EXCERPT from the book:
IN THE LIKENESS - The Last Testament of Adam, the First Man
DavidDouglasFord.com
All Rights Reserved.
from Chapter VI - THE FALL
When I awoke on that dreadful and momentous morning I knew instinctively that it was to be a day like no other. It seems unimaginable that I did not have some conscious foreboding of what would take place within the confines of that terrible day. My now rather vivid memory of each waking moment it contained must surely serve to confirm a heightened sense of disquiet that must have existed even ahead of my experience within time.
There was a soft breeze all about the garden, and the bright morning sun was sending down its daily allotment of pleasurable warmth, even while the heat seemed to be originating from within my body and working its way out from deep inside of me. It was as though my soul was attempting to extract itself away from within me so that it might break loose in order to be free of the inescapable and ubiquitous pull of this earth. In such a manner it might have yearned to also free itself from the equally inescapable future. And perhaps that is what I remember most clearly upon waking from a deep and dreamless sleep that morning - the sheer weight of the day.
My first thought on most mornings in Eden was always to move slowly first thing so that I was not the cause of Eve's awakening. Even though she actually preferred it when I woke her from slumber when I arose first, as was most often the case, my own choice was to see her bring about her own stirring in the morning. Often I would spent long moments each new day observing Eve asleep, and this simple pleasure of mine lasted throughout our entire time together, right up until the morning these several years ago now, when she failed to stir at the new sun's gaze, but slipped into that permanent sleep which takes man from this earth. Or should I now say that sleep that returns man to this earth?
On that last morning in Eden, I would in vain quietly turn to observe a sleeping Eve because she had already risen ahead of me and begun the process that would disrupt the very fabric of creation itself. Sometimes I imagine that had I been first to arise that very last day, we might have spared ourselves and all of man the suffering that was to begin so swiftly later on that beautiful warm morning. Of course, it is foolish to pretend that man's poor choosing could be put away by an alteration of such slight impact as the order of our waking to a new day. Choices are not to be confused with the randomness that governs the creation. Free will is not a mechanism put into place that is determined by the actual timing of things, and indeed, quite the opposite can more often be said to be the case.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means without written permission from the author.