I used to taste fruit so sweet and lovely.  I would let the juices spill over my lips so I could lick them back into my mouth once more.  Anything to try and make the wondrous tang last forever.  But ever since we were banished from the garden, no fruit has ever come close in comparison.  Apples taste like ash as the bitter slices roll over my tongue, tainting the flavors that once delighted me.  The soot sensation makes it nearly impossible to it choke down.  

I know Adam feels the same.  He has never eaten fruit since we were thrown into our eternal exile.  Everything is but a shadow of the garden’s perfection.  The apples out here taunt me with their incompleteness.  They are my ultimate punishment.  Adam suffers in his own way.  Self-inflicting starvation by hardly eating.

I see a snake’s shadow twine its way around ever apple I pluck.  Another insult to our misery.  Perhaps that is why he shies away from fruit.  Adam does not want to be reminded of our sin for I am adamant that it is our sin.  This is our exile, not mine alone.  He tasted the doomed fruit along with me.  Likewise, he trudges besides me lost in his private misery while I carry on acting as if everything is as normal as it can be.  

That is why I insist on eating apples every day.  For I will not let the snake get the best of me again.  The serpent should really fear me and slither away for his own good.  He must know I will defy him in every way I can and I know that eating an apple a day will remind him that I am watching for his next move.  He will not outsmart me again.

(Photo by Mollie Williamson)