Adam sat on the edge of the rock looking down into the still water of the clear blue stream. His reflection stared back at him haggard, tired, and it seemed to him, slightly judging.
‘It’s not my fault’, he said aloud.
He tried to tell himself as he had for many years now that he wasn’t at fault. He tried to think back to the beginning of the conflict and the erosion that inevitably followed. Time wore memories down and erased just enough to leave black residues of dark emotions behind. The times of happiness seemed vapidly surreal now. He knew that they weren’t always like this. The first years with Eve had been the happiest of his life. After wandering immeasurable distances he had found her in the most beautiful of gardens. She was singing in honeyed tones amongst the trees. When she turned to look at him she seemed to be resplendent, set against the evening sky. Her hair was golden and her beauty was absolute. He felt love for the first time and his feelings were reciprocated in equal measure. The years that followed were magical. With no encumbrances, responsibilities or objectives and with existence stretching out into the infinite, they loved purely and deeply. They decided to leave the garden and wander together.
They travelled a great number of lands together and all was seemingly good. Little did they know that dark days were looming ahead of them. Adam could not remember how it started anymore, but he remembered that conflicts raged between them that threatened to overshadow the storms in the skies. Any amount of happiness was fleeting and infinitesimal. Slowly the conflicts worsened and gave way to silence. Hours turned into years with the silence never subsiding. They wandered together never saying a word, all love forgotten. Time passed indefinitely and they continued wandering; two shells, withering away.
Adam crawled out of his memories and the world came back into focus. He threw a stone into the water and watched his face distort into ripples spreading across the surface. He couldn’t take it anymore. The pain was overwhelming but the silence was unbearable. He watched his face form again on the water, an expression of misery and anguish etched sharply on it. It slowly morphed into a mask of desperate determination as he decided that he would end all of this. The relief that followed was venom through his veins flooding his brain and conjuring visions of what he needed to do and how it would end. Like a man possessed, he relived the thought a hundred times over and felt his heart exploding in delight. He could wait no more. It had to be that very night.
Eve wasn’t back until very late that night. He had a large fire going and the stars were shimmering in the vast clear sky. There was a gentle cool breeze flowing through the night that seemed to calm the very earth around them. Eve walked expressionless into the clearing. The atmosphere had no effect on her and she sat down on the ground staring blankly and forcefully into the fire. Adam watched the fire cast dancing light on her face and breathed deeply to settle himself. He clutched the heavy blunt rock tightly in his hand and moved closer to where she sat; his heart pounding. He hesitated for only a second before he threw her back roughly on the ground and started bludgeoning her. He could feel the bones and teeth shatter, the flesh ripping, and continued feverishly in a maddening frenzy. Dark crimson stained the palette of the ground in an engulfing cloud. Gasping for breath, and tears running down his face he mused about how this was proving to be quite a cathartic experience.
When he finished, he stepped back and gazed at the scene. Her face had been ground into a bloody pulp and almost hammered into the ground. Her shattered face rested in a massive pool of blood that looked like a formless halo. He stood there, uncertain and confused, with the rock dripping blood slowly into the dust. His breathing gradually returned to normal and he waited, having done what he needed to.
Slowly and barely visible by the dying fire, the blood seeped back into the body and the face began to take form again. The bones fused together, the lacerations healed and where there was a mass of bloody flesh, a beautiful face appeared again. Eve stood up slowly and gazed at Adam tenderly out of her tearful big eyes.
Shyly she said, ‘You haven’t done that to me in thousands of years...I missed you so much. I love you.’
Adam said, ‘I know, I’m sorry I didn’t do this all these years. I love you too. I just lost my way I think and I didn’t have the courage to fix it. Please tell me we’re okay now. I want us to be happy together once again.’
A gentle smile spread across her face and she nodded. Adam walked across the embers and placed the rock in her hand and said playfully, ‘My turn.’
She giggled.
