Seth and Eden

A very very old story, forgotten in my files. It's extremely unfinished, and I wrote it years ago. It may be corny, but it's hardly even a story: just me illustrating a daydream.

ATOM

There she is, living her ordinary life in that crumbling, demon-ridden world.  She’ll stay there till she dies, which isn’t too far ahead, considering how fragile their lives are, there.  Though I must admit, they are all living in a world far beneath them.  They’re living in bodies that would corrupt their spirits, on an Earth that would corrupt their bodies.

  But in spirit, they definitely are brilliant things.  She showed me that.  Maybe I underestimate their world, and maybe their world isn’t the real, final thing they possess.  But still, she could have stayed here and been happy, for a long time, before passing on into eternity.  I certainly miss her.

 

JOURNEY

The chair was so big, I always thought, that if it was a hole, a person could jump right through.  And Ms. Chan, our homeroom teacher, would fall right through it, if it turned into a hole.

  The chair, actually, was Ms. Chan’s.  She was an old, fat�"obese�"lady.  We used to joke that she’d been teaching at our school so long, that the big teacher’s chairs in every classroom were made for her convenience.

  Ms. Chan, my fourth year high school homeroom adviser: she seemed to have been on an eternal vow of disagreeability.  But as the months passed and graduation drew nearer and nearer, she became kinder, and I gradually stopped imagining her chair turning into a cavity, and her falling through.

  By the time graduation came around, Ms. Chan was practically a mother to us, and every time I saw her chair I felt a sweet sort of remembrance of her being disagreeable.

  On graduation day we all laughed and hugged and cried and talked about college.  Then only I and Caleb and Eri were left looking at each other.  This was too sad for a noisy farewell.  Eri was leaving for Canada the very next day.  Caleb and I were going to different schools.

  Eri hugged us.  We’d been saying goodbye for a long time.  This was the last hug and the last goodbye for at least a few years, for me and my best friend.  And there she went, off with her parents.

  Caleb looked at me and I looked at him.  He half-smiled.  “See you in college?”

  I chuckled.  “I’m going to miss you in uniform.”

 

A few days later, Caleb and I met in school.  It wasn’t quite closed for the summer yet, so we took a last look before college.

  “Funny to get so emotional over this, isn’t it,” I remarked.

  “Mm-hmm.”  Caleb wasn’t really into philosophical musings.   “A last look at the classroom, maybe?”

  The corridors were unusually still, so still I could imagine the walls breathing.  Dust floated leisurely across our eyes.  We went inside our classroom and fell reverentially quiet.

  We sat in our old seats, a bit far from one another, and grinned.  I closed my eyes.  Behind my eyelids, the classroom was filled with people.  There was old Ms. Chan sitting on her enormous chair, scowling.  The silence turned into noise.  Somewhere in the rows behind me, Caleb was writing a note, which he’d toss right into my lap, while Ms. Chan was distracted.  I winced in surprise as something really did fall into my lap, bringing me back to the dusty, empty room.

  A note.  I laughed and opened it: “Let’s go, pretty.”

  Caleb came over and said, “C’mon.  We’ve got a movie to catch.”

  “Go ahead, Caleb, I’ll just…”

  He laughed, rolled his eyes, and left the room.

  Before following him out, I walked a single round about the room, my head flooding with memories, and with the present emptiness.  I sat in Ms. Chan’s chair, giggling as I remembered my fantasies of her falling through.

  I fell through.

 

ATOM

She was the most wondrous thing I’d ever seen.  Compared to us, she looked like earth beside sky.  Our skin, so light and translucent, and our light, floating hair, looked so aerial all of a sudden.  Beside her, I felt insubstantial.

  She had light brown skin and thick black hair, and dark, dark eyes.  Peachy lips, too, and a dreamy “where-am-I?” expression.  It was sunset, and she looked absolutely fiery in the copper light�"sitting inexplicably where I found her, in the middle of the grassy field I crossed on the way home.

  It would have been perfect if I had claimed her then and there forever, but unfortunately, the only thing she wanted was to leave.  From the beginning I was heartbroken over her.

  When she saw me, her dreamy look turned into fright, and she turned red.

  “Excuse me,” she said, trying and failing to stand up.  I nearly fell over at the sound of her voice.  “Where am I?”

  “E-e-enchanted,” I stammered, transfixed, “enchanted to meet you, of course, I�"you’re�"you’re lost?”

