When I Ruled the World
by Michael Canavan
Among the
Spirits beneath, whom I seduc'd
With other promises and other vaunts
With other promises and other vaunts
-John Milton
“I
got hooch, Paolo.”
I
didn’t recognize the dirty rags, his voice, or his face, but the long, thin
wrinkled bag in his hand suggested something stronger than Tbird. He stood in the circle of the sodium vapor
light near the First Street underpass.
“Come
on up,” I told him, shivering under my dirty bundle of blankets. Companionship
is welcome, even from a stranger, and the hooch would ease the cold. It’s sheltered up here, but fierce gusts can
blow through unexpectedly, chilling the bones and agitating the spirit. There was an appeal in his voice, something
above street grit audacity; something commanding. He climbed the concrete slope to my nest under
the bridge, held out the bottle, and I took it.
“That’s
top shelf scotch,” I told the stranger after a healthy belt. Tremors of pleasure rippled through me. “Better than anything I drank before I lost
the world.” I handed the bottle back.
“I
used to drink it when I ruled the
world,” he said, lifting the bottle to his lips.
“You
got a name?”
“Milton
will do as well as anything.” He handed
the bag back my way.
“I
used to teach Milton,” I told him.
“Appropriate,”
he replied, “for a former teacher’s fall from grace.”
I
tightened my grip on the bottle for leverage or as a weapon. “She was of age.”
“To
each their choice of sin,” Milton mused.
“Do
I know you?”
“Everybody
knows me,” he replied. “They seek me out
but deny my acquaintance.”
“Maybe
I should do the same.” I said, drank from the bottle, and ignoring the
etiquette of the dispossessed, held on to it.
“Look,
Paolo, we’re a lot alike.” He reached for the bottle I wouldn’t relinquish and frowned. “When I ruled the world I took all I could
get and the best of it. But it was never enough. I kept taking. . .” With a flash of movement he snatched the
bottle right out of my hand. “Until they
turned on me. The worm always
turns.” He looked down the street to the
next bridge, took a swig, and glanced at the bottle. “Got to make this last. I got five more stops.”
I
watched Milton descend the concrete embankment. Then I bundled up tightly against the harsh
wind. Finding no comfort, I turned over
and assumed a fetal position, my back to the chill.
Original Sin
By
Michael Canavan
Some
say curiosity was the original sin. It
was Jealousy—the name Eve gave to the lack of attention, competition for affection,
and Adam’s preference of another’s company to hers. This other’s love was unconditional, loyal, and
unflagging. The creature hung on every
word he spoke as though second only to the Creator’s in significance—and never
talked back. No matter how hard Adam
tried to teach him, the dumb beast showed no interest in words. He barked.
Chuck just wanted to play, go for walks in the garden of Eden, and lie at
his master’s feet when they settled down to sleep.
“It’s
one-sided, you know,” Eve explained to Adam.
“You could tell Chuck that you’re God and he wouldn’t argue. Not even if he could rearrange the letters of
his species to prove you wrong.” Perhaps
God’s showed divine wisdom in giving Chuck such a limited vocabulary. Never asking
pointless questions only increased the dog’s value, thus diminishing her own.
“He
knows I’m not God,” Adam replied. “I
only hope I can be half the man he thinks I am, Eve, my little dear-to-my-rib.”
She
disliked this often-expressed endearment.
One lousy rib was a small price to pay for a rightful and equal
companion in paradise. And yet, he
reminded her repeatedly of his sacrifice which was actually painless, divine
surgery performed under deep sleep. When
Adam awoke, there she was in all her God-given splendor. He certainly didn’t miss the rib during their
first few months of attraction, exploration, and torrid passion that he crudely
referred to as the ‘Paradise Just Got Twice as Nice” Days. But she supposed men grew tired of just about
anything except a damn dog.
She
turned from the sight of man and dog rolling in the grass to a path leading
deep into the center of the garden where the tree of knowledge stood like a
vast enigma. She’d asked God about the tree once and He’d replied, “Just enjoy
the shade.” This, of course only made
her want to know more. She wasn’t going
to leave it at that.
“It’s
the biggest tree in Eden. How old is
it? What kind of tree is it? Can you eat
the fruit of it? What does it taste
like?”
