EXTRAS AT THE GATES OF EDEN

Alison Moore

They were hired for the crowd scene,

the one near the end where Eve resists

temptation—a cheering section, of sorts,

for humanity. But they were never

called, nor sent home with severance pay.

So they wait patiently, then not so patiently,

as humans do. The Styrofoam cups

and newspapers, which at first were put neatly

into trashcans now blow freely, sticking

between the bars of the gleaming gates of Eden.

It seemed like a good gig at the time,

but they’ve just run out of cream;

the catering truck departs.

Rumors arrive:

They got it in one take, Eve

was a pushover, the snake handler

didn’t even get overtime, let alone

scale. In anger,

he left the snake behind.

It’s coiled now, in the tree, listening

to the grumbling outside the gate. All

but one finally go home. A boy peers

through the bars at the tree still

heavy with uneaten fruit, at the serpent,

disconsolate now, in the boughs.

“Want one?” asks the serpent, half-

heartedly, trying to look interested

again. But the boy, having read

the script, says, “No way—

look what happened to her.”

The serpent contemplates the clever

little face, then watches the strong

back of Eve still visible in the distance

heading out into the world,

before she had a word for home.

Subject now to climate

and natural disaster, the myriad

dilemmas of the wondering mind.

Rent to pay, loves to start

and end for the right or wrong

reasons, the heartbreaking desires

of her children for all the flimsy

things the world is already hard

at work making. The shadow

of her own death, throwing itself

over everything, dogging her to

the grave. Traffic jams and bad

connections, chain letters, and real

estate scams, shoddy workmanship

and dead-end jobs, unpublished

novels and always, always men

who will try to trick her. All this

for knowledge of the fine line

between good and evil.

What a trade-off, the serpent thinks,

but not unkindly. He knows

what was lost on the fundamentalist

screenwriter, what slipped through

the script, was the metaphor

of bitten fruit: skin broken

open, the risk of marred perfection

for the awkward oozing ecstasy

of music, sex, and art.

If this is sin, he thinks, then let’s

have at it.

The serpent stares at the fox-

faced little boy, flicks his forked

tongue once, for special effect.

“Chicken,” he hisses.

“Eve,” he says, “had nerve.”

I have to admit I view the story of the Garden of Eden and Eve’s role in the expulsion as a biblical breakthrough. She may have been blamed for the loss of paradise, but I think she wanted to taste all of the world, not just some of it. In order to do that, she had to see the serpent as part of the whole picture, not the shadow of Satan and temptation. In my mind, she did the right thing: she bit down and broke the law.