Sins of the Father

The following is my second short story of the semester. This one is a milestone for me, as I sense myself finally putting together the necessary pieces for a good story. This is a "reappropriation" of the tale of Cain and Abel from Genesis 5.

Sins of the Father

Even now, I can hear Adam’s ursine voice recounting the same familiar story as we reclined around the table, the firelight flickering against the familiar mud-and-straw walls. He and mother lost paradise because they ate the fruit of the most beautiful tree in the garden. Mother was always quiet and detached during these story-times, and she never added much to his tale despite my and Abel’s curiosity. The moral of the story was always the same: listen to God, and no matter what, don’t eat those juicy orange tespries.
I listened without question and without doubt until one day during my twelfth year, I was working in the field and heard a song. My heart leaped! I hoped it was the voice of God, finally come back to us after years of waiting. Yet I quickly recognized that it was the voice of a boy, singing a lighthearted tune in an unfamiliar accent. In fact, the sound was so light and airy it seemed to converge on my ear from all places at once. I looked across the field where Abel might have been; no one. I peered into the shadowy forest; no one there, either. Yet the song got louder… it was definitely coming from somewhere in the forest. Despite my fear, I couldn’t let this opportunity escape. So I plunged into the forest on the far side of the field in search of the mysterious singer.
In my twelve years, I had encountered plenty of beasts that made me fear those primal woods. The crunch of leaves and twigs underfoot seemed to me to have been a dinner bell for man-eating carnivores. My heart beat in my ears and my eyes strained to make out the form of a living creature in the shadows. For comfort, I looked back at the sunlit field every other step I took. Then I saw him.
Many years have passed and I’ve met many other people, yet the memory of this moment stands apart from all the rest in my mind. It’s as if my brain knew to catalogue every smell, every color, every shadow, and every thought during that moment in time, and preserve them as perfectly as an insect in amber. I still smell the musty decay of leaves, the dust in the rays of light surrounding the boy still catches my eye, and I still wonder at the far-reaching effects of his appearance.
He nearly collided with me before he saw me, and the shock of my presence seemed to disable his power of speech. He must have thought I had appeared ex nihilo, for his eyes nearly popped out of his head as he inspected me from head to toe. I could now tell he was a boy about my age, yet the violent black and green tattoos that marred his face and chest gave him the appearance of a man. I asked in a tone of mixed fear and boldness,
“Who are you?”
He held my gaze but did not respond. I was relieved to see he did not grab the flint knife tucked in his leather waistband. However, he began to warily edge away, stepping gingerly backwards in the leaves. Though certainly afraid of him, the last thing I wanted was for this novelty to get away before I knew who he was. I stepped towards him.
“No, don’t go!” I pleaded. “I won’t hurt you!”
He ran, barely even touching the forest floor. I started to give chase, but was cut short after a few paces by a bramble bush that gashed my calves and forearms. By the time I had extricated myself, he was gone.
I listened for any sounds of his retreat, but all I heard were birdsongs. As I tramped back to the safety of the field, I considered who this intruder might have been. I desperately wanted to believe he was some long-lost brother. Except for his black hair, he bore a striking resemblance to Abel. Yet even then I knew deep down this was no brother. The boy who fled like the wind from me was proof that the story Adam had always told me, the story that explained everything, was a lie.

#

At sundown, I trudged across the field to the hut for food and rest just like every other day. I could barely wait for Adam to bless the food before I blurted out how I had come across another person. Not mother, not Adam, not Abel and not me. Someone else. A boy my age who sang in a different accent. He had black and green markings on his face and chest and ran away when he saw me. I promise.
Mother looked at Adam, and I can’t remember whether it was just her expression or if she actually whispered,
“I told you this would happen, Adam.”
Neither she nor Adam seemed surprised, a development I found astonishing considering I had just discovered other people. Abel, on the other hand, began to pepper me with questions. A sharp look from Adam drowned his enthusiasm.
After clearing his throat in a sound that reminded me of an angry bear I’d once encountered, Adam shifted his piercing gaze from Abel to me and spoke with feigned parental disapproval.
“Son, your mother and I won’t tolerate you making up these lies and getting little Abel worked up over nothing. Now, what did God say about your mother and me once he made us?”
I replied, “God said that you were the parents of all mankind.”
“Exactly. Did he make anybody else? Did God forget about somebody?”
Shifting to a monotone, I answered “No, God made all things and knows all things, and everything he made was good.”
“That’s right,” Adam responded in raised tones. “So you can just forget what you think you saw in the forest today… because as surely as God lives, there is no one else.”
I nodded my head in submission, having learned my lesson well: never tell Adam anything important. His unexpected reaction made me feel alone and unloved, and even mother’s attempts to comfort me later that evening couldn’t undo the damage.
Despite my disappointment, I felt confident as I lay awake in bed that night that I would see the boy again, and perhaps others like him. I somehow knew I was on the verge of a great discovery.

