Genesis

The first part of the story, which was the original FEM exercise. A large chunk of struck out text after this deletes an extension that was not published in the Collection.

Evelyn and Adam were twins, and their mother was named Gaia.

Gaia was upset and angry. What she wanted most was for her children to be calm and quiet, respectful and generous. Yet somehow she had raised them badly. She tried to remember where it had gone wrong. Did the responsibility for their actions rest entirely with her? The children’s youth didn’t excuse their behavior toward her, or towards each other.

In the beginning the twins had been so sweet and unassuming, playing in her garden and amusing each other with fantastical tales. Still they had voraciously suckled, taking the life-giving nourishment from her and had grown quickly. The mother in her wanted to feed and comfort them, but with their development came differences. She had watched with increasing frustration as their petty squabbles escalated to the point at which separating them was the only way to restore a temporary peace.

Once they fought over a glittering rock she had given them to share.

“It’s mine,” screamed Adam, pulling hard on the twinkling bauble.

“But mother gave it to me,” Evelyn yelled, yanking it back.

Gaia had handed the rock to Evelyn first, an action that her daughter had translated into corporeal ownership.

“Stop it!” Gaia had yelled slapping her hands together, the noise reverberating like a thunderclap. But they had ignored her and continued arguing. 

Such fights and arguments occurred often. The object of contention did not matter, they just enjoyed waging war on each other.

It wasn’t just their mother that the children upset. Those goldfish left alive -  following a poisoning incident - hardly poked their crimson-tinged gills out of the plastic Man ‘O War artificially wrecked in the tank. Their dog Bandit had not been seen for several months and was either deceased, or had found a better home. Gaia hoped for the latter, but suspected the former.

The twins began to deliberately provoke her by leaving lights switched on, and water running from taps. They wasted wantonly, because they knew she was so keen on protecting her environment. Periodic inspections of their bedrooms would reveal damage to furniture. Gaia also found decomposing food left (deliberately she was sure) under their beds. When she confronted them, the finger pointing began.

“She left the water running,” said Adam, sticking his tongue out and making a face at his sister.

“Liar, liar pants on fire,” retorted Evelyn. “Mother, it was Adam that turned all the lights on. He switched them on deliberately.”

“I hate you!” screamed Adam, and whacked Evelyn in the arm.

Gaia lost her temper. “Both of you will go to your rooms with no dinner!”

But sent to bed with no food they whined about how hungry they were, and thrust their stomachs out until she gave in and let them have a treat before bedtime. When told they could not have anything to drink, fraudulent tears welled up and faked voices rasped how thirsty they were. They were so pitiful that she always capitulated and gave them some milk; usually they drank it all, and she was forced to replenish it. Being told to tidy their rooms they said how tired they were, and flopped listlessly on unkempt beds until she had to come in to clear up their mess. She was running out of places to hide their rubbish. 

As her children grew she hoped they would become more mature, growing out of the behavior exhibited so violently and vindictively as young children. Yet nothing changed. Adam became more aggressive towards both his sister and mother. Evelyn was vain and sly; on the surface more calm than before, but she had a long memory and would start round one with Adam for some slight committed months before.

There was also jealousy between the children over Gaia’s time. Each accused the other of monopolizing her, and finally she reached the point where she had to sit them down and try to mediate. She said that she loved them both equally and would spend time with each of them, but preferred that they did things together as a family. However they were not a family, she realized. The harmony which had existed in the beginning was a distant memory, like a withered leaf lying on a snowy path - its flaky fragility containing none of the joy of spring that created it.

The worst times were when verbal skirmishes led to serious confrontations. Once Evelyn hit Adam with a candlestick and fractured his forearm. Gaia had watched the incident in the slow motion of dreams, and could not move fast enough to stop the arc of the silver missile as it honed in on its target. She had punished Evelyn by spanking her until she had cried, and sobbed about how sorry she was. But in Evelyn’s voice Gaia sensed thermals of remorselessness.  

The first major fight had happened in Adam’s bedroom. Gaia couldn’t remember the reason for the argument, simply that it had started over some tiny thing and escalated quickly, like a match thrown near petrol-soaked tinder. The fumes surrounding the spluttering flame were sufficiently laden with hatred to ignite the situation into open warfare. There was screaming, hitting, name-calling and breaking of loved and treasured toys on both sides. By the time Gaia had run upstairs, it had already escalated to the point where she had to physically separate them.

The worst clash so far had been a full-scale conflict. Again it began in Adam’s bedroom, but had quickly encompassed Evelyn’s room, their mother’s and most of the house. Nothing Gaia could do would separate the two children. She had seen the anger flash in their eyes as they screamed at each other, using language she could only assume they had gotten from television. They had thrown things, smashed valuables and hurt each other. Adam had delivered the coup d'état by microwaving Evelyn’s two favorite Lego sets. Their mother had reached a point of despair that she had not thought possible. She had covertly punished them by deliberately infecting them with the Chicken Pox. She had to admit that, although they had moaned and scratched after the infection set in, she at least had been rewarded with a couple of weeks rest from the war between them.

In the end though, her punishments proved little more than temporary barriers to her children's loathing of each other and lack of respect for her. No other children wanted to play with them, and they became isolated from a community that would otherwise have welcomed and helped them. She was their mother, and she loved them to her core. This love, this unfettered desire to see the good in them was blinding her, she knew. She understood that, like all scales, love is balanced with hate. And she did hate them with a passion that matched her love. When the scales tipping had subsided, when love and hate had been measured against each other, Gaia decided that she wanted them gone from her. The sadness at this decision drilled through all her layers to the chamber of her soul. To see them grow would have been the summit of her life. But the cost was too great. Gaia could conceive other offspring, perhaps one of them would prove worthy of her? Adam and Evelyn, beautiful lives of forest green and ocean blue, would become a fraying memory - the strands of their life with Gaia unwinding time after time. Eventually nothing would be left but the sensation that they had once lain next to her.

Time to begin.