Death: A Life (7 page)

The two creatures, who were seated before a large mound of laminated name tags, seemed to be engaged in a fierce debate.

“Me Adam,” said the larger, hairier one of the two, whom I took to be the male, attaching a card that read
ADAM
to his chest, before jabbing his finger at the other. “She Adam.”

“No,” grunted the smaller, less hairy one. She attached a card to herself that read
BRACHIOSAUR.
“Me Eve,” she said, before pointing her finger at the other. “You Eve.”

“No!” retorted the large one. “Me Adam. You Adam.”

“No!” rejoined the smaller one, pointing at herself. “You Eve. Me Eve.” This went on for some time.

Eventually I plucked up the courage to introduce myself.

“Hello. I’m Death. Wonderful day, isn’t it?”

They looked at me uncomprehendingly, then at their pile of laminated cards, and then back at me.

“You Adam?” said the male one.

“No. You Eve,” said the female one.

They looked at each other and suddenly began pulling out each other’s hair. They fought for a bit, and before I knew it they had begun rutting on the floor in front of me. I stood there amazed. I learned later that humans had been created out of dust. It showed. It was hardly any surprise to me that they would go on to eat the Forbidden Fruit. They ate everything—apples, leaves, bark, grass, each other’s feces. They were repulsive creatures.

Just as I was musing on what I could possibly get them to do that they weren’t already doing, an incredibly bright orb of light filled the sky above me. I had never seen such an intense brightness before, not even when Reginald had been thrown into the Lake of Phosphorous in Hell. It seemed to cut straight through me and sent the Darkness scampering back into the cave. Of course I knew instantly that this was God, because the light had on a large laminated badge that read
HI, I’M…GOD.
I hid behind a shrub.

Adam and Eve: Dumb As a Box of Rocks (If the Rocks Were Really, Really Dumb).

“Adam,” boomed a voice as loud as any I had ever heard.

“Me Adam?” responded the female.

“No, you’re Eve, dear,” boomed God.

“Me Eve,” interjected the male.

“No. No. You’re Adam!” boomed God in frustration. “Anyway, how are things going? Do you like the place?”

“Er…,” said Adam and Eve.

“Well, look, I don’t have much time,” boomed God, “but I don’t want you to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, all right?”

“Er…”

“That’s the big green one over there.”

“Er…”

“The one with the big laminated card on it reading
TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.
”

“Er…”

“I just planted it the other day,” God boomed. “It’s over there and I think it really pulls the garden together.” The light pointed to its right, or rather it seemed to point to its right because orbs of light can’t really point. Nevertheless, it made it perfectly clear that despite being completely round, it was favoring one direction over another. Such are the privileges of divinity.

“Er…”

“Because you’ve already eaten my Bush of Anticipation.”

“Er…”

“And I really wanted to see how that would turn out.”

“Er…”

“So don’t touch it!” God paused. He cleared His throat. “For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” He boomed. “Or something.”

“You Adam?” ventured Adam, shading his eyes with his hand.

“I separated the light from the darkness for this?” boomed God, and the orb of light and its laminated badge receded into the sky. Adam and Eve blinked their eyes and shook their heads as if they had awoken from a bad dream. I stepped out from behind my shrub.

“Who Die?” said Adam.

“You Die,” said Eve to Adam.

“No, me Eve,” said Adam.

“No, me Eve,” said Eve.

They both looked at me.

“You Die?” they grunted in unison.

“No,” I said. “Death. I’m Death.” But the incident had piqued my interest. I felt something stirring deep inside of me. What was this “die” God spoke of? There seemed only one way to find out.

First Blood

T
he Tree
of Knowledge lay in the Glade of Discernment, which was situated in the Woods of Awareness, deep within the Forest of Understanding at the heart of the Garden of Eden. In the glade stood thousands of trees whose fruit all contained some intrinsic facet of experience as well as a healthy dose of vitamin C. There was the Tree of Laughter, its crop shaking mirthfully on the branch; the Tree of Terror, whose shriveled grapes retreated shivering from one’s grasp; and the Tree of Amateur Dramatics, whose fruit sometimes completely forgot what they were meant to taste like and started crying.