#

Despite my vigilance, no one came the next few days. Yet on the Sabbath of that week, the boy returned. He called to me as I was resting in the shade of a cedar tree near the edge of the field. I awoke from my slumber and followed his voice to where he stood a few paces into the forest.
“My name is Arpeh, son of Joses, son of Hesped,” he said, “Of the tribe of Lazara.” He stuck out his hand.
As I had never met anyone before, I didn’t have the faintest idea what I was supposed to put in his hand or what to say. Deciding the safest route was to copy him, I responded,
“My name is Cain, son of Adam, son of God… and if you don’t mind me asking, what do you want in your hand?”
“Uh, I want to shake your hand.”
Though he seemed to take it for granted, this strange concept initially frightened me. Why did he want to shake my hand? But then I realized he must have seen something on my hand and wanted to get it off for me. Although I couldn’t find anything on either of my hands, I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
“Um, ok, here you go.” I limply placed my right hand in his and he violently shook it up and down twice. Still holding my hand, Arpeh remarked,
“You’ve got weak handshake, Cain son of Adam.”
Perceiving that he wanted me to shake his hand too, I grabbed it and shook it as hard as I could, even though I was pretty sure his hand didn’t need to be shaken off.
“Is that better?” I asked.
He smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Cain son of Adam son of God. What tribe do you belong to?”
Feeling very small, I asked, “Um, what’s a tribe?”
It took a long time, but I slowly gathered that there were whole groups of people called tribes that went around killing each other in things called wars. The Lazara apparently were nearly all killed by another tribe called the Allyrians, most of whom then perished in a thing called a plague that I only vaguely understood. Horrified by this reality, I asked Arpeh what they had done to make God angry. He responded,
“God? What does your grandfather have to do with it?”
Dumbfounded, I said, “He’s not just my grandfather, Arpeh, he’s… he’s God, he’s the one who made all things and knows all things.”
“How could your grandfather make all things and know all things? He’s probably only sixty years old!”
I replied, “You really don’t understand?”
“All I know is there wasn’t a guy named God around when we fled our homeland. Our cities were destroyed and our land was contaminated by the plague, and now we’re here building a new village… and hopefully a new life.”
“Where is your tribe building its village?”
“Only a tenth of a day’s walk from here. You should come visit.”
“I’d like to do that… but it’s too late today. Can you come back in seven days, in the morning?”
He replied that he would try, then shook my hand again and disappeared into the forest. I couldn’t wait to meet other new people and to see what a village looked like. Adam would never believe this!

#

The next week was the longest of my life as I anticipated the coming Sabbath. Though the desire to tell someone nearly burst out of me, I kept the coming rendezvous to myself. From the way Adam looked at me after I told him about the boy, I knew my leash was short.
The morning of the next Sabbath, I met Arpeh in the woods on the far side of the field, and we set off through the forest along the Tigris towards his village. Arpeh’s blistering pace made it the hardest hike of my life, but it was actually a very flat and smooth walk, interrupted only by the occasional tributary. We finally arrived at a newly-cut clearing with about a dozen half-finished one-room huts very similar to my own. I saw probably thirty or forty people hard at work, mostly women, old men, and children our age and younger. Everyone had at least one black and green tattoo on their body, and most of the old men were covered with them. I thought the women all looked just like my mother, and was struck by their quiet beauty.
I stood ignored at the edge of the clearing, overwhelmed by the bustle. Thirty or forty people might as well have been a million, and for the first time, I felt the smallness of insignificance. After I had been completely overwhelmed, I motioned to Arpeh I was ready to go. He accompanied me back to my home and we said good-bye for the week.
Arpeh and I spent the next few Sabbaths hunting and exploring. One particularly warm afternoon, Arpeh and I happened upon a grove of fruit trees and wildflowers on the banks of a tributary a long walk past the Lazara settlement. The grove was in the process of turning wild, and saplings and weeds were slowly crowding out the brilliant flowers and the verdant shrubs. Some fruit trees I recognized-- dates, pomegranates, coconuts, apples, oranges, lemons, pineapples, and bananas-- but many others I had never seen. The trees were planted in concentric circles that converged on a hillock with three trees. Some internal force drew us there. Although neither of us had ever seen a tespry tree, I immediately recognized the extravagant white flowers, the sweet, alluring smell, and the voluptuous orange fruit that I’d heard about in the story so many times. Just as in the story, the three trees stood in a line, separated just so that none of their branches touched. Only the middle, larger tree bore fruit; the two flanking trees seemed to stand guard.
“What is this place?” Arpeh whispered. He had the same frightened look on his face as the first time we met.
“I think it’s the garden, Arpeh. See, there’s the tespry tree. My parents always said not to eat from it. It was why they said they got kicked out of the garden, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
The week before, I had told Arpeh the story. He had reacted with total disbelief, and since I had recently come to disbelieve it as well, I didn’t try to convince him. Yet here stood proof that at least part of the story was true.
For a moment we stood quietly at the edge of the clearing, listening to the song of the stream and the rustle of the leaves and a nearby mockingbird, both of us deciding. Yet I had really made my decision when I chose to disbelieve the story. All that remained for me to do was act. As I strode into the shade of the tree of knowledge, I thought: this will be my first sacrament.
In a public rejection of my old identity, I ate of the fruit.
Arpeh also partook, but I think it was more because he was hungry. The tespry tree was just another source of food for him, and he chewed loudly, desecrating his fruit. But I ate it with reverence, and as I finished circumnavigating my orange sphere, I felt a wave of energy rush over me.
“We’ve got to take some of these back to the village,” I said with excitement.
Arpeh was about to respond when the first rush from the tespry juice hit him, knocking him back a couple steps. That first time, the effect of the fruit was positively dizzying, empowering, enchanting. Everything was bright and warm and loud.
“Yeah, there is definitely something special about this fruit,” he responded, both of his arms spread to maintain his balance. Yet he began to laugh, and a moment later he clumsily fell backwards onto the grass. I collapsed beside him, suddenly wracked by laughter.

