleep on my chest, using me as
her bed, still having her taste in my mouth, and the smell of sex throughout my flat.
I glanced around and saw her foot print on the wall mirror. I saw her hair strands in neat piles
on the wooden floor where I had pulled it out. I looked down and saw her scratches on my
chest.
Then again my Blackberry vibrated but the number registered showing the word Parents on
the LCD.
Being careful not to awaken her, I outstretched my arm and took it. “Hello?” I said.
I heard my mom crying.
“What’s wrong?” And I jolted up rustling Eve.
“Have you seen the news?”
“No, no. What happened?”
And then the phone went dead and started beeping as if the circuit was busy.
“Eve, get up. Something’s wrong.” And I stood up and reached up on my kitchen bar grabbing
the plastic remote control. I flipped the power. And when it came on, I started hearing the
noise outside. Car horns blowing, the screaming, loud Chinese voices, and other voices
coming together in panic. I also heard my neighbors slide their security door back in a mad
dash, the woman rattling in Cantonese, and then I smelled the incense as she lit her shrine.
Pearl, the Hong Kong station, showed the earth crumbling, falling away. The TV host was
panicked and was darting around as if she was shackled to the news desk. She started yelling
something in Cantonese. Then in a burst, she broke from the camera and the screen switched
quickly to show a panoramic view of Hong Kong from the Peak – and at first it looked like a
storm front coming but then it seemed that everything was falling downward when there was
nothing downward. Like gravity had become our enemy.
We heard the emergency siren. I turned and saw Eve naked. I saw her beautiful skin and her
arms gathered around her stomach pushing up her breasts. Her eyes concerned. “What’s
happening?”
We went for the door and I grabbed two towels from the cabinet nearest – we wrapped them
around us and took to the stairs. The old woman neighbor was next to her shrine crying. With
their door open and wide, the old man was standing his shorts with no shirt mesmerized by
the television.
Eve and I raced to the roof. Then suddenly sound disappeared. Like a giant vacuum
happened. My ears popped. We got to the top and felt the building shake underneath us.
In front of us, we saw the IFC Building crumble – suck away to a violent void without noise.
My thoughts were louder than the destruction around us. The Chinese buildings seemed to
fall like dominos and I held Eve as tight as I could to me. I saw her mouth moving fast saying
words I would never hear. I stopped them and kissed her. Then I felt it. Wind without noise.
But my very last sensation was her heart beating fast.
And then suddenly, black. We felt nothing. I felt nothing. I was nothing. I was in nothing. My
thoughts became nothing.
We were no more. The black hole swallowed us.
I woke up naked. I felt earth against my entire body. There was wind. There was noise. I
looked up and saw blue sky. I looked around me and saw beautiful, green land. I
was alone. I tried to speak but only grunted.
“Hey there, “God said.
I turned to His voice.
He was biracial, standing there in a t-shirt, blue jeans, and flip flops. “You cool?”
I grunted again but then found some words, “Yeah. I think so.” I cleared my throat. Something
was in the back of it so I collected it and spit hard against the ground.
Again, I stood there naked. But I wasn’t ashamed. “What happened?” “Everything and
nothing.” He said and He scratched his head.
“Thanks for the straight answer.”
“Don’t mention it.” He said with a side ways grin.
I looked behind me and He was standing there too. “So I am dead?” I asked. He laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“You asking if you are dead.”
“What’s funny about that?”
“The fact that you never were really alive.”
“So I am in Heaven?”
“Nope. This is the real thing.”
“Okay, can I know what’s going on?”
“Sure,” and he stuck his hands deeper in his pocket. “If, and that’s a big if, you go and eat
from that tree over there.” And he pointed.
“What’s special about that tree?”
“It will kill you.”
“Well that doesn’t leave a lot of options.”
“Actually it does.” And he sat Indian style in front of me just watching my reaction. “Gosh, you
like talking in riddles.”
