It's too bright. Her eyelashes twitch, tired of squinting. The fatigue pools in between her pinched eyebrows, compacting into a little hard lump of dull pain above her nose.
She sniffs, trying to take a deep breath, but her lungs feel shallow, her nostrils feel like old caved in tunnels full of mucusy cobwebs, catching more dust and grit.
It’s too bright she thinks again. Why does it have to be so bright? The sun is directly above, but it might as well take up the whole sky. It seems like one giant dome of reflected heat. The horizon cutting it in half, like a flat pan, sizzling. She sees the wiggles of heat blurring the ridges in the distance they head towards.
She closes her eyes and remembers the soft, distilled green light of the garden, gently illuminating, mixing chummily with shadow, instead of these harsh lines of division.
Light. Dark. Black. White. Edges. Barriers one does not pass.
Even with her eyes closed the ruthless light penetrates, without consent, forcing its way in, roughly, lighting up the thin vessels and nerves like lightning.
There is nowhere to hide here.
She remembers the endless games of hide and seek her and Adam would play. He would come so close and not see her as she peered, silently out from the dark friendly foliage that was happy to conceal her and join in the fun. She would slow her breath and feel like she could hear the very dew as it slide down the snake plants wide dark leaves. He would get so frustrated, his face perplexed- where could she be? Having looked in all the past places. Why did he think she would hide there again? She always found new spots- was always on the lookout for them- somewhere Adam would never think of. She eventually would get bored and finally let out a giggle, he would turn, delighted, still thinking he found her all on his own. He’d chase her, and they’d roll onto the spongy moss, she would lay her head on his chest, her head rising and falling with each breath of life. Her fingers always seemed to go to the soft spot where one last rib would have been-- if she had not. 
They would reach into their little stash of fruits they’d plucked earlier, piled on huge rubbery leaves. Juice dripping down their chins. Sometimes they’d only take a bite and move on to another piece of abundance- oblivious, leaving so much ripe cool flesh clinging to the pits. Never eating anything to its’ core.
She swallows now remembering the tastes. She coughs. Little slimy chunks rising in her throat, and she chokes them back down, her adam's apple contracting conscientiously.
It’s so dry. She doesn’t remember having to think about that in the garden. Her body didn’t have to create or discharge all these salty lubricants - sweat, tears, snot- desperately trying to reach some kind of apparently unattainable equilibrium, that recedes as elusively as the hazy horizon they keep pursuing-- that always seems just as far away.
In the garden she never thought about her hair, her lips, her nails, her very skin. Now they seemed like whiny children clamouring in her mind’s peripheral. I’m thirsty! I’m tired! Owy it hurts!
They had been such content, easy children before, never needing her attention- happy to grow plump, full of nutrients, saturated and moist. Her hair had changed the most. It was so dry and full of static, Adam would laugh at how it wrapped around her face and even stood straight up, and how annoyed she would get, trying to push it back. Before, it had slurped up the humid air, curling like little water slide tubes, the picture of fun. She’d mindlessly wrap the bouncy tendrils around her index finger, while she’d watched the panthers play.They were her favourite. Their sleek bodies shining. Letting her stroke them, sometimes their heavy heads falling asleep in her lap, after they’d licked themselves clean.
She chews at the side of her fingernail, still amazed at the sting such a seemingly tiny hangnail could produce. She shouldn’t bite them, there’s barely anything left, but they break anyways, as brittle as ancient, forgotten skeletons, snagging on things, like desperate torn flesh clinging to the bone. She reached in her leather pouch, for some more of the greasy balm Adam had made her out of melted goat fat when her lips began to be as scratchy as his growing beard. She applied it generously, the smell reminding her of meat smoking over the fire. She winces as she touches the tender spots her cold sores had festered into, now scabby remains refusing to heal, splitting if she dared smile without caution or adequate restraint. So dry, she thought.
It wasn’t just her chapped skin and itchy eyes that seemed sucked of moisture, the very land itself was like her skin- exposed, burned, ready to split.
At least it's not windy today. For days the air had ripped at their faces, transforming their thinning leather tunics into loud flags tethered to their flagpole frames. Her infuriatingly staticy hair sticking to the corners of her goat fat slathered mouth. The wind you would think would be a welcome relief from the dead stillness. If only it didn’t get so out of control. It reminded her of him. At first unthreatening, blowing in her ear as he whispered of delicious powers. But then tantruming, full rage, spitting out threats. First only a rattle, then a striking bite, the poison causing the world to writhe.
She shivered thinking of him; those dark eyes that didn’t blink.
Adam looks back at her. His eyes are the colour of honey- translucent, hiding nothing, reflecting light. The comparison makes her want to drizzle their sweetness into her palms and lick up the stickiness with her tongue, from between her fingers, up onto her wrists.
He smiles that boyish grin, his hair growing into his eyes, shaggy and thick, like a buffalo after a long winter. His dark hazelnut skin has grown even darker in the constant sun. She notices the little patches of red that rest on his cheeks, as he rubs the hollow of his eyes sockets, like a sleepy boy ready for bed.
She wonders where they will sleep, and once again the image returns of them nestled in the curve of one another, cushioned with the dark deep greens, vines twisting, her fingering the pulsing soft-spot of his ribs- her secret access, the hidden door of the cage to his heart.
There is life here, but not the lush, intertwined, soft kind she would lazily comb with her toes. No this life was pokey, prickly thorns. Tangled briars, crunchy weeds. This life was half dead. Starved and turned bitter from its hunger. Her legs were scratched raw from their meanness. And scratched from her own nails trying to alleviate the insanity- inducing itch left by the bugs thirsty for her blood.