When I got to know the trees better, I found out that God had originally planned on populating the Earth solely with trees, but His ardor for arbor had cooled somewhat when He had discovered the joys of creeping things.

Creeping Things: Creepy.

As it was, the history of trees would end up closely paralleling that of humans, with the trees even having their own wooden Messiah; a humble olive tree, whose sap, it was alleged, could heal oak wilt, Dutch elm disease, and spike phytoplasma. But the tree Messiah was betrayed by flora envious of its powers, and it suffered horrible tortures; being whittled, sawed, and carved into the shape of a cross, where, in a remarkable twist of fate, it found itself nailed to the back of the human Messiah. Many orthodox deciduous trees still blamed this terrible episode on the Yews.

A Yew to a Kill.

I eventually found a tree with a laminated tag reading
TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
and grasped one of its rosy fruits in my hand. I could hardly remember seeing anything quite so round, except once when Uncle Lachador had knocked the head off an imp, sandpapered its face off, and used it as a bowling ball at Hell’s popular Rack and Bawl. I bit into the fruit and was greeted by a familiar flavor I could not quite place. Immediately my mind was filled with images of Hell, of the Bottomless Pit, and of my favorite dark chasms of yore. I was once again guarding the Gates of Hell with Mother, and in the distance I could see Reginald being chased barefoot across fields of broken glass, but the more I chewed, the more the images faded away and a bitterness entered the fruit’s taste. I swallowed uncomfortably and was disheartened to find myself back on Earth.

“Did you like it?” said the tree. “Wouldn’t you like to have another bite?” By now the bitter taste had disappeared and the sweet aroma of the fruit was once again tantalizing me, but I felt none the wiser.

“Are you really the Tree of Knowledge?” I asked.

“Oh no,” said the tree.

I looked at the laminated tag. It distinctly read
TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.
I pointed this out to the tree.

“Ah, yes. Happy were the days when I had the correct laminated card pinned to my trunk. Would that I could go back to those days! Ah, but that was far away and long ago.”

“What are you?” I asked.

“I am the Tree of Nostalgia,” it replied, “although I’m not what I once was.”

“But you’ve only just been created,” I exclaimed. “What have you to be nostalgic about?”

“Once upon a time,” droned the Tree of Nostalgia, “all this was nothing. Nothing as far as the eye could see, long before Creation and all this modern nonsense. I tell you they don’t do nothing like they used to do. Now it’s all ‘this,’ and ‘that.’ I remember the morning sun coming up earlier today. So bright and hard it was! Now it’s all soft and watery. And don’t get me started on the temperature. How I long for the early morning cool, instead of this warmish noon.”

The tree was clearly mad.

“Oh, what a thrill I got when you bit into my apple. How important you made me feel. Now everything’s so uncertain, but back then you could be sure of things.”

“But that was about twenty-five seconds ago,” I exclaimed.

“Oh, you were so precise and articulate when you said that last sentence,” continued the tree. “Not like now where you’re all wordless. Standards have slipped, I tell you. Things were much better before I started speaking this sentence…”

The tree went suddenly silent.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I just ran out of things to remember.” It began to wave its branches around frantically. “Help, I’m stuck in the present. It’s horrible! Everything’s new and contemporary! Get away, horrible bright colorful now! Come back sepia-tinted, half-forgotten then! Help! It’s everywhere!”

The tree was a pitiful sight, so I stepped forward and kicked it hard in the trunk. There was a yelp, followed by a pause. And then, “Oh, that really hurt! You really hurt me! But it was a good pain. An honest pain. I wouldn’t be the tree I am today without having been kicked around a little, let me tell you…”

As the Tree of Nostalgia yammered on I noticed that the tree next to it sported a laminated tag reading
TREE OF NOSTALGIA.
Reckoning that they must have simply swapped tags, I picked one of this tree’s fruit and bit into it. It had a sugary, syrupy flavor, and my mind was immediately filled with an image of a small kitten hanging from a clothesline. As the kitten swayed in the wind, it turned to me with its large eyes and squeaked, “Hang in there!” I spat out my mouthful in disgust.