“Hey, sorry. Look I am going to leave you to get acclimated to your surroundings. You got
plenty of food. The animals won’t mess with you. They are at your disposal. They will do
anything you ask. Even kill themselves so you can eat them.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You serious?”
“Totally.”
I turned around again and he was sitting in front of me again. “What’s going on?” “I brought
you here to start over.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I thought you were cool.”
I laughed.
And with that, God was gone.
So a couple of days passed without Him returning. Even though I was the only human I was
never scared. When I was hungry, I ate. When I was tired, I took naps. And the tigers and
bears would come up and nuzzle against me and sleep too.
Off and on, God and I hung out in the weeks that followed (I counted the days by the sun
going up and coming down). We would take walks together and I would ask Him questions
about why I was there. He was always vague with His answers. Such as, “Hey dude, why
don’t I have any clothes?”
“You don’t need them.”
“Okay.” I accepted.
But suddenly one day He asked me a question, “What’s wrong with this place?”
“What you mean?”
“I notice you still are missing something.”
I was fast to answer. “Someone actually.”
“Am I not good enough for you?”
“No, man, you are cool. But I am just remembering before. I am missing someone.”
“So you are lonely?”
“I guess. But not just anybody. Someone.”
“Man, Adam you got everything. And you still want something?” He said a little disappointed.
“No. Not something. Someone.”
We talked a little more about it. But then He said He had to be somewhere else and was
gone.
One morning I woke and opened my eyes and saw God starring at me. “Okay, I am going to
do something about it.”
“About what?”
“This someone.” God wringed his hands. “Okay, I am going to put you asleep this won’t take
long.”
I shot up. “Whoa. What are you going to do?”
God smiled. “You got too many ribs.” And then He waved His hand in front of my face. And
again I felt like I was nothing. But this time I was asleep.
When I woke up again, I felt a missing piece inside me. I looked down on my naked body and
there was a small pink line just under my rib cage. Then I heard her. She stirred, breathed a
gasp, and she rolled over on me. She was the most beautiful thing of my new life. Eve. It was
like the last time I saw her. She was asleep on my chest naked. I felt her beating heart –
moving fast. I was so happy. I was so excited I thought my heart would explode.
I felt someone watching me. I turned my head and saw God starring at me again. “Is this who
you wanted?”
“You read my mind.”
“I made your mind.” He corrected me.
“Yes, I missed her so much.”
“She was always with you. You were never separated.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “You took her away from me before. She wasn’t mine.”
He watched my face. “Maybe it was a test.”
“A test for what?”
“A test to see how great you really loved her?” And He crossed His arms.
I thought about it. “Did I pass the test?”
He again just watched me without me answering. “I will leave you two to get reacquainted,”
God said just as Eve woke up. And then He was gone.
Eve woke and instantly recognized me. I kissed her.
“I was nothing,” she said almost in a whisper.
“I know,” I said.
She looked at me hard crawled across my body and kissed me. From that kiss, we made love.
We laughed a lot over the next couple of weeks. God would drop in and check on us. He
would look at Eve a little too happily for my taste. And He pulled me to the side one day, “Are
you jealous of me?”
“Well I do notice you check out her body a lot.”
He laughed. “I made it. I am impressed with my work.” “Okay, as long as that’s all it is.”
“What are you going to do if its not?”
I shrugged.
“Don’t worry man. I don’t get involved with my work.” God said patting me on my back.
Then one afternoon, after making love for the fourth time that day, Eve asked, “Don’t you want
to know why we are here? And what happened?”
“I know why I am here.”
Eve was surprised. “What? You know?”
“I am here to be with you.”
She fake punched me. “Silly.”
I held her. “I don’t know. I don’t care. As long as you are with me.”
“Well I care. I want to know. It’s killing me not knowing.”
“What about me? Ain’t I enough for you?”
“Yes. You are. But I still know there is more to know.”
“Really? Being with you is enough.”
