Along the small canal near my house, a canal I know is cat-jumpable since watching a long-haired turtle-coated cat bound across it, the pomegranates are swelling. The pomegranate is the original apple, the fruit that some think the serpent used to lure Eve to the dark side in the Garden of Eden. Let's examine this possibility. Eating a pomegranate takes patience. The leathery skin offers little entrance beyond ripping at the fringe where the ruddy orange flower had earlier in the season shriveled away. Once penetrated (always a sexy word), the innards reveal a matrix of interlaced bitter white membranes that shroud the shiny red fruitlets that are packed together with the tight efficiency that makes the pomegranate one of nature's finest examples of mathematical beauty. It also makes the fruitlets hard to separate. Each tear-shaped bead of fruit latches to the white membrane, which must be the fruit's version of mammalian placenta (yummy).
So Eve, seeing that the fruit is way too much trouble to get into, hands the pomegranate to Adam. He works it over for an hour or so, finally holds a tiny bead of fruit pinched between his fingertips and hands it to Eve, as proudly as if it were a whole gazelle. She pops it in her mouth and for one glorious moment, like when storm clouds open for a split second and cast a sliver of warm sunshine onto a weather-beaten cheek, she tastes the sweet juice. She smiles and is about to lean towards Adam and tell him it was all