Eve Speaks
no serpent—Eve gets a bad rap, and the story we’ve been taught never rang true to me. This seems more likely.
So there we were, hanging out in the garden, everything perfect, one day seamlessly melting into another when I noticed the caterpillars eating the apples, boring great holes through them, filling the air with the sweetest, most beautiful fragrance I had ever smelled. It smelled clean and crisp, not cloying like the sweet gardenias and jasmine. I kept coming back to smell the wonderful fruit that someone said we weren’t supposed to eat.
The caterpillars spun these webby fibrous things around themselves, sticky stuff, clinging to the leaves of the tree. After a while, the apples lost their fragrance and the sticky stuff got hard, and I didn’t see the caterpillars anymore.
I told Adam, and he said, “See? You disappear if you eat that fruit!”
I kept going back. One day, the most magnificent thing happened: the most amazing creatures with wings of all colors had grown out of those fat little caterpillars inside those shells, and then they broke out and flew away.
I rushed to tell Adam and brought him back with me. He saw with his own eyes, but he didn’t believe they used to be caterpillars. I plucked two bright red apples from the tree and gave Adam one. I took a huge bite of mine, and it was juicy, sweet, crisply delicious with the most interesting texture. I loved it and ate the whole thing. Adam took one tiny bite, just taking a scrap of the skin in his mouth.
He spit it out and threw the apple on the ground. God was not amused by the waste and told Adam to leave the garden and produce for himself. To me, he said, “My dear, he did not gain the knowledge, and he will need you by his side if he is to survive in the world out there. Will you go with him and multiply, or would you stay here?
“Stay here? When you just said there’s a whole world out there? I was bored until I saw the butterflies anyway. May I visit from time to time?”
He beamed at me and said, “Of course my dear. Whenever you have time.”
And that’s what really happened. No snake, no “knowledge is bad”—waste is bad, not knowledge. And wasted knowledge is worst of all.
About the Creator
Harper Lewis
I'm a weirdo nerd who’s extremely subversive. I like rocks, incense, and all kinds of witchy stuff. Intrusive rhyme bothers me.
I’m known as Dena Brown to the revenuers and pollsters.
MA English literature, College of Charleston
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Comments (7)
Love your version of Adam and Eve
Ha ha, lovely and fun rethink of the creation myth. Poor Adam. I have only one question. If he spat out the one bite of apple, where did the Adam's apple in his throat come from?
Brilliant work Harper!
Wasted knowledge is bad, you are right about that.
This is such a fun twist on the story. I really enjoyed it!
Wait. Hold up. I caught that. 'you disappear if you eat that fruit' 👌🏾👏🏾🤯 Love the vivid description of what you can see and taste. The dialogue was natural and captivating. Love the plot twist. Wasted knowledge is bad. Outstanding work Harper! 🤗❤️🖤
I love this twist! Wonderful job on this story, I wasn't expecting that! Funnily enough, I didn't read the title or subtitle for some reason, but when it said Adam, I was like.... oh Adam and Eve haha. I think it would be hard to believe that caterpillars turn to butterflies unless you watched the process, kind of like Eve in this story. But the message, of waste, that has been something I've been thinking about a lot. Like, how can you expect to be deserving of a heaven if you can't respect the earth? Anyways, thank you for this great little story! I recently wrote an Adam and Eve poem. Still haven't decided on a part of it so it's still in my drafts. However, it's quite different than this idea.