“That’s sweet,” and she kissed me.
I thought for a minute. “Okay, what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to go eat from that tree.”
“The one that will kill me?”
“Yes.” She said.
“You want to kill me?”
“No. I think God is bluffing.”
I half laughed. “I don’t think God bluffs.”
“I want to know more. I want to know what He knows. Then maybe I can love you even more.
Even more deeply.”
“Look, I will do anything for you. But not that.” “So you don’t love me?”
I was quiet. “That’s a dumb question.”
“Why is it dumb?”
“I have everything here. I need nothing. But I was missing something. You. God made you for
me. Made you from me.” I took her hand and rubbed her finger across the pink line of my scar.
She was quiet. Then quietly she said, “Then maybe I should be making love to God.” “What
did you say?”
“Nothing.”
That is the moment I became envious of Him.
Little did I know, He was hiding in the trees watching.
After a month of secretly discussing it, one evening Eve nudged me. “Okay, let’s do it. He is
not around.”
“Okay.” And we got up holding hands and walked through Eden.
We stopped and there in the middle was the tree. Its limbs were heavy with cherries.
“Why am I doing this again?” I asked.
“We want to know.” She reminded me.
I thought to myself, “I don’t want God to take you away again.”
We eased up to the tree trunk. Eve reached up and with great resistance as if the tree was
fighting us, she plucked a batch of cherries.
But at first they wouldn’t break off, and I started getting nervous. “Are you sure we should do
this?”
“Yes positively.” She was adamant. And then there was a snap that seemed to echo through
the Garden.
And we stood there spellbound with the cherries in her hands, some of them popped and
bleeding down her hands. She then took my hand and placed them inside. “You eat first.”
“Why me? It was your idea.”
“If you love me.”
And without answering, I slowly moved my hand to my mouth and stem by stem I popped one
cherry in my mouth and mashed them with my tongue. One cherry, two cherries, and then the
final. Then the juice that was left, Eve lifted my hand and licked my palm.
Licking her lips, she reached up and plucked another batch and as she pulled, the cherries
she squeezed splattered us with its sap. She ate the ones that stayed together and I leaned in
closer and slurped from her shoulder blades, kissed her face and cheeks the red fluid that
remained on her.
Then suddenly sound disappeared. Like a giant vacuum happened. My ears popped.
I saw Eve’s mouth moving fast. But I heard nothing. I found it and kissed it. Then I felt it. Wind
without noise. But my very last sensation was her heart beating fast.
And then suddenly, black. We felt nothing. I felt nothing. I was nothing. I was in nothing. My
thoughts became nothing.
I woke up naked lying on the cold, hard ground. A stabbing pain in my side. I looked down and
saw blood emptying out of the opened line where my rib had been. Eve was standing over
me. I saw her menstruation blood running down her leg and she was crying.
“Oh god!” she yelled.
And then He was there. “So you wanted to die?”
I answered wincing from the agony, “No, I wanted to know what you know. I want to know
what your game is. Why you don’t give us the answers? Why its fucking fun for you to take
those away we love?”
“Its not fun for me. And watch your language.” He said.
“Fuck you God.”
“Don’t use my name in vain.”
“I will use it however I goddamn want.” And I tried to lean up, but the blood made a pool in my
bellybutton and stomach. I felt ashamed. I felt naked.
And God went up to Eve and kissed her. He kissed her deeply. I saw tongue.
I was furious. I managed to stand on my feet, but I was getting dizzy as I stood. “Stop it!”
The menstruation blood had stopped. And I saw Eve reach her fingers into his hair and grip
the back of his head pushing him forward on her. That’s when I saw the wings unfurl from her
back. Big, white, angel wings that pushed through her flesh and cut the air above us.
I stood shakily watching.
“She was never yours. She has always been mine. She was watching over you. I sent her.”
“Fuck you!” I said.
“What a mouth you have there!” God said.
