Adam

Adam

Primordial — the first man, lived 930 years

The snake.

I have thought about that creature for nine hundred years and I still do not have clean words for it.

Here is what I want to tell you first, because people always look at Eve when this story comes up, and I need to say this plainly before anything else. I was there. Standing right there beside her. The text will tell you that if you ever read it. I heard what was said. I watched her take the fruit and I took it too. Whatever happened that day, I do not get to stand apart from it and point.

I want you to know that about me before I tell you anything else.

Now. The snake.

It was subtle. That is the word that stays with me. Not loud. Not monstrous, not the way people paint it later with scales the size of shields and fire. It was subtle. It asked a question. Just a question. Did God really say.

That is all it took to get the door open. Just a little uncertainty. Just enough to make us look at the tree differently than we had looked at it the day before.

And the thing is - the fruit looked the same as it always had. The garden looked the same. The light was the same gold afternoon light.

Nothing announced itself as the moment everything changed.

It never does, in my experience.

Does that surprise you?