Eve’s Perspective

Told in the vein of Margaret Atwood’s Little Red Hen.

Fuck apples. No, seriously. Everybody and their mother blame me for eating that god forsaken apple. A girl gets hungry…

You know my story. Perhaps you heard it as an explanation of why women bloat up twice their size once a month. Or maybe as a cautionary tale about what happens when a wife doesn’t listen to her man. Be seen, not heard. Look pretty, smile more. Bend and snap. Whatever. I’m supposed to be an illustration of that? Don’t make me laugh.

I know what the fruit tastes like, sure. So what? You got your figs, your grapes, a peach here and there. All I’m saying is a girl likes a little variety. I mean, Yahweh makes all these people…pulls them up right out of the ground. Then he picks me and some random guy up like a bitch carries her pups and sets us in this bricked-up garden. (And you thought building walls was new.)

I was using the tree as a step ladder—going to visit a lady friend—and one of the fruits fell off its branch. Watch where you step and you might find one, too. Finders keepers. An apple a day keeps the upstart god away. If only.

“Ooh, you ate the fruit I told you not to eat. Ooh, you ruined everybody’s lives.” Please. Everybody? Everybody who? Everyone I know is on the other side of that ridiculous wall, which is where I was trying to go anyway. You know how boring it is to watch some guy who’s supposed to love and cherish you until “death do us part” ogle the animals all day? “What should we call this one? What about that one?” Yahweh throws us into this place all alone, keeps the one person I can talk to busy all day with literally everything else under the sun, and I’m the bad girl for trying to entertain myself?

You know, like the man said, the trouble with Yahweh is he thinks he’s god…

But don’t think it didn’t hurt, all that name calling and rejection. “Original sinner. Numero Uno Bad Guy.” I cried, don’t think I didn’t. Salty tears dripping into the earth. Makes good mud. Salt of the earth and all that. Now there’s an origin story.

So what were my options? I could’ve climbed the tree and hopped the fence, never to be seen again. Done myself a favor. Left What’s-His-Name and his precious pets the whole lot. Look, I know everyone talks about how perfect it is…the plants, the animals, no need for pants or underwire bras. But really, bedding made of straw leaves a rash. Who needs it?

Instead I stayed, why not? Endured the side eye from the only other person (and his personal god) inhabiting that awful place. You’ve seen the pictures. “After the fall.” Me and Adam, hiding behind bushes, making outfits out of fig leaves. I smile in all the pictures, as much as you can smile with a man looking at you like you’re a piece of meat. When he called me sinner, I smiled. I never lost my temper.

How will you repent your sin? What will you tell the children? Why don’t you smile when I tell you you’re sexy? Why don’t you want to make my dinner, you lazy cow? When word got out, it only got worse.

Petitions were signed. People developed symptoms. Misogynists were elected to the Supreme Court. They said it was my fault, for eating the fruit when they weren’t allowed. Every single one of them, it seemed, wanted that apple more than I did. You can find more, they said. Tell us what it’s like, they said.

So then what? I know how the story goes. I bear the burden of pain in childbirth, endure the raging emotions of hormonal imbalance. Bear the guilty weight of every sniffle a man must suffer. Don’t believe a word of it. As I’ve pointed out, I chose to stay. After all, I’m a person, not a chicken.

Here. I apologize for eating the fruit. I apologize for luck. I apologize for being resourceful. I apologize for being lonely. I apologize for making friends outside your comfort zone. I apologize for that crack about thinking you’re god. I apologize for smiling in my couture fig leaf. I apologize for being a woman.

Have an apple.

Have mine.