The First Story

The story of man and how it all started.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

There was never a time in which there was nothing, because nothing can come from nothing. There was never a time when there was only chaos. Order did not come from chaos, for that which is cannot come from that which is not.

In the beginning was the Word, the very embodiment of order and reason. This being, God, created man in His image. Thus from the beginning, man had always possessed reason. There was never a time in which man did not possess reason, for the gift of reason came with his creation.

There was never a time in which man was without language, for the gift of the word was with man from the beginning.

And so, man found his place within the garden given to him. All was well; and he had everything he needed. The plants provided him nourishment, food. The animals, companionship; but man soon found such companionship inadequate.

It was not good for man to be alone, so God gave him woman to be his wife.

All was well.

All that God required of man and his wife was for them not to eat of the forbidden fruit. Just one fruit.

Now the serpent, an angel of God, had forsaken the Word. He was the first to have rejected order and choose chaos; he was the first revolutionary.

With honeyed words of sophistry, the serpent tricked woman into taking the forbidden fruit and eat of it. But that was the easy part. The hard part, the most important part, was to get to man.

Woman acted as the serpent’s unwitting agent. She presented the fruit for the man to eat.

Man had a decision to make, and he knew the ramifications. As he saw the fruit in front of him, he received a vision, a presentation of what was to come...

The animals, his faithful companions, tore each other apart; a bear dug its claws into a deer, ripping off the flesh - colored by red liquid. It was the first time that man ever saw blood.

Plants grew thorns and thistles, cutting into anything that touched them. An ape ate a brightly colored fruit, surely sweet and delicious, but instead the beast collapsed to the ground, foam coming out of its mouth.

Further into the future was man’s progeny. With the reason given to them by their creator, they made swords and clubs and bows - weapons. And they attacked one another. More blood, they spilled on to the ground - so much blood that the ground turned red.

There were cries of... something. Man had no idea what it meant, but he did not like it. It was at that moment, he truly understood the meaning of death.

Man knew the implication. If he was to take the fruit, there would be death. Not just of him, as God had once decreed, but of all life. He knew it to be true, for the reason given to him was impeccable.

And yet, that fruit looked so delicious. Ever since he learned of it, man had always wondered how it would taste. And that curiosity, that desire was soon becoming front and center. The warnings, the vision of the future was being pushed, slowly but deliberately, to the periphery of his mind.

Surely, I can eat of this fruit. After all, it was the woman whom God gave to me; she was the one holding it, so the man thought. And the promise this fruit held, phantom but seemingly true all the same…

Damn it all, damn it all, just damn it all.

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