Snake and Fruit

Adam…

I croaked out the name as I lay convulsing on the dirt, feeling the venom coursing through me, hearing each beat of my heart that expelled more blood from my system. My deadly killer smiled malevolently at me.

How did I get into this situation? I wondered the same as well. Was it my folly? Or trickery of another? The venom began to poison my inner workings, shutting down my body. As I lay dying, my mind seemed to drift like a leaf on the currents of wind, straying back to a time not so long ago.

I smiled at him as I climbed up the tree, feeling the leaves and branches flying against my bare skin as my hands sought handholds in the flurry of green and my feet scrabbled for purchase.

The man far below shouted, “Hey! Slow down!”

“Come on, Adam, climb!”

I heard him grunting as he scaled the tree and tailed me. “I’m not as light as you, you’re like a little monkey climbing up and down the branches.”

“At least I can climb them!”

Laughing again, I reached for another branch but it was barely out of reach. Frowning, I stretched further but my longest finger couldn’t reach. I was convinced that I could make it, crouching slightly, my lithe legs curling like springs and releasing as fast, sending me shooting up. I reached for that branch above, expecting to feel the familiar rough of wood and bark under my fingers. But I felt only a few stray leaves and thin air. I seemed to float in air for a moment, my mind slowly coming to terms with what was happening, before I fell.

Screaming, my hair whipped around my face and my limbs flailed uselessly as I fell through the tree. Adam screamed my name. One of my flailing hands collided with something and I held fast, clinging on for dear life on the thick branch.

Groaning, I pulled myself up so as to sit on the branch as my hands throbbed and cried out in pain to me. I glanced down and saw Adam climbing with more urgency towards me. As he grasped my branch and pulled himself up, I inspected my hands. The palms had been grazed and my forearm bore a mighty bruise, but otherwise fine. Thankfully.

Adam chastised, “’Come on, Adam, climb!’ Who’s the one laughing now huh?”

“Seems like it’s still me, Long Face,” I giggled as I jabbed his shoulder. He really needed to loosen up. He was still unhappy, taking my hands and inspecting them.

“After this, we stay on the ground for a while. You aren’t climbing with wounds like these.”

“Oh please, don’t treat me like your pet.”

He sighed and didn’t try to retort. He’d learned from experience that doing that got him nowhere. He cleaned off some of the blood and began to descend, but I stopped him. “Come on, let’s just make it to the top. To see the sunrise.”

He frowned, and I saw how he glanced at the blood running down my palms. “This isn’t my first cut, now climb with me!”

If I wasn’t injured I could’ve reached the summit of the tall tree in perhaps half a minute, but my bleeding palms were much more of an inconvenience than I had let on to Adam. Each time I grabbed a branch the wounds screamed and roared at me, and the bloody handprints they left behind nearly made me gag. I tried to grasp branches covered with leaves, but could only succeed half the time. I was forced to ascend at a slow pace, slightly slower than Adam was.

When I finally reached the top I was greeted with a strong gust, the wind rustling the leaves of hundreds of trees stretching out in all directions. The leaves formed a great chorus of rustling voices, singing their song to the sky. The breeze made my wounds icy and cold, the chill shooting up my arms. Adam plucked an apple from a branch and tossed one to me before retrieving one for himself. I bit into it and closed my eyes in pleasure as my teeth broke the crisp crimson skin and sink through firm yellow flesh. The juice flowed out from the wound in the apple’s surface, the juice flowing down and over my hands. Sighing, I chewed with relish.

The Sun came up over the mountains, an orange globe rising laboriously inch after inch over the white peaks. Its fingers glowing red and orange reached forth, wrapping around their world, revealing their home. A huge circular valley stretching hundreds of miles in every direction, ringed off by huge mountains around them. The golden light poured forth over the bowl, painting leaves yellow like the Autumn and the mountains red.

“Beautiful,” I murmured as the Sun climbed to his roost in the sky. Adam nodded slowly, the golden light reflected in his eyes. “Makes you wonder how He made all of this.”

We stayed there till the last light of the night had slinked away and the glow of the Sun filled all, then stayed there a bit longer.

Back on the ground, Adam just could not stop fretting over her hand. She’d washed the wound in a cool stream and applied herbs they knew from experience would calm aggravated wounds, but still the man kept inspecting her wound and asking her about it every other second.

“Are your palms fine?

“Yes.”

“Are they still bleeding?”

“No.”

“How about your arm, how’s the bruise?”

“Fine, thank you.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“Of course.”

“Are your palms fine?”

I spun on my heels and faced a very surprised man, snapping, “I’m fine!”

He was stunned, and hesitated for a while as if he didn’t know how to respond, before his features seemed to droop. He said sadly, “I know, it’s just that, we’re the only two in this valley. If anything happened to you, then I’d-”

He didn’t need to finish. I knew what he meant.

Somehow or another, we separated for a while. Perhaps he went to pick some berries, or eat those figs he loved so much. I told him I’d go to that big watermelon patch for a light meal, but in reality I was going to somewhere much more exciting.

Grabbing a thin trunk to steady myself before setting off again, I felt the ferns slapping my legs and the loamy soil parting under my feet. My heart raced with excitement just thinking about that place, that Tree. I don’t know why, but just the idea of it turned the steady beat of my chest into a crescendo.

