“I call them atoms, you can be a structure of these things. I made them.”

“Okay.”

And something happened. You have to understand nothing had ever happened before. Nothing. It wasn’t even a place. But what happened was good. And that good lasted forever. Until it could not.

“What is this?”

“The snake, he told me they call it Time.”

“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe him, or it, or whatever. Why would he tell you this?”

“He—” Adam hesitated. “He told me—he said I wasn’t the first. That there are costs to a happening and—”

“What is costs? What are these costs? What is this filthy thing you have just made inside my head?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think I know how to feel about ‘sorry’ yet. I’m sorry. Please finish.”

“He said a remnant, of a remnant, of a remnant, of something survived in him. Before he was atoms.”

“Before?” Eve had a pained look on her face. “What do you mean before?” This idea that Adam had put in her head hurt her somehow. Something was happening. To Adam. To the snake. To the Garden. To herself. She didn’t say anything. She left.

”WHAT IS THIS, THAT YOU HAVE FOUND?”

“Time. They are calling it Time.”

“They? Are calling it? I thought you were in charge of naming things. What is happening to my Garden?” God grumbled but He knew. Before God had started anything, he had started the Story. Before atoms, before Adam, he knew how this Story would go: that he would be sad, disappointed. But that Love was worth it.

“Father, I want this. I felt it.”

“I love you. More than you’ll ever know my daughter. I can make anything. I can give you anything. But not this.”

“Why? Why does Adam get everything he wants? Adam has his love of naming things, you have us! Why can’t I have this? It feels like the first feeling. It feels like Love!”

“Because it is DEATH!”

God had never yelled. 

He knew he had already said too much. Eve was reeling, holding her stomach. Her cheeks had lost her color. She was saying it out loud slowly, then faster, like she was trying to spit out something that tasted awful. “Death? Death… Death.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she backed away slowly, turning and running and sobbing.   

God sat. He had never made anyone fearful before. He watched Eve go.

Later, Adam came to walk beside God, so that they might talk.

“Adam, right now you know everything that is and everything that can ever be. If you do this. This one thing. You will know what I know, and you will be able to do some of the things that I can do. But you will also know things that should not be named.”

“There’s nothing I can’t name!  And I wouldn’t say my wife believes there’s anything we shouldn’t know. I love her, dad. I won’t leave her.”

And like any man after him, that would have to choose between his parents and his wife, Adam chose his wife.

So they left the Garden together.

And at the birth of the Universe, it was hot, then it was cold. And it was boring; For 2 million years they waited in the suffocating hot and dark (they had more patience back then, Time being new). 

And when they got to Earth, they built a garden. They grew Lilacs, and Lillies, and Cacti and Poison Oak. They fought and had sex, and did not have sex for long stretches. They kept small animals, and learned to grow food. And to their surprise, they could have children. Make people. And they knew a deeper kind of fear than anything Adam had previously named. Adam tried, and put it somewhere between “power” and “responsibility.” But Eve did not feel this was accurate and said so. Adam told Eve he wanted her to name the children. And when the twins came, they had never seen anything more terrifying and more beautiful. Eve wondered aloud if this was how God felt and this made Adam feel ashamed, like being naked in front of God. Eve reminded Adam that love was the first feeling they ever felt and this made him feel better. They embraced, holding their children, taking turns weeping and silently thanking God.

They did some things like how God did, and decided to do other things how they felt God should have. They made mistakes. They did their best.

One day, the Serpent came back slithering into the Garden, and Eve made tea and she tried to talk to him, but he had forgotten everything in his old age, and no longer knew who he was, or who they were, but found them delightful company and said so when he left. Adam never let her live this down.

After a time the children left, they talked less, but enjoyed each other’s company the same. They grew bored. Adam wanted to find more things to name, Eve spent more time in the garden.

“I think there’s more things to name. A lot. Maybe an infinite amount.”

“What do you want to do with them?”

“I want to name them all.”

“I don’t my love, I want to stay here. I’m sick of change, I’m sick of time. Sometimes I think of the Garden, and I feel sick. Physically ill, Adam.”

“I call that Guilt. I think. Or maybe “longing,” I don’t know yet.”

“Well I like it. And the more time I spend here, with my Garden, and my Grandchildren, the less of that I feel.”

“I understand my love.”

“No, Adam. I understand. This time I’ll stay, I think. You will always have my love.”

And eventually Adam left. And Eve stayed. Adam died alone in time.