She still marvelled at it. The blood. The red viscous liquid that oozed forth if enough protective skin was scraped away. The first time she saw it, she’d fallen on some jagged rocks. Her elbows and knees burned with pain. Adam was panicky and not sure what to do. But when she saw the crimson smear, her fascination overcame her hurt and she began to inspect the bright droplets lining up on the lines of punctured pores. She touched it, and marvelled at how it clung to her fingertip, soaking in, leaving little red fingerprints on her face.
Then there was the night the wet warm blood appeared between her legs. She hadn't woken Adam, she wasn’t sure why. She should have been afraid but she wasn’t. Something deep inside her churned, a pain that felt like a promise. She lay awake a long time, til her thighs were glued together with stickiness. The moon had been full, its light caressing the cooled landscape. She thought of Mother. Their walks in the garden. The sound of trickling water and cooing birds. Had she tried to explain this to her? She remembers that perhaps she did. But she hadn’t quite understood. She’d nodded her head anyways, anxious to go on and explore the flowers, like they often did, pointing out their favourites, learning the names of the colours: fuschia, coral, magenta, mauve, lavender, sangria- Adam scoffed, there just pink and purple. No! She’d protested, Mother said!
She missed walking with Mother. Missed Her smell. Nothing in this world smelled anything like Her. Every once in a while she’d get a whiff of a sunbaked rock, or brand new bud, the sweet creamy smell of the milk she would squeeze from the mamma goat, whose kid wouldn’t suckle, or her even her own mustiness at times- and there would be hints, but it was like calling a firefly the sun.
She missed Mother more than anything. Adam looked like Father. Had his same strong, gentle ways. Sometimes if she only saw him from the corner of her eye, the similar way they moved made her mistake him for just a moment. No, in many ways it felt like Father was still here, still watching, knowing, calling to us “Adam! Eve!” summoning us from out of our hiding places. Mother on the other hand, always came to us, found us by the stream, nibbling berries, or would follow our trail of orange peels. She always seemed to know where we were. And she was always touching us. Stroking our hair, wiggling a toe, touching noses, foreheads.
Like she was always taking our souls' temperature, making sure we were not too cold, not too hot. Just right. She had talked a lot about balance. She talked all the time. Sometimes soft and slow, making dream-like images appearing in minds. Sometimes fast and loud, her hands flying excitedly. She was trying to prepare us. Trying to explain. Trying to help us understand what it would be like- without Her.
But she couldn’t. Not really. Because the whole time she tried to describe life without Her, she was right there, Her glow resting on our faces, the essence of her love seeping into every crevice of our newly formed bodies, to the center of the unactivated marrow of our still premortal bones.
Her glow! I’d forgotten. No wonder the moon felt so comforting.
All this time she’d been remembering, they have walked, in silence. Together, but still she felt so lonely at times. They had been navigating towards a huge formation of stone, almost like a shelf jutting out from the flat lower land, like someone had cracked it open and couldn't get the pieces back together again.
Now as they rounded the bottom of the cliff, she realized she’d been hearing an unfamiliar sound, increasing in volume as they got closer.
Adam saw it first (he likes being first) and twisted about his face beaming with excitement.
A rushing waterfall was plunging into a deep pool of bright water- Adam would call blue, but Mother would say was actually more cerulean.
The water sprayed off the rocks that Adam had quickly scaled down to. Water droplets glittering atop his mop of hair, like the dew he used to shake off in their mornings in Eden.
While the waterfall roared, the cool air swirled about, not like the incessant wind on the barren plains, but like invisible playful birds, inviting us to stay.
Adam had pulled off the garment of skins that was beginning to tear at the seams and had leapt from a jutting rock, arms spread wide, legs spinning wildly, his yell ending abruptly as he was swallowed with one big gulp by the water, barely making a splash. She gasped, staring at the white flurry of bubbles just beneath the water surface, where he came up sputtering and shaking his head, water shooting in every direction like rays from the sun.
When had he become so spontaneous? What had happened to the man who had to be coaxed into everything? Who carefully weighed out every decision, turning it over and over and over again, like the rocks and plants he liked to inspect before naming?
This world was making him more wild. And yet, somehow she felt more cautious than ever.
He waved at her, and called for her to join him. They liked to do things together.
She laid her own fraying garment on top of his, feeling a forgotten lightness that again brought her back to the garden she had run naked in, every inch of her skin, one with it all.
She raised her hands high instinctually above her head, and dove.
As her body plunged into the cool, thick water, the murkiness enveloped her. Sound and light simultaneously muted. She opened her eyes under the water and saw the specks floating, as if in space, suspended from gravity and it’s constant pull to the grave. She comes to the surface, the water dripping from her nose, her eyebrows, landing on her swollen lips. The earthy taste of it, mingled with blood, the smell of the microscopic life and death she is now drenched with, her hair and heart soaking it in, starting ever so slowly to curl. She smiles.
This. This was what Mother was trying to tell me, with her flailing arms, and lighted eyes.
Life.
The opposition making the balance all the more cherished, for the fleeting moments it achieved.
Light. Dark. Water. Earth. Sun. Moon. Bitter. Sweet.
They had known it all. All along and long ago.
You shall be as the Gods.
(The best lies always have a bit of truth.)
He said he had said nothing of Mother and Father- but he had.
He’d given away the biggest secret of them all.
The fruit had only been a delicious beginning.