And I threw myself at God to punch Him, scratch Him, hurt Him, collide against Him, destroy
Him, and I saw His face distort. “How dare you!”
That’s when I saw my skin turn to red with scales and I dropped to my knees from a massive
migraine. I put my fingers to my skull and felt the horns starting to push out
I cried out.
That’s when God pulled His arms apart. “Damn you to hell!” And then He clapped his hands
and the thunder knocked me to the ground.
Then the ground pulled me down and felt the soil tug at me, yank on me, and I descended,
downward Then I felt my skin start to shred off as the rocks and dirt pulled me downward,
further and further.
Then I slowly felt the scales take my skin’s place. I felt my organs, my muscles harden to
plates of bone.
I heard a loud crash. A huge boom. So loud that I shut my eyes and shielded my ears. And
when I woke, I was sweating, and sitting up on my bed in Hong Kong. I heard
another crash and boom. I looked out my window and saw the construction work – a dropped
steel beam had fallen and a crowd of construction workers were busily working on refastening
the chains around it so the crane could lift it.
I felt my face, my skull and found no horns. I touched the flesh of my chest, my stomach and
my arms – it was soft, flushed, and not bone.
I jumped to my feet and went to my MacBook and checked the time and date. It was 10 July,
Wednesday.
I grabbed my Blackberry and typed a SMS.
“I love you, Eve. Hell is my life without yours.” And I pushed send.
Written by Aquil Esteban
2016 LOL Entertainment Group Limited & LLC. All rights reserved.
Inspired by the Mark Twain quote, “After all these years I see that I was mistaken
about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside
it without her.”
I wrote my goodbye email to Eve near to midnight on Tuesday, 9 July.
My email was simple. I was happy in love. And she needed to push hard and make another
go with her fiancé.
And that was that.
I cried while surfing the internet.
The only article I remember reading vaguely was one entitled, “CERN Collision Tomorrow.”
My eyes were speed reading how the Hadron Collider built between Switzerland and France
would work, and how when the hydrogen gas was injected that the electrons would be
stripped from the atoms with a powerful electric current. There was a passing concern that
there was a one percent chance that a black hole might engulf the earth.
And then I just pushed the power button to my MacBook and climbed into bed.
I woke up still sad Wednesday 10 July. I wanted to go back to my computer and write another
email saying I was stupid. Could we meet again? But instead, I took a lonely shower and got
dressed for work. The rest of the day I spent docile in my cubicle.
When I finally admitted I wasn’t being productive, I headed home. I took the MTR from Taikoo
to Central and I emerged from the MTR, not really looking. And that was the trick to push past
the throngs. If you saw people walking towards you, look at your feet and people would walk
around you. Kept eye contact and they would gravitate straight to you and you would do the
shuffle dance to avoid them.
On the sidewalks, I would occasionally look up as I moved down adjacent to Queen’s Road,
past the Coach Store, and past the H&M, and just under the SoHo escalator. Then I turned
quickly, a little too quickly, next to the Rolex store, and my slammed into a woman. We hit so
hard we fell and the people parted like a ripple in a pond. When I stood up, I saw Eve
standing there brushing herself off.
I laughed first. And she followed with that dazzle in her eyes. Suddenly, I was magnetized to
her mouth. With all the desperation in my body, I leaned in fast and took her face in my hands
and kissed her hard. She pushed back – her hands struggling against me and then she
relented. The people enveloped us.
She managed to pull her mouth off mine just to say, “Leave me alone Adam. What if
somebody sees me? Sees us?”
I said nothing but closed the gaps between our mouths and I found my fingers on her back
and running it and up and down along the line of her spine.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“I have to meet him,” she whimpered. “Me first.”
But she took my hand and I pulled her. We moved fast. We didn’t wait for the Green Man to
cross the street – we made our move across the road just in front of a red Hong Kong taxi.
