Eve

When God blessed creation, a ewe gave birth to Adam. When he cursed Satan, Eve hatched from a crocodile's egg.

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In naming the animals, Adam marked them for death. His own name was a slow fire. Eve's was an inferno.

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In the shelter of the Tree of Knowledge, Eve coupled with the serpent. When Adam discovered them, the sight turned him to stone. God howled.

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Birds, reptiles and insects answered to Eve. Fish and mammals were her enemies. Bees inscribed her messages of love and war in flowers' scents.

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Eve spun a web from moonlight. God's words, frail, dry, got caught in it and shivered to dust.

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Eve's midnight laughter made the dead come to life. Her midday sorrow buried them again. The world's terrible machinery never rested.

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Eve made a mirror whose surface flickered with fleshy desires. When God jealously smashed it, she buried its shards in our dreams.

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God invented religion. Eve countered with science. God made the pig, the cow, the lamb. Eve made the knives and forks with which to eat them.