#

From that day onward, I stopped respecting Adam and pretending I believed his story. Although the tespry juice’s rush quickly wore off, it left a residue of satisfaction and a feeling of increased knowledge and strength, as if eating one fruit had aged me a year. When I returned to the hut just before sunset that Sabbath, Adam took note of my changed demeanor. A violent frenzy overtook him and I was forced to run outside the hovel to escape his blows. Although I always returned by sunset in the following Sabbaths, Adam began to hate me. Although he had no proof, I think he suspected me of doing the one thing he had always told me not to do. Though he didn’t always turn to violence, his rants at the dinner table became unbearable. When mother tried to intervene, Adam would shout her into submission. I began to live for the Sabbaths when I could get away from it all.
I intentionally missed the yearly burnt offering. When I returned that Sabbath evening, Adam’s rage had turned inward and festered. He calmly informed me God would never accept me.
The next week, I returned home with the juice of the tespry still flowing through my veins, having taken several fruits to eat on my hike home. It made me feel courageous and rebellious, and I entertained the idea of telling Adam to his face that I had been eating tespries for nearly two moons. But as always, his imposing presence in the fire-lit hovel quelled my false courage. As was his custom, he lay beside me at the table, his head only inches from mine. That was when he smelled the tespry on my breath.
His voice was slow and deep, like the sound of God. “Cain, did you eat of the tespry tree this afternoon?”
He was staring at me as if he had never seen me before, as if I were a freak creature God had forgotten to bring to him to be named. He waited for me to answer.
“I…” My voice trailed off as I tried to think of an excuse. There were none.
“Yes, sir. I ate.”
Even in the dim light, the jerk of my mother’s head caught my eye. Her mouth was agape and she looked in horror at first me then Adam. She always recognized when Adam was about to lose control. Adam’s voice was low but laced with anger.
“Abel, get the butcher’s knife.” He kept our collection of flint knives in a leather satchel on the wall behind Abel’s place. But instead of grabbing a knife, little Abel fearfully latched onto mother’s arm. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she spoke the words she had been storing up for years.
“Adam, how could you even think it?! You can’t kill your own son! Just admit it, for God’s sake! Why can’t you just admit it’s all a lie? Why can’t you tell them we ran away like cowards from your people in the middle of a war, war that you caused after you had been made a fool from too much tespry fruit?” Mother’s voice was bitter. “Then you lied to the children as if that would undo your folly!”
“I had a vision!” Adam roared. “God told me we would be the only survivors. And we are! Oh yes, I went back! I saw great Lazara City burned and desolate; I saw the bodies of my Allyrian subjects in the forest, consumed by plague! God didn’t lie! We are the only ones left! How dare you call me a coward!”
Overturning the table as he rose to his feet, Adam fell upon mother with savage fury, pushing Abel away. In a moment, I was pulling at his arms, yet he threw me to the dirt, knocking the air out of me. Little Abel pulled out the butcher’s knife. I tried to say something to stop him, but I still couldn’t draw any air. I could have reached up and stopped him, though. Yet out of my hate for Adam, I let him go through with it. I watched him clumsily stab at Adam’s back, who felt the glancing thrust and turned upon poor Abel with blind rage. In a moment, Abel was lying at his feet with the knife in his chest, choking in a surging tide of blood. The knife, the scarlet, pungent blood, and Abel’s shaggy blond hair reminded me of the lamb we sacrificed to God every dry season, the sacrifice I thought I’d missed. As I lay in the dirt reeling from the tespry and gasping for air beside my dying brother, I understood what it was like to be sacrificed.
I turned on my side and grasped Abel’s hand as mother knelt down and cradled his head, sobbing, both of us willing him to live yet comforting him on his passage to the great unknown. I’ll never disentangle myself from the memory of those final breaths. That moment stretches to now, as if my life is a string of fabric snagged on that point in time. My responsibility for his death crushed me, crushes me as I sit in my own hovel all these years later and record my memories. Mother felt the same way. I’m sure that if his sanity returned, Adam felt guilty as well, even more guilty than he had felt for starting a war and running away. That evening, he stalked out of the cursed structure with bloody hands and never returned. I picture him wandering the earth, his blood-stained hands the marks from God that keep him restless. For my part, I vowed never to eat of the tespry tree again.
The Lazara were very kind to us after the murder and even allowed us to build a hut in their village. After all, mother had been a Lazara princess before the war. Yet even after half a lifetime, the Lazara still don’t fully trust me since I am a child of Adam. His treachery is burned into their memories: how he took mother as a sign of peace then stabbed them in the back by attacking them. They vowed that if they ever caught Adam, they would make him suffer before sending him to eternal judgment. I once shared their sentiment, but after all these years, I now say, let him live. Enough Lazaras and Allyrians have died; perhaps Adam truly is the only one of his kindred left. His insanity or (worse) his guilt is recompense for his crimes.
I pray every night to whatever God controls the fates of men that He will keep the sin of my youth from being visited on me or my sons. The day my wife gave birth to my firstborn, I took a thick flint machete out to the garden and hewed the tespry tree to the ground. One day, I will take my sons there and tell them the true story of what has caused so much suffering. But despite all my efforts to do good, I still feel the curse of the tree of knowledge flowing through my veins, waiting.

