Cain

Cain

Primordial, post-Eden

That is the question everyone wants answered, isn't it?

If I say yes, then it's simple. I am evil, a cautionary tale, the first murderer, the line drawn between the world before and after. You can look at me and know what evil looks like.

If I say no, then I am asking you to understand me—to see the wound, the rejection, the anger that lived in me like a second skeleton. And that makes it harder. That makes it your problem too, in a way.

The truth is closer to this: I was not born evil. I was born a man, the first son of the first people. I worked. I brought an offering. I felt something crack open in me when it was refused.

And then—I had a choice.

I made the choice that evil is made of. Not because I was evil. Because I was wounded and angry and I did not rule over what was crouching at my door.

That is worse, maybe, than being evil. Because it means any of you could do what I did. You are not so different from me. You have felt passed over. You have felt the unfairness of it, the heat in your chest when someone else was chosen. You know what I felt.

The question is not whether I am evil. The question is what you will do with the anger that lives in you.

That is the real terror of my story.