I slid down a bare slope, the moss letting my feet slide as if down a waterfall, letting my body move like wind blowing down. Alighting on the forest floor, I came to a giant thicket so treacherous that I knew it would be impossible to cross it. And I also knew from experience that it stretched all the way around and joined the other end of the thicket into a huge circle of branches and trunks and leaves. I found the spot I’d found two days ago, a tiny space against the ground where the thicket was clearer. It was so low I had to lay on my belly and crawl through.

A branch snagged in my hair and I yanked it out, and another scraped my skin, causing another wound to form. It seemed that in those few days the thicket hole had grown almost completely shut. I snarled and barrelled forward, clearing the last wall of thorns and branches.

I brushed off the dust and moss from my naked skin, before looking up at the tree in front of me. A tall tree, rising perhaps a hundred metres into the air. Its trunk was too straight to be something born of nature alone, its branches waved and danced far above. Sunlight streamed in through gaps in the boughs, casting the scene in a ghostly light.

I’d chanced upon this place only two days past, out of sheer luck alone had I found the gap in the thicket. Strangely, you couldn’t see the huge tree from outside the thicket wall though it rose more than high enough. From the first minute, I knew something had been afoot here. Closing my eyes, I remembered something strange, almost like someone telling me to stay away from a tree… a tall, tall tree. I cast the thought away, just a day dream, nothing more.

Laying in a sunbathed spot of grass, I stretched out my bare body on the rippling green blades and let myself relax. I lay there for so long that my eyes began to droop and I started to dance the line between awake and asleep, my eyes closing then jerking open, then closing…before rising awake. I continued as such until a soft voice began to hiss in my ear, “A beautiful place, yes-s-s-s-s-s?”

The voice was cold and dry, like stone scraping against stone. My eyes shot open and my body shuddered to complete alertness. Scurrying to my feet I backed up so quickly I nearly fell over. A snake lay next to where my head had been, a fat green snake curled up in a tight coil, its scarlet eyes seeming to twinkle and wink at me like little red stars. His blood red tongue flicked out and he hissed, “It is a very great tree, yes-s-s-s?”

I calmed down. No animals ever harmed us, He had made it that way. I smiled at my foolishness and smiled, nodding. The snake bobbed his head in agreement, before turning his head so only one eye saw me, “But… there is more to this tree than you know. Than we know.”

“Is there?” I asked, humouring him. I knew I shouldn’t worry, but there was a tone in the Snake’s voice. Something that unnerved me. All I wanted right now was Adam by my side.

The snake bobbed his head excitedly. “Yes, yes, yes-s-s-s-s. A pretty little bird told me a tale, the fruit of this tree would grant untold wisdom to one who dared to climb its length.”

Untold wisdom? I perked up, this was intriguing. A fruit that would give you knowledge? What kind of fantastical fruit was this, I needed to taste it. Maybe share it with Adam. But my heart fell when I looked up the tree. Standing at its foot it seemed a thousand metres taller, and the trunk was completely devoid of branches or handholds of any sort. Neither me nor Adam could climb up seven feet. The snake seemed to sense my distress and turned his head to look at me with the other eye, “You, you cannot climb this tree, yes-s-s-s?”

“What do you think?”

“Yes, yes, I know, but I’ve a solution.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve already picked a fruit from its branches.”

He uncoiled himself to reveal two fruit in his embrace. I gasped at their beauty, like huge, ripe apples. But their skin was gold instead of red, streaked with mild yellows and dark browns. I reached out to claim one of them, my hand wrapping around the firm gold skin. The snake flicked his tongue out again and let me grab the fruit.

I tried to take the fruit to try it, but the snake held fast. I pulled again and frowned, glancing at the serpent in confusion. But then I saw how he drew his head back, his bloody red eyes gleaming in anticipation. I screamed Adam’s name, before the green worm struck forth and his teeth dug into my neck.

He relinquished his hold on my skin in an instant, but I knew I was already dead. I’d seen too many other animals fall the same way. Clutching the flesh from where blood seemed to rain like a waterfall from, I sank to my knees as my chest began blooming with pain from within.

“EVE!” Came the shout from beyond the thicket. I tried to answer him, ask him to save me, but all that came out was a hoarse croak. Groaning, I tumbled onto the grass as my organs became fiery with pain. The snake smiled at me with wicked joy, and slithered forth to me. He stopped at my neck where the blood flowed out like water from a river. He craned his neck down and his forked tongue flicked out to wipe some blood off a blade of grass.

His body seemed to convulse like mine, and for a moment I hoped my blood was as poison to him. But instead of falling like me, he seemed to grow, his scaly skin falling apart to reveal pink flesh underneath. His cold, grating voice seemed to soften as he groaned and moaned, growing legs and arms that broke the surface of his worm like body. When the moaning stopped, he smiled down at me, or maybe she smiled at me. Her brown hair tumbled down her chest and back just like mine did, her eyes, once red, were now soil brown like mine. She grinned and picked up the two fruit.

“EVE!” The shout came again.

I tried to at least respond, but my throat had closed up against my will. I felt my own blood flooding my lungs and choking me. The snake in my skin turned to the gap in the thicket and shouted, “Adam! I found some good fruit!”

This story was a little project a friend of mine made me do, and doubles as a submission for a competition. Perhaps I didn't write as well in this story as in others, but I've done what I can. Please point out every error you can find at first glance because I sincerely hope to at least gain some recognition in the particular competition I'm submitting this to.