Poor Hevel

Hello All! this work is inspired by a story told by David W. Patten, a Mormon apostle. I am not Mormon, or religious in general anymore, I just thought the story was neat! i actually am begging you to look this guy up after because he's insane. Ciao!

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I’m wandering. I've been wandering for a long time I think. Maybe I should go home. Would they take me back? No, not after what I've done. I could not even if they would. So I wander. I had a brother once; he would have accepted me back. Hevel would not have forsaken me in this way, in this way that my mother has, in this way that my father has, in the way My Lord has. Hevel would not have cast me aside as I cast that stone, he would have stood by me as the Lord proclaimed a brother should when we spoke in my fields. The Devil whispered to me that day in my fields. My fields. I was a farmer, was I not? I do not want to remember now. So I wander.

A man is speaking to me, just as the Devil did in those fields. Fields… No. The man is speaking to me. He tells me his name is David. I have met many Davids in my time. I have been around for a long time, it is my curse. David tells me of his life, of his family, of his religion. It is familiar to me in some ways, but different in others. Oh how things have changed, and oh how I have not known. David tells me of his wife, Phoebe. A godly name, the eponym of Phoebe of Cenchreae, bless her. He tells me of his work, and we speak of wheat. I can no longer grow wheat, it is my curse, and I tell David, grower of wheat as such. David tells me of the word he preaches, the gift of tongues given to him by the Lord to learn of Enoch’s vision, who spoke to him to tell him to preach his word. The Lord has not spoken to me in many years, not since the day I was cast out from my home.

David asks me my name some time into our conversation, and so I tell him; Kayin, firstborn of Ḥawwāh and Man, Husband of Awan. He does not believe me. Who is this man to tell me who I am or am not? Seemingly sensing my disinterest in continuing our conversation, David, Husband of Phœbe, Grower of Wheat, Mouth of the Lord, rides away from me, leaving me alone.

I am alone in this wood.

God’s creatures avoid me, but the serpents do not. They long ago having aligned themselves with the Devil, he who whispered to Ḥawwāh in the garden, just as he whispered to me in my fields. He who handed me that stone, and he who told me, shouted for me to cast it upon Poor Hevel. Poor Hevel who fell upon my fields, watering my crops with his blood. “Am I my brother's keeper?” I asked the Lord when he spoke to me that last time in my fields, shouting at me to listen to my brother’s blood crying out upon the grounds in my fields, when he cursed me in my fields. When he cursed me to forever walk the earth, just as he had cursed the serpent to forever crawl. When he cursed me from the ground that had opened its mouth for Poor Hevel’s blood, promising that it would never again yield me its strength. When he cursed me to never feel death as Poor Hevel had, as Man had, as Ḥawwāh had. And when he cursed me to become as monstrous as my actions upon that day in my fields.

That is my curse, my punishment for casting that stone and for taking the life of Poor Hevel. To wander, no soil ever bearing me fruit. To survive, never to see again Poor Hevel, or Man, or Ḥawwāh. To become what I am now, a monster rejected by the Lord and his earth and his children, hidden away in this wood, avoided by his creatures.

For I am Kayin, firstborn of Ḥawwāh and Man, Husband of Awan.

For I am Cain, Brother of Poor Abel.

For I am Bigfoot.