In The Beginning

Abstract

Would you rather live in complete happiness, or have knowledge of good and evil? In this allegorical work of philosophical short fiction, Adam lives in a biblical paradise. One day, a strange man in the garden, wearing a snake necklace, offers him a fruit from the tree of knowledge. He declines, saying “Father” has forbid him from eating it. Later, Eve comes to the garden as well. She is offered the same fruit and accepts. After eating the fruit she realizes she is in a stasis chamber on a space voyage that has gone wrong. She heads back into the computer-generated paradise to try and get Adam, the only other remaining member of the crew, out of stasis, by convincing him to eat the same apple she did.