Original Sin
With not a lot to write about during lockdown this was the first bit of fiction I tried playing with
“Okay, come on in you two,” said God, settling in his chair and looking to the door as it opened.
“It’s nice to see you both, so sorry to keep you out there waiting.”
First Eve and then Adam walked into the room, moving apart from one another after being funneled through the tall oak frame. It was bright and airy in the office, the day pouring in through a large sash window, the view outside an immaculate green and blue, stretching to a haze on the horizon.
“Come on now, clothes off. Yes, that’s it, clothes off – I shouldn’t have to say it every time I see you. Come on, please, as I made you.”
The two of them paused in the doorway before reluctantly beginning to undress. Adam stepped on the back of one shoe with the toe of the other, squashing down the heel and sending a limited edition Spezial cartwheeling across the carpet to the skirting board, unbuckling his belt and ripping it through the loops of his jeans as if he were a spinning top.
“You’ve ruined those three stripes,” God noted disapprovingly, watching as the other Adidas trainer was stuffed with two balled-up socks and kicked to join its mate.
Eve meanwhile was more deliberate, folding a leather jacket at the collar and leaving it on top of a leather bag by the sideboard. Loosening the front of her trousers she turned away to unbutton her blouse, quickly thumbing through the buttons.
God bit his lip and pretended he wasn’t watching, glancing to the pad on his lap and gesturing to the sofa opposite.
“And how’s the rib?” God asked, furrowing his brow with concern as a naked Adam made his way over.
“Still giving me trouble,” he replied, rubbing the faint scar down his side and glaring pointedly in Eve’s direction.
God burst out laughing, leaning across the low table between them to fist bump Adam as Eve sat down, shaking her head. They never let her forget where she came from.
God was pleased; he’d spent ages working on that bit with Adam in their last one-to-one session, and so to pull it off in such style was a real win.
“Classic, classic,” he said. “That’s a classic.”
With pen perched on page he glanced back up and smiled apologetically.
“So, let’s start again. How are you both?”
Now sat well apart on the same chair, Adam and Eve shuffled in their seats; having taken up a cushion each – he resting his flat on his lap, she hugging hers to her front – they both shrugged, staring down at their pink knees.
God tutted and scribbled a quick note: Still ashamed.
“Eve, then,” he started. “Let’s begin with you, shall we?”
“I’m fine,” came the reply, but then she quickly rounded on Adam.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” he replied, turning away to the window.
“No, ‘cause I thought you said something?”
“I didn’t.”
“Right, then don’t fucking…”
“Guys!” God cut in, shocked. “I thought we’d gotten past this?”
Wearily he kneaded his face with his palms, smoothing his light beard and putting his pad to one side. He’d been seeing Adam and Eve once a week for more than a year now, ever since the incident, and progress had been shaky and impermanent.
“It’s been a while that we’ve been sitting down together,” he started. “And yet it feels like you’re further apart now than when we started…”
“Is that a question?” asked Adam, his eyes fixed on the vista outside.
Through the clear space between the bottom of the open window and the sill he could see the tops of the metal railings that surrounded the Garden of Eden; they’d only been fitted within the past twelve months and Adam still found them hard to look at. Every spindle was about twice his height, tipped with a golden spire, and while there was enough of a gap between each one not to obscure the view entirely it was a clear boundary to the world beyond, whatever that might be.
“If it were a question, would you answer it?”
The window itself was made up of nine panes of glass – a three-by-three grid of white wooden frames that apportioned the sky, and Adam watched as a flock of birds moved across each one; narrowing one eye to keep them in focus, he followed their flight, trying to guess which portion they might move through on their way out of sight.
“What?”
God knew that Adam had heard him and couldn’t help but snap.
“I’ve got quite a lot riding on this you know, guys!”