Beyond the Gates of Gan Eden

She was told that she shouldn’t do it. 
It was the one thing that was truly forbidden. Was the Creator within her? Was the serpent as well? She knew not, and neither did she care. Still, she had to know, and couldn’t rest until she did. It ate at her, nibbled in minuscule chunks like a mouse consuming a wheel of cheese. So she devoted herself to making it happen, to making the fruit that had been forbidden part of her knowledge of the world. 

What the serpent didn’t tell her, was that the very same fruit that had been forbidden her was in fact the perfect fruit for sustaining beautiful life. For what is a life without knowledge of both good and evil? It is a hollow existence, devoid of flavor, and exuding only the basics of sustenance–even if only for a time, such would be a torturous affair, but in immortality?  

Warned had she been not to eat of it, but unable to resist its allure, she did as she pleased. To her mingled horror and satisfaction, she found that the trophy which she had attained was everything she had ever hoped it would be. She longed for its flavor upon her pallet, thirsted for its nectar in her soul–for its nectar, ahhhh…it was an elixir of the tranquil universe for her tired musings–and smelled its fragrance everywhere. And she submitted to her desire over and again until finally, in glutinous reverie, after finding all she had searched for, she pushed away at its perfection. 

For anything that seems too good to be true, she reasoned, must be, and so she ambled off dazedly, hoping to find once again the thrill of victory she felt in at last ripping into the fruit after which she had quested for so long. Once she had wandered away, however, the gates to this paradise closed. Although she wanted to return, she had not the faculties, and so onward through the realms of existence she moved, but never was she to find such perfection again. Never would she be as pleased as she had found herself in this many layered fruit’s meat. Forever did she experience a phantom of its aromatic perfection–her favorite smell–a hint of its simply perfect flavor, and the texture and fullness it imparted upon her in such brevity as she experienced. And never would the memory alone suffice. 

           ~N.S. Molino