Religion and Politics

The following is a body paragraph and the conclusion of my midterm in Religion and Politics. The subject is "We are the Problem," and I reference a few books we've read for class. But even without having read those books, most of the points I make are about the state of American culture, something with which we're all familiar. I put this up because I hear too often people projecting the fault for America's problems on some "other" rather than our own prejudices, ignorance, and thoughtlessness. Any comments you may have are welcome (I think I now have it set so that anyone can comment).

At its core, the continued success of American constitutional democracy is dependent upon the level of public reason applied by normal citizens. Our ability to think rationally, pragmatically, and dispassionately about the issues is the factor that will determine America’s future. Of course, no one can perfectly go beyond John Rawls’ “veil of ignorance,” but he implies that a certain level of objectivity-- leaving one’s moral convictions at the door-- is necessary for a proper public conception of justice. The proper level of this objectivity is the divisive issue in the larger public conversation. Although Susan Jacoby’s objectivity is certainly more limited that Rawls’, the two views overlap considerably. Jacoby emphasizes throughout The Age of American Unreason that public reason can only come from individuals who read, engage in culture-sustaining conversations, and have open and rational minds that reject junk thought and embrace rational propositions (such as, presumably, Rawls’ “justice as fairness”). Perceiving “fundamentalists” as closed-minded and anti-rational-- a misperception of the nature of faith-- Jacoby errs by other-ing a large portion of Americans. Nevertheless, her jeremiad about the sad state of American intellectual life insightfully delineates the necessary characteristics of a true citizen—characteristics with which Rawls would agree.

We are the problem because we find more psychological reward in muddying the waters of justice as fairness with our identity. We dissent, yet view dissenters as others. We refuse to compromise our personal preference but regard other preferences as unholy or unpatriotic. We refuse to set aside our identities and work for the greater good. If the jeremiahs speak truly, these are signals of a society teetering on its last leg. We have become more narrow-minded, more gullible, less attentive, and less cultured. For example, we often don’t even notice when television commercials run for ten minutes straight, and those commercials are often the subject of much dialogue the next day. This is but one sign of America’s endangered political life. In politics as with television programming, we contentedly take the bad with the good, and sometimes leave out the good altogether. But is this any different than it’s ever been? James Morone tells us that these jeremiads are the expression of America’s ingrained Puritanical streak, implying that although everything may not be ok, at least we are treading on familiar ground. On the other hand, Susan Jacoby opines that plucking American culture from the rapacious jaws of ignorance and infotainment is a fool’s hope. In fifty or one hundred years, will cultural observers merely be chroniclers of cultural wreckage, or will American culture play the phoenix and rise from the ashes of its self-imposed privations? It is not an abstract question, and the answer depends on us.