  In a tone of forced calm, she said, “I’ve been sitting here for over thirty minutes.  I opened my eyes, and here I was.  I fell through a chair in my school.”

  I felt more and more nervous as I saw her eyes starting to fill with tears, and fell to my knees.  “Please don’t cry.  Please don’t.  I’ll�"I’ll take you home!”  And with these words I felt buoyantly happier.  In a world of air and light, I had found a ruby in the field, and I was taking her home.  But she was crying by now, and I was completely thrown.

  I held out both my hands.  “My name is Atom,” I said, formally.  “You are in Eden, where I live.  Come home with me and we may comfort you better there.”  I felt a thrill as I said it.  She sobbed.  I broke down.  “Please just get up, and come with me.”

  She held my hand… such a wonderfully warm hand it was!  And we walked home, to my house at the edge of the field.

 

  She stared in wonder at our diamond-and-alabaster porch, and stroked its pillars as we sat on the porch seats.  The porch was a beautiful place to seat guests in, with its cushions and light and air.

  “Wait for me here,” I told her, as I sat her down among the white cushions.  She nodded.

  I hurried in.  Before I could speak, my mother held me by my shoulders and said, worriedly, “Are you all right, Atom?  Is anybody in trouble, outside?”

  “You read my mind, Mother,” I replied nervously.  “Yes�"you see, in the field, I saw this girl.  She looks different, like, like, not like us, Mother.  And it seems she’s lost, so�"”

  My mother let go of my shoulders and marched outside.

 

JOURNEY

The whole world under the chair looked like a world of jewels.  The kind of place I wouldn’t mind getting lost in.  The sky was a jewel.  The setting sun was a pale red jewel.  The grass was light green, and the beautiful boy walking across the fields was as light as a person could be.  Beside him, and beside his mother (when he took me home), I felt so heavy and earthy.

  Her mother brought out a glass of lime juice, or something like lime juice, and sat down to talk to me.  She was extremely concerned, especially with the details of how I sat on the chair, and ended up in the field, and was found by her son.

  The boy�"Atom�"was called to talk  to me as well.  He was gentle, and sort of formal in every way.

  “Thanks so much for taking me,” I told them, “and I would love to explore this place… but I really would like to know how I can get home.”

  I told them my school’s name, and what my country was like.  I felt like I was dreaming a pleasant dream, with an undercurrent of fear that I would not wake up.

  Finally the mother went into the house and brought out a thick, silver book.  Silver cover, silver pages, crystal box, I remember.

  “Mother,” Atom reproached, “how is that going to help?”

  She looked at him even more reprovingly.  “When I was young”�"I thought I heard Atom sigh�"“I used to dream about other worlds, and I loved Religion and History class because it teaches about those worlds.”

  She shuffled through the first part of the book.  “’And Seth it was flung out into space in passion.  Woe to the spirits of Seth: for demons make their home therein.  But Eden’s beginning has not pain, or flame, or tears.  The air shall always be pure.  And when Seth expires in pain, Eden shall dissolve in light.’  There you are.”

  “We are on the Earth we call Eden,” Atom said, simply.

  “What is Seth?” I asked.

  “The other Earth,” Atom replied nervously.  “It seems you are from Seth.”

  “And so,” I said, even more nervously, “I am on another Earth.”  What about college?  What about Caleb?  Where the hell was I?

  “Please stay for a while,” Atom exclaimed suddenly.  “In the capital, there are professors and wise men.  They can help you.  They know a lot about these complicated worlds.  It’s not usually something we mess with.”

  “Calm down, Atom,” said his mother gently.  “Come on in, girl.  We have a spare bedroom�"where the clothes of my girlhood are kept.  You’re welcome to those, too.”

  I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t stand, and could barely answer.  It seemed I was suffused with disbelief.  Atom helped me up.

  “What’s your name, by the way?” Atom’s mother asked me, as she led the way up amazing alabaster stairs.

  “Journey,” I replied, weakly.

  The next thing I remember is a bed, which was white, and colorful-paned windows.  Night was falling fast, but not as fast as I did when I finally passed out in peace.

 

ATOM

Journey.  Journey.  Journey.

  Her name echoed through my head, her weak voice resounded in my ears, and her black hair was flashing and flashing before my eyes.

Author's Note

What IS happening? What could happen next?