The Garden

4 Jul 2001

They were walking along a long, empty street, the dust billowing up in clouds at their feet. A dilated red sun hung in the sky as if suspended on a fragile, silvery spider thread. Abandoned houses watched them from both sides. The road was cracked, splinters weaving through it in a stiff dance. The wind had died down for the last time.

They ambled along slowly in silence. He looked at her; she looked at him; neither said a word. Melancholy was thick in the air. They passed a small, white house. Its paint had been peeling off for years, and now only one strip of white remained, a lone survivor against the encroaching pale gray of the wood.

At last they arrived. The building was of course empty as all the others, a mere shell where life had once existed but had run its course and now death took its place. Two pillars, cracked as the road, weakly guarded the entrance. The two entered.

Crimson sunlight streamed in from the set of windows above and behind them, casting their shadows upon the floor in front of them. The marble beneath them was splintered as well, with dead weeds sprawled throughout the cracks.

Adam looked around. "I suppose this is it."

"Yes." Evelyn linked her arm in his. "I never thought it would really come."

"Neither did I. But it's all for the best. You believe that, don't you?"

"Of course. At least I think so. I don't know, Adam, it's so strange. To see our home like this, with everything dead and in ruins -- it's almost like it's not our home any more."

They stepped through the stone archway into a vast hall. "I know," he said. "Are you afraid?"

Evelyn shuddered. "How can I not be? To leave everything for something we know nothing about, to abandon everything we've ever known. It's awful."

Adam took her other arm and turned to face her. "Eve, I know it's hard. But we have to do it. Think of the children."

"It's not that easy."

They walked down the hall in silence. At the far end sat two thrones. When they reached them, five minutes later, they stood before them and looked at each other. He saw pain in her eyes, a longing for something and at the same time a deep regret. He knew she had loved this world. He too had loved it, but he had not grown so attached that he could not leave it. That was what he told himself; the truth was that he would miss it just as much as she would.

Suddenly a crack of lightning bit through the sky. Immediately following it, a tremendous roar of thunder shook the ground. Like so many of the others in the past few days, it sent rippled waves through the ground, causing Evelyn to grab onto Adam for support. Unlike the others, however, this roar didn't stop. It grew in volume and intensity, pounding within their skulls, a groan from deep within the earth. The shaking also escalated, until the two could no longer remain standing. They fell to the floor, Evelyn clutching Adam. He reached out his hand and grabbed onto the throne. Pulling himself and Evelyn closer to it, he tried to stand up. He succeeded for a moment, but then the marble beneath him shifted and he collapsed. They heard another wailing from above and looked up to see the roof trembling. The skylight shattered. With a strength beyond his own, Adam reached up again and held tight to the arm of one of the thrones. The chair seemed to pull him into itself, and Evelyn likewise rose into the throne next to it.

The last king and queen sat and watched mournfully as the roof crumbled and fell into the great chasm that opened before them in the marble floor. Adam looked at Evelyn. Her face had taken on a look of peace, though tears fell unashamedly from her cheeks. The time had come.

"I'm going to say it now."

She turned to him and nodded.

He said the word.

He was alone in a garden. The golden sun shone brightly in an indigo sky. Green pervaded everything; the grass beneath him, the bushes at his ankles, and the trees above him -- he saw every shade of green he could imagine. Insects marched along a path through the blades of grass. Off in the distance he saw a pair of long-necked, spotted animals chewing leaves on a tree. This world was brimming with life. He seemed to remember another world, one dying and far different than what he saw before him, but it was cloaked in the fog of memory. There was something else also, something which he knew was incredibly important, but which remained just beyond his grasp. Was it a something? Or a someone? The harder he tried to remember, the farther away it slipped.

An overwhelming urge to sleep fell upon him. The grass felt deliciously cool against his face. The greens blurred together as his eyes closed.

When he awoke, there was another creature standing next to him. It looked vaguely familiar. It too was staring at him, with a puzzled look on its face. Gradually the hazy memory grew clear, until finally the last clouds lifted and in a blazing fire of the mind he remembered who she was.

"Eve!"

"Adam!"