We ran down Wellington Street and I punched in my security number to my building’s metal
door. The Pakistani security guard smiled a lusty smile when he saw us scamper into the
elevator. When the doors closed, I shoved her into the corner just under the security camera
so he couldn’t watch. She took my hand and put it under her skirt. I hooked my fingers into
her underwear as we rose fast up from Floor 1 to 7. And on Floor 8 all my strength in my
digits, I was stretching the fabric and bending it. The tips of my fingers just touching the inside
of her. She moaned. And we kissed harder. Finally the cloth of her underwear expanded and
snapped.
“Shit.” She said.
th
Then on the 14 floor there was a ding and the elevator door opened. We nearly fell drunk
from desire into the hallway. Her torn g-string was in the same hand that I turned the key to
my door. Once I threw the door open, I pushed the remains of the g-string in my mouth when I
tugged her inside – she laughed but saw I was serious. Then she kissed me with it. We bit our
teeth into it. And we sucked on the fabric together. Lapped against it with our tongues.
We fell on the floor with the door swinging opening and her panties fell from my lips. My
neighbor was just leaving his apartment. He heard the ruckus and popped his head just to
glance inside. He saw her straddling me with her skirt moving upward. He let out a disgusted
breath.
“Gweilo,” and he pulled the door shut.
“I hate you.” She said.
“You are a liar,” I said.
“No, you are. You told me goodbye.” She said. My hands were moving up her stomach
greedily. She was tugging at my pants.
“You told me you loved him,” I said.
“I do. But can’t a woman love two people?”
“No, its bullshit. You can’t love two people.”
“Well I do.”
I leaned up and kissed her and now our most important parts were naked. “Well I do too.”
“I think we were born to find each other.”
“And collide.” And I groaned as I moved deep inside her and her back arched to take it in.
For the next two hours, my Blackberry vibrated from email and from missed phone calls
showing Private Number. I ignored them all. And she and I were together.
I watched her eyes.
Sometimes they were closed.
And sometimes they looked deep into mine.
Sometimes they rolled back in her head and her eyelids fluttered.
Sometimes she looked down on me and leaned forward and bit my lip. Sometimes I was on
top and I took her big toe in my mouth.
Sometimes she would look back at me while gritting her teeth and slamming back against me
as I stood.
Finally while together in each other’s arms making a V-shaped of two adjoining bodies, with a
cry she made a puddle on the floor, she collapsed and I held her. Then she fell forward and
fell asleep in my arms.
I tried to enjoy this present. This place where we were. This now. How I wanted this now to
last forever. These were my thoughts naked on the floor, she asleep on my chest, using me as
her bed, still having her taste in my mouth, and the smell of sex throughout my flat.
I glanced around and saw her foot print on the wall mirror. I saw her hair strands in neat piles
on the wooden floor where I had pulled it out. I looked down and saw her scratches on my
chest.
Then again my Blackberry vibrated but the number registered showing the word Parents on
the LCD.
Being careful not to awaken her, I outstretched my arm and took it. “Hello?” I said.
I heard my mom crying.
“What’s wrong?” And I jolted up rustling Eve.
“Have you seen the news?”
“No, no. What happened?”
And then the phone went dead and started beeping as if the circuit was busy.
“Eve, get up. Something’s wrong.” And I stood up and reached up on my kitchen bar grabbing
the plastic remote control. I flipped the power. And when it came on, I started hearing the
noise outside. Car horns blowing, the screaming, loud Chinese voices, and other voices
coming together in panic. I also heard my neighbors slide their security door back in a mad
dash, the woman rattling in Cantonese, and then I smelled the incense as she lit her shrine.
Pearl, the Hong Kong station, showed the earth crumbling, falling away. The TV host was
panicked and was darting around as if she was shackled to the news desk. She started yelling
something in Cantonese. Then in a burst, she broke from the camera and the screen switched
quickly to show a panoramic view of Hong Kong from the Peak – and at first it looked like a
storm front coming but then it seemed that everything was falling downward when there was
nothing downward. Like gravity had become our enemy.
