Lunch Break, 3995 B.C.

An anachronistic tale of how the first man might have spent his brief moments of rest.

When people move away from home for the first time, it’s not uncommon to hear them speak wistfully about their mama’s cooking; even if it’s just about the way they knew how to use a microwave. But there’s an old bit of wisdom that says you can’t go back home again, and if you do, it’s never quite the same again. 

Now, Adam didn’t have a mama, so he didn’t know what he was missing in regards to home cooked meals. But his Father had a garden, and despite his best efforts, he never could recapture the taste of his Daddy’s fruit. 

Moving out meant that the diet changed drastically for Adam and his wife. While they were in the garden, their food was always fruit from the trees, or anything else that had seeds in it. 

All the green things were intended for the animals, so salad wasn’t on the menu, and if it was on their plate, it was only as a garnish.

God had made Adam to be His gardener; he was supposed to work the soil and help make the newly crafted earth into a cultivated space. God got things started by putting him in a model garden that He had planted, and told him he could eat from any tree but one - the first ornamental tree. 

Of course, Adam didn’t keep that rule, so he and his wife got kicked out of the garden. Instead of getting their food from the fruit on the trees, they were going to have to work the ground for it. Instead of the fruit, they would have to eat the plants of the field - critter food. 

Now if you have noticed, our world has both fruit trees and field crops, and there was really only one other tree God that didn’t want them to eat, and both of the important trees were right there in the center of the garden. God really is more generous than we deserve, so when He kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden, He made sure some of those branches from the other trees hung a bit past the walls - as many trees in many gardens do - and there was still enough fruit to help the young couple out. But you can’t raise a family on the fruit that just so happens to fall to the ground, so Adam had to get serious about his farming. 

Maybe one day Adam sat down to take a break and opened up the lunch that Eve had packed for him. Of course, they were vegetarians, so his bean and cheese tacos would have lacked that unctouos, smoky taste of pinto beans refried in pork fat, but I’m sure Eve made up for it with a healthy dose of guacamole. To round out the meal, maybe she put some of that fresh fruit that could still be reached on branches that stretched past the walls.

As he sat there, maybe he contemplated the difference between a piece of fruit, and an ear of corn or a handful of beans. The fruit tree gives up its fruit willingly - if no one comes to eat it, it falls right to the ground. The flesh of the fruit is the thing that sustains us, the juice can quench our thirst and renew our strength. Yet after all that, the seed remains. It falls to the ground and dies, but a new tree will grow in that place, and more fruit with more seeds - an unending cycle that fills up all the space you give it, until a dense forest grows. 

But with those crops of the field, there is no fruit, just the seed. We eat those seeds, whether it’s a kernel of corn, a grain of wheat, or the beans in the pod. That means he had a choice, because whatever we eat, we can’t plant, and if we don’t plant today, tomorrow we will go hungry. For salad it was even worse, because if you ate the whole plant, it wouldn’t even have a chance to grow some seeds. Fortunately the taste kept Adam and Eve from overindulging on leafy greens.

Now Adam and Eve knew the benefit of planting the seeds from the trees. They probably had the pit from that avocado sitting on a little cup on a windowsill, propped up on toothpicks, waiting for a sprout. But trees take a long, long time to grow, and even longer before they start bearing fruit. 

Those other seeds sprung up fast. Throw a handful of beans in your backyard, and practically overnight they would grow tall enough to reach the clouds. But just as quickly those vines would wither away. The cycle would start again. Adam felt like he was always falling behind. It was very discouraging. He was hopeful that it might get easier, in time, and his son seemed to have a knack for this kind of work. Boys were like trees though; it took a long time before you could count on them for anything really useful. 

That was another surprise. The Lord had told them that their hope would be in the seed of a woman. But if women were like that most fruits, that meant that bringing forth a seed would come from the flesh splitting apart. I guess that was true enough in a sense, but they were both grateful to learn that it didn’t mean she had to die. 

“Death” was something else they had learned about. God had warned them, but they didn’t really know what it meant; not until those brave creatures had come forth to offer their skins for Adam and Eve. He thought about those creatures often. 

When that old forked tongue rattler had started talking to his wife, a strange feeling came over the pair of them. Suspicion, doubt, and fear - they had felt a pressure in their heads, like a whole ‘nother set of memories suddenly sprung up besides their old ones. Everything that God has spoken to Adam replayed in his mind, but now he was looking for clues to see if the vipers' words made sense. Had God been trying to keep something from them?

Adam remembered those first moments after he had woken up. God had told him not to eat from the tree - which had made him curious. He had looked the thing up and down, and then had decided to touch the trunk of the tree. He felt something . . . not good. He didn’t know what to call it, but God had decided “It’s not good for man to be alone.” 