“Chicken. Doesn’t everything taste like chicken once
you get over the fact that it doesn’t look anything like it?” Then God created dog. “I’ve given him to you to enjoy while I go
about creation doing God-specific tasks as befits my wisdom and power.” Adam took an immediate liking to the furry
little creature and named him Chuck. Eve
experienced her first pang of Jealousy. Concealing
her scowl with an artificial smile, she named him Chicken.
As
Chicken and Adam rolled in the fragrant grasses of Eden, Eve gazed down the
path that led to the tree of knowledge.
She’d seen a strange man there the other day using an odd object to cut its
branches. A distant thwack, thwack, thwack sounded from deep within the Garden. She stepped onto the path and into a mound of
fresh Chicken shit. She wiped her foot
on the no-longer fragrant grass and then ran toward the sound. When she arrived at the tree, she found the
man standing on a ladder, hacking away at the remains of the great tree. “What are you doing?” she asked.
The
man jerked, flashed a frightened look at the sky, and nearly fell off the
ladder. He looked around and his eyes
fell on her. “You thcared me. Who are
you?”
“I
asked first.” Eve replied. The nervous little man climbed down the
ladder, circled her, and then reached out and touched her. The touch rippled over her skin triggering
heat and cold at the same time. Then it delved
under the skin. Emotions scattered
around her chest and head in frenzied motion like long-sleeping fish agitated by
a predator. They were ugly fish,
terrifying fish, anything but Eden fish. Repelled by the disorder, Eve waved her arms
to shoo it all away.
The
little man answered, evasively, “There ith God and there ith Todd. I am Todd.”
“There
is God and there is Eve,” she replied, minus the lisp. “I am Eve.” She pointed to the shiny object
in Todd’s hands. “What is that?”
Todd
replied, “an axth.”
She
looked at the axe and then the tree. “What
are you doing to the tree?”
Todd’s
smile was like another fish not from Eden—a fish that would snatch her in its
teeth and grin happily as it crunched her bones. The colors seemed to drain from Eden. The sun lost its warmth and the safety she
didn’t realize she had, vanished for one terrible moment. Todd’s smile turned suddenly benign. “I am a gardener. I keep the garden in balanth. That ith the tree of knowledge. It threatenth to take over the garden and
block out the light. It ith dithturbing the balanth tho I muth trim it.”
Keeping
the garden in balance seemed to Eve like a reasonable thing to do and a very
fine and important task. But she did not
trust Todd. She stepped aback and examined
his work. He had hacked and chopped the
tree to a stump and its limbs lay scattered on the ground. Eve felt that something terrible had taken
place and she was left feeling empty. I
name this Loss,” she said. “This can’t
be right.”
“Thometimeth
we muth cut away belief to make room for the truth,” Todd said. “I am God’th thervant. I do hith bidding.”
“You may have done your job too well,” Eve
said.
“It
ith Chuck’th fault. He hath lifted hith
leg and watered it. It hath become
overgrown.”
Eve
named her response to this news: Anger.
“Aren’t you curiouth about what I do with the
debris?” he asked.
“What do you do with it?” she asked.
“I
make thingth that people want. Producth. I fulfill their needth, bring them pleathure,
thatithfacthion and confirm their importanth.
And that maketh me happy.”
Eve
thought about this. She had made Adam
happy before Chuck appeared. “Can you
make Adam want me again?”
“Of
courth,” Todd promised.
Oh, to be desirable again, she thought as she
stepped over the hacked limbs and withering leaves lying around the stump of knowledge—for
that was all Todd had left of it. To be
the only one Adam wanted to be with; to resume those “Paradise Just Got Twice
as Nice” days. Why had God given them
that damn dog?
Todd
held out his hands and offered her the axe.
She
studied the object, a product—so foreign to Eden. She took it from Todd, raised it over her head
and swung it down on a limb just inches from Todd’s feet. The limb burst and pieces flew off like so
many fleeing fish. Eve looked up at the
lisping gardener. The earlier emotion,
the first one she gave name to, shone brightly in her deep, green eyes. “I
guess I’ll make dinner,” she said, resting the handle of the axe on her
shoulder. “We’re having Chicken.”