We heard the emergency siren. I turned and saw Eve naked. I saw her beautiful skin and her
arms gathered around her stomach pushing up her breasts. Her eyes concerned. “What’s
happening?”
We went for the door and I grabbed two towels from the cabinet nearest – we wrapped them
around us and took to the stairs. The old woman neighbor was next to her shrine crying. With
their door open and wide, the old man was standing his shorts with no shirt mesmerized by
the television.
Eve and I raced to the roof. Then suddenly sound disappeared. Like a giant vacuum
happened. My ears popped. We got to the top and felt the building shake underneath us.
In front of us, we saw the IFC Building crumble – suck away to a violent void without noise.
My thoughts were louder than the destruction around us. The Chinese buildings seemed to
fall like dominos and I held Eve as tight as I could to me. I saw her mouth moving fast saying
words I would never hear. I stopped them and kissed her. Then I felt it. Wind without noise.
But my very last sensation was her heart beating fast.
And then suddenly, black. We felt nothing. I felt nothing. I was nothing. I was in nothing. My
thoughts became nothing.
We were no more. The black hole swallowed us.
I woke up naked. I felt earth against my entire body. There was wind. There was noise. I
looked up and saw blue sky. I looked around me and saw beautiful, green land. I
was alone. I tried to speak but only grunted.
“Hey there, “God said.
I turned to His voice.
He was biracial, standing there in a t-shirt, blue jeans, and flip flops. “You cool?”
I grunted again but then found some words, “Yeah. I think so.” I cleared my throat. Something
was in the back of it so I collected it and spit hard against the ground.
Again, I stood there naked. But I wasn’t ashamed. “What happened?” “Everything and
nothing.” He said and He scratched his head.
“Thanks for the straight answer.”
“Don’t mention it.” He said with a side ways grin.
I looked behind me and He was standing there too. “So I am dead?” I asked. He laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“You asking if you are dead.”
“What’s funny about that?”
“The fact that you never were really alive.”
“So I am in Heaven?”
“Nope. This is the real thing.”
“Okay, can I know what’s going on?”
“Sure,” and he stuck his hands deeper in his pocket. “If, and that’s a big if, you go and eat
from that tree over there.” And he pointed.
“What’s special about that tree?”
“It will kill you.”
“Well that doesn’t leave a lot of options.”
“Actually it does.” And he sat Indian style in front of me just watching my reaction. “Gosh, you
like talking in riddles.”
“Hey, sorry. Look I am going to leave you to get acclimated to your surroundings. You got
plenty of food. The animals won’t mess with you. They are at your disposal. They will do
anything you ask. Even kill themselves so you can eat them.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You serious?”
“Totally.”
I turned around again and he was sitting in front of me again. “What’s going on?” “I brought
you here to start over.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I thought you were cool.”
I laughed.
And with that, God was gone.
So a couple of days passed without Him returning. Even though I was the only human I was
never scared. When I was hungry, I ate. When I was tired, I took naps. And the tigers and
bears would come up and nuzzle against me and sleep too.
Off and on, God and I hung out in the weeks that followed (I counted the days by the sun
going up and coming down). We would take walks together and I would ask Him questions
about why I was there. He was always vague with His answers. Such as, “Hey dude, why
don’t I have any clothes?”
“You don’t need them.”
“Okay.” I accepted.
But suddenly one day He asked me a question, “What’s wrong with this place?”
“What you mean?”
“I notice you still are missing something.”
I was fast to answer. “Someone actually.”
“Am I not good enough for you?”
“No, man, you are cool. But I am just remembering before. I am missing someone.”
“So you are lonely?”
“I guess. But not just anybody. Someone.”
“Man, Adam you got everything. And you still want something?” He said a little disappointed.
“No. Not something. Someone.”
We talked a little more about it. But then He said He had to be somewhere else and was
gone.
