On the Evening of the Eighth Day

The One was gone.

The created were also gone, but not of their own volition, although if lawyers had existed they’d have found a way to prove that it had been so. A second generation had been born and matured, a generation that had never known the One, other than in ritual, and had yet to meet the Other as their parents had. But a generation yet to be completed in an important manner.

A colloquy is repeated, an Ode to the Confused.

“He is my brother and my son” said the second man, and then whispered, “I am his brother and his father and his mother is my mother and my wife and my lover and my life” and then he shouted, “Father, why have you forsaken us?” And then he cried crystal tears that fell to the fertile earth and turned it to dust.

His sister, who was also his mother and his wife, listened, staring, silently, somewhat curiously and a bit impatiently. She’d heard this before, albeit from her other son who was also her husband and her father. How to answer them she wondered, they were so few and so thoroughly confused, and there were no others there like her, at least not yet, and if they came, then what would their role be, what would she be then, what would she do, how would she answer when they asked?

The Other, who’d once upon a time a long time before (although not so long as time would become) been transformed into the serpent had once prophesied to her and his prophecies had come true, he’d warned her and cajoled her and perhaps, even tempted her, but she’d not known what to do, so nothing is exactly what she’d done, what other choices had she? And now, what was she to do? Nothing hadn’t quite worked out as she’d hoped it might but the serpent was long gone and no one else was there to proffer her advice. Only questions from the others, her others, to which she had no response, but she’d learned to look wise and say nothing, leaving them to their own conclusions.

Once there’d been another who seemed to care, the One who’d been there when she came to be, the One who promised then forbade, and came and went as he saw fit, the furtive one, the voyeur. But he’d soon become rude and bad tempered and impatient, and then, even violent; all novelties then, and then he’d disappeared as had so many other things, things useful then, now barely memories. Still, they’d all seemingly left echoes and shadows of sorts, and deep, dark frightening dreams, and these latter she’d sometimes come to consider as prophecies, and she frequently wondered whether the dreams were not reality and what she perceived as reality merely dreams.

Apples again they all thought but none mentioned it. Why must they always eat apples they wondered but didn’t dare complain? And why was every apple always infested with a worm?

A colloquy is again repeated, an Ode to the Confused.

“He is my brother and my son” said the third man this time, and then whispered, “I am his brother and his father and his mother is my mother and my wife and my lover and my life” and then he shouted, “Father, why have you forsaken us?” And then he too cried crystal tears that fell to the fertile earth and turned it to dust and the dust spoke claiming that they too were dust and dust they would become again.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2016; all rights reserved