In The Garden (segment one)

          As God stood back and appraised His work, He noticed that the man appeared to be a little subdued.  The man had just finished naming all of the animals, and then he just sat around sighing and yawning.  Realizing that all of the animals had mates for companionship and the man had none, God decided that this was the reason for his apparent depression.   So, He gave him a sleeping potion and in a few minutes the man was deep in slumber-land.  God made an incision down the side of his chest, opened it, and extracted a rib.  He then laid aside the rib for a moment so He could stitch the opening close.    After giving the rib considerable thought, He then, from the dust of the earth, formed a new being around this rib, causing it to look noticeably different from the man, but with the intent of the parts being able to jointly fit together.  He waited for the man to wake up before He breathed life into the new being and presented the man with it.  The man, seeing stitches in his once flawlessly smooth chest, understood immediately what had happened and he named the new being—woman, because she had come from him. 

Now, when the man first looked upon woman, a gorgeous creation with long, flowing hair, statuesque figure, flawless skin, big brown eyes, and a luscious mouth, he started having feelings that he had never experienced before now.  His heart pounded furiously, his mouth went dry and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.  After seeing his reaction to the woman, God immediately performed a wedding, blessed them, and told them to be fruitful and multiply.

            For many years in the garden, the man and woman lived in blissful peace.  They didn’t waste any time multiplying and actually discovered that it was a past-time they both enjoyed immensely.  Their children loved playing in the garden with all of the animals, swimming in the ponds with the fish, climbing the trees, and pulling up the flowers as gifts for their parents.  The man was the undisputed leader of the tribe.  He set the rules and his wife helped to keep them enforced.  He was the priest and king of his family. 

 The woman, who was later named Eve, enjoyed her life as mother and wife.  Unlike modern housewives, she had no real complaints. Whenever the women forgot to pick enough fruit for all to eat, the males still living in the garden, excused themselves and foraged through the abundance of the garden to gather more.  The females of the group tended the younger children in the family and taught them how to swim and to frolic with the near-by animals. The weather was always picture perfect.  The magnificence of the brilliant blue sky was piercing, as was the ever-present warming sun.  Once in a great while they would witness a billowy white blanket moving across the sky and they would wonder what it should be called.  Since God had not informed Adam of this particular element, he had no reason to think of a name for it, as yet.  So whenever they saw the blankets of whiteness moving across the sky, they would pretend that they were on them, travelling far and wide.

This is the first segment of a contemporized short story of events in the Garden of Eden based on Genesis 3.