One morning I woke and opened my eyes and saw God starring at me. “Okay, I am going to
do something about it.”
“About what?”
“This someone.” God wringed his hands. “Okay, I am going to put you asleep this won’t take
long.”
I shot up. “Whoa. What are you going to do?”
God smiled. “You got too many ribs.” And then He waved His hand in front of my face. And
again I felt like I was nothing. But this time I was asleep.
When I woke up again, I felt a missing piece inside me. I looked down on my naked body and
there was a small pink line just under my rib cage. Then I heard her. She stirred, breathed a
gasp, and she rolled over on me. She was the most beautiful thing of my new life. Eve. It was
like the last time I saw her. She was asleep on my chest naked. I felt her beating heart –
moving fast. I was so happy. I was so excited I thought my heart would explode.
I felt someone watching me. I turned my head and saw God starring at me again. “Is this who
you wanted?”
“You read my mind.”
“I made your mind.” He corrected me.
“Yes, I missed her so much.”
“She was always with you. You were never separated.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “You took her away from me before. She wasn’t mine.”
He watched my face. “Maybe it was a test.”
“A test for what?”
“A test to see how great you really loved her?” And He crossed His arms.
I thought about it. “Did I pass the test?”
He again just watched me without me answering. “I will leave you two to get reacquainted,”
God said just as Eve woke up. And then He was gone.
Eve woke and instantly recognized me. I kissed her.
“I was nothing,” she said almost in a whisper.
“I know,” I said.
She looked at me hard crawled across my body and kissed me. From that kiss, we made love.
We laughed a lot over the next couple of weeks. God would drop in and check on us. He
would look at Eve a little too happily for my taste. And He pulled me to the side one day, “Are
you jealous of me?”
“Well I do notice you check out her body a lot.”
He laughed. “I made it. I am impressed with my work.” “Okay, as long as that’s all it is.”
“What are you going to do if its not?”
I shrugged.
“Don’t worry man. I don’t get involved with my work.” God said patting me on my back.
Then one afternoon, after making love for the fourth time that day, Eve asked, “Don’t you want
to know why we are here? And what happened?”
“I know why I am here.”
Eve was surprised. “What? You know?”
“I am here to be with you.”
She fake punched me. “Silly.”
I held her. “I don’t know. I don’t care. As long as you are with me.”
“Well I care. I want to know. It’s killing me not knowing.”
“What about me? Ain’t I enough for you?”
“Yes. You are. But I still know there is more to know.”
“Really? Being with you is enough.”
“That’s sweet,” and she kissed me.
I thought for a minute. “Okay, what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to go eat from that tree.”
“The one that will kill me?”
“Yes.” She said.
“You want to kill me?”
“No. I think God is bluffing.”
I half laughed. “I don’t think God bluffs.”
“I want to know more. I want to know what He knows. Then maybe I can love you even more.
Even more deeply.”
“Look, I will do anything for you. But not that.” “So you don’t love me?”
I was quiet. “That’s a dumb question.”
“Why is it dumb?”
“I have everything here. I need nothing. But I was missing something. You. God made you for
me. Made you from me.” I took her hand and rubbed her finger across the pink line of my scar.
She was quiet. Then quietly she said, “Then maybe I should be making love to God.” “What
did you say?”
“Nothing.”
That is the moment I became envious of Him.
Little did I know, He was hiding in the trees watching.
After a month of secretly discussing it, one evening Eve nudged me. “Okay, let’s do it. He is
not around.”
“Okay.” And we got up holding hands and walked through Eden.
We stopped and there in the middle was the tree. Its limbs were heavy with cherries.
“Why am I doing this again?” I asked.
“We want to know.” She reminded me.
I thought to myself, “I don’t want God to take you away again.”
We eased up to the tree trunk. Eve reached up and with great resistance as if the tree was
fighting us, she plucked a batch of cherries.
