Trapped in the Garden of Eden

The first day

He doesn't turn to me, he doesn't make any sign to show he heard me, maybe he didn't. Maybe it's better if he didn't hear me. After all, there is nothing I or he can say to make this day better. So we walk in silence and stare up and around at the garden.

Our beautiful garden, so full of life and love. It's still here, it's still the same, maybe God didn't leave entirely after all. My hopes quickly dissolve as I see what used to be a patch of beautiful roses, red, white and pink. They used to bloom so big and gloriously that I had thought for sure that God has placed a magical kiss upon them every day to make them even more beautiful than the day before. Now, the petals fall around the stem and some are already bare of petals. More flowers become naked as we look at them. Adam only pauses for a moment, than continues, but I can't move on.

The roses, they are wilting away, the white petals turn brown and look as though they might crumble at the touch, but I need to see for myself. I need to feel for myself. If the garden has lost God, if this is what is going to happen to the rest of Eden... My mind can't fathom the horror. The garden has been beautiful and perfect for so long, longer then I even existed. I am a fully grown woman and I have never witnessed such things, all my life everything was well... prefect.

My eyes stay fixated on the petals as more fall to the ground shriveling up as they lay. Not even a full day with God gone and things have already started to crumble without him.

How long will He stay away? How can He bare to watch the roses wilt and fall apart after so much love and care, after all this time with them, with us...

"The roses are us." I think aloud and Adam stops, maybe because he has heard me or maybe because he is getting to far away and doesn't want to lose me. Either way, he stops walking and turns back to me.

"Eve?" I look flowers, grasping the fallen petals in my palm, so fragile, so weak, they didn't know what was coming. "Eve, please we have to go." My eyes flicker up to Adam but immediately fall back to the flowers.

"Why?" I question, "where are we to go? Where can we go? We have never left so far beyond the main garden before, we never needed too. What if everything is falling to pieces?" He kicks his foot against the pebbles that broke away from the path. "What are we to do Adam? This place," I stand still holding the petals and gesture to the garden. "It still looks the same, but there are slight changes in color and sounds." I let out a deep breath and fall back to the ground, "this place is home, but without God, what is it?" Adam comes and sits by me, we both keep our heads down, fixated on anything, but ourselves. All the questions and anger is eating me up, but Adam doesn't have the answers, he is as clueless as I.

"Where are we to go then?" Adam asks nudging me with his arm trying to get me to look up, to stop moping in misery.

"I don't know. Eden is the only place we ever knew, now it feels wrong to even be here." Adam gave a small nod in bitter agreement. "Then we will leave, we have to." Did I say that out loud? I wonder looking to him as he rises and helps me up.

"Alright. Let's get out of Eden then." He confirms.

"Out of Eden?" The question replays again in my head, "we don't even know if there is anything outside of Eden. What if the entirety of this world that God created, is Eden and everything else is..." my eyes go back the petals and I want to cry all over again. "The petals," I cry out and tears fill my eyes streaming down my face with every blink. "The roses," I continue to sob and there is nothing anyone can say right now to make any of this better.

God come back, come fix what you created. I'll do everything and anything to make it up to you, please just come back. The words don't come out, but my mind screams up to him hoping he will hear me. But, the flowers continue to wilt and the petals crumble like ash in my hands.