Then he had been busy for quite a while meeting all the other creatures, and giving them names. That sneaky reptile had seemed much less of a nuisance on that day; but maybe it was what happened next that made him change. Adam had fallen asleep, and when he woke up, there she was - the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He didn’t even notice the sore spot on his side until later that day, when she had asked him about it. She always did tend to notice more than he did, even if she was still a bit naïve.

So Adam sat there, holding the round orange fruit that Eve had packed for him, - he couldn’t think of anything to call it besides the color, he had named a lot of things that day - He was thinking about that day, the day, like he did everyday. He thought about what went wrong, how they learned what “death” meant, and how he wished he could go back and do things differently.

He stuck his thumbnail into the skin of the fruit, breaking it open to make sure it was good inside. That was something else new; recently Adam had noticed that a fruit could look perfectly fine on the outside, but the flesh inside would be rotten, like the fruit that had been sitting on the ground too long. 

As He brushed the tiny bits of peel and pith off his leather britches, he thought about those critters again. They didn’t make a sound, as they gave up their lives to cover up Adam’s shame. They were truly part of a different world. There had been two of them, just like Adam and Eve, just like all the other creatures - but they never had a chance to have a family of their own. When they had seen the Master’s need, they came forth willingly.  

Now, Adam and Eve were like those fruits - covered in a skin without spot or blemish, hiding the frail state of the human body. Other creatures of course had the same features with the same functions, but they seemed to be hidden or unobtrusive when they were not immediately required. He thought of how the horses and cows had their backs to the sky, and all the delicate parts pointed down at the earth, where only the crawly critters could see them. When Adam and Eve had first tasted that fruit, it was like being woken up by someone sticking your head under a waterfall. The sharp taste was sweeter than sweet, yet stronger and more acidic than the sourest lemons, salty as tears, and more bitter than the bile that crept up from the back of their throats. 

They both became aware of the raw, exposed, and audacious display that they had been parading around the garden. They wanted to disappear; they tried to blend into the trees, covering all their exposed branches, twigs and trunks with the leaves from the giant fig trees. It would almost be humorous to think of, if it wasn’t so tragic.

The new creatures being born all seemed to mimic Adam and Eve’s mistakes. Just as the humans had tried to hide from God, the animals emulated that fear and distrust. The new ones had fur that seemed to blend into the scenery. They started growing scales and shells, horns and antlers. Even the plants had started protecting themselves - the thorns and thistles the Lord had told him about seemed to poke fun at their foolishness. Why would a plant want to hold onto its fruit, or keep its seed from being sown? That was the only way that they would be able to grow. By holding onto their seed, they lose their purpose. By letting them go, they flourish. 

That gave Adam another somber thought. He and his wife were delighted to discover that the “seed of the woman” did not require the death of the woman. But what about that “seed” itself? Would his boy have to die? Would he see him dead, skinned like those creatures, lying motionless beneath that tree? Would Adam be willing to give up his boy? Or his baby brother? Adam would take their place if he could, like those brave creatures, but of all men, he alone could not fit the title “seed of the woman”
They had so much hope for the child; he was barely more than a toddler, but he already showed so much promise. Sometimes it was like looking in a mirror - he would blame things on the dog or on the baby, and in that moment Adam could see himself speaking back to God, “The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit . . .” 

Adam had questioned everything at first - even before he ate the fruit. God had shown him every creature, and at first he thought he would have been content running with the horses forever, until he saw how much he enjoyed climbing with the apes, swimming with the seals, and playing with the dogs. In the end, God had known all along that none of these could be the perfect companion for the man. He needed something different. Yet God had let him see, and let him learn and understand for himself. 

Now he thought about the reasons why God had kicked them out. He had sulked about it for a long, long time. But looking at those boys, he was beginning to understand what it meant to be a father. Sometimes you had to put a fence between the child and the flame, even if it made the boy cry. He couldn’t understand why his papa would keep him from touching something that looked so pretty. But Adam knew now that looks can be deceiving, and you can’t take some things back. When he was a bit older, Cain would learn to feel just how close you can stand by the fire before you start to feel the burn. He hoped it would be better for his boys. 

Adam finished eating the fruit, spitting out the seeds and collecting them in his hand. He often planted them wherever he happened to be each day, but this time he took them and wrapped them up in the biggest piece of skin from the fruit. He tucked the little parcel away in his lunch sack before picking up his hoe and returning to work.

He had decided to let Cain plant those seeds nearer to their home. It had been a particularly tasty fruit, and he hoped the lad would be able to help the seeds grow. He certainly seemed to have a knack, and it would be good to have a reminder that God knew what he was doing when he made the trees, the fruit and the seeds. And if that was the case, He probably knew what He was doing when He made Adam and Eve leave home.

They were living in the part of the story where things didn’t make sense. But one day, Adam knew, he or his sons, or the sons of his sons would wake up from a dream, and see something that they had never seen before, something better than they could have ever imagined on their own, and it would take their breath away.