But at first they wouldn’t break off, and I started getting nervous. “Are you sure we should do
this?”
“Yes positively.” She was adamant. And then there was a snap that seemed to echo through
the Garden.
And we stood there spellbound with the cherries in her hands, some of them popped and
bleeding down her hands. She then took my hand and placed them inside. “You eat first.”
“Why me? It was your idea.”
“If you love me.”
And without answering, I slowly moved my hand to my mouth and stem by stem I popped one
cherry in my mouth and mashed them with my tongue. One cherry, two cherries, and then the
final. Then the juice that was left, Eve lifted my hand and licked my palm.
Licking her lips, she reached up and plucked another batch and as she pulled, the cherries
she squeezed splattered us with its sap. She ate the ones that stayed together and I leaned in
closer and slurped from her shoulder blades, kissed her face and cheeks the red fluid that
remained on her.
Then suddenly sound disappeared. Like a giant vacuum happened. My ears popped.
I saw Eve’s mouth moving fast. But I heard nothing. I found it and kissed it. Then I felt it. Wind
without noise. But my very last sensation was her heart beating fast.
And then suddenly, black. We felt nothing. I felt nothing. I was nothing. I was in nothing. My
thoughts became nothing.
I woke up naked lying on the cold, hard ground. A stabbing pain in my side. I looked down and
saw blood emptying out of the opened line where my rib had been. Eve was standing over
me. I saw her menstruation blood running down her leg and she was crying.
“Oh god!” she yelled.
And then He was there. “So you wanted to die?”
I answered wincing from the agony, “No, I wanted to know what you know. I want to know
what your game is. Why you don’t give us the answers? Why its fucking fun for you to take
those away we love?”
“Its not fun for me. And watch your language.” He said.
“Fuck you God.”
“Don’t use my name in vain.”
“I will use it however I goddamn want.” And I tried to lean up, but the blood made a pool in my
bellybutton and stomach. I felt ashamed. I felt naked.
And God went up to Eve and kissed her. He kissed her deeply. I saw tongue.
I was furious. I managed to stand on my feet, but I was getting dizzy as I stood. “Stop it!”
The menstruation blood had stopped. And I saw Eve reach her fingers into his hair and grip
the back of his head pushing him forward on her. That’s when I saw the wings unfurl from her
back. Big, white, angel wings that pushed through her flesh and cut the air above us.
I stood shakily watching.
“She was never yours. She has always been mine. She was watching over you. I sent her.”
“Fuck you!” I said.
“What a mouth you have there!” God said.
And I threw myself at God to punch Him, scratch Him, hurt Him, collide against Him, destroy
Him, and I saw His face distort. “How dare you!”
That’s when I saw my skin turn to red with scales and I dropped to my knees from a massive
migraine. I put my fingers to my skull and felt the horns starting to push out
I cried out.
That’s when God pulled His arms apart. “Damn you to hell!” And then He clapped his hands
and the thunder knocked me to the ground.
Then the ground pulled me down and felt the soil tug at me, yank on me, and I descended,
downward Then I felt my skin start to shred off as the rocks and dirt pulled me downward,
further and further.
Then I slowly felt the scales take my skin’s place. I felt my organs, my muscles harden to
plates of bone.
I heard a loud crash. A huge boom. So loud that I shut my eyes and shielded my ears. And
when I woke, I was sweating, and sitting up on my bed in Hong Kong. I heard
another crash and boom. I looked out my window and saw the construction work – a dropped
steel beam had fallen and a crowd of construction workers were busily working on refastening
the chains around it so the crane could lift it.
I felt my face, my skull and found no horns. I touched the flesh of my chest, my stomach and
my arms – it was soft, flushed, and not bone.
I jumped to my feet and went to my MacBook and checked the time and date. It was 10 July,
Wednesday.
I grabbed my Blackberry and typed a SMS.
“I love you, Eve. Hell is my life without yours.” And I pushed send.
