Eve in the Cave

 Eve stirred, feeling and hearing a hiss.

She had been dreaming up a storm for a very long time.

This dream had taken some nasty turns.

Eve’s eyes frittered open and she perceived a dim light. She saw the long sinuous snake slithering on and around her. Blinking, she saw a crone holding a light in what must be a dim cave.

Eve sat up with the crone’s help.  The snake curled in her lap. The Crone handed her an apple and offered her a ladle of water. Eve asked her, her name. The old woman answered, “Hecate.” Hecate than hung her lamp on a hook on the cave wall and picked up her long gnarled staff. She leaned heavily on the staff and made her way to stand in the center of the small space. She drew a cross on the cave’s floor. 

She looked intently at Eve and In a strong, yet wavering voice she declared, “We are at a crossroads. This cave is a portal.” She looked deeply into Eve’s eyes and said, “We are grateful for your presence.”

Eve felt unreal. Her dreams had lasted so very long. Eons. Adam, her lover had betrayed her. He had stolen lands, cut trees, poisoned the water. He had stolen all the power from the sky and earth. He had made terrible unnatural things which belched poisons.  She witnessed great wars and terrible scenes of conquest and death, the world over. 

The dream lasted an eternity - until now as she awoke with Hecate writing in the dirt and talking of portals and crossroads. Eve took a deep breath and looked at Hecate. The she gave a shrug and looked around the cave. There were no words for the nightmares she had witnessed. She couldn’t imagine what a portal was.

Hecate said, “Eve, our purpose here is to rewrite history and make better stories than the ones you and Adam birthed so long ago. Those stories have become a world gone mad.”

Eve nodded. “Were those dreams true?” she asked. 

Hecate said, “In many ways, yes. The suffering is real, the machines, those inhuman things you saw, they exist. These are things and people have become obsessed with things and owning them. They delight in domination and long to be better than others.”

“Adam and I birthed this?” Eve asked, disbelieving.

“Honey, your stories were stolen and rewritten. What you birthed long ago was hijacked, taken and misused. This is why I gave you an apple. We start here, in this underworld cave. When you take a bite of this apple, you will be able to walk out of this cave and make a new world. You can create new stories  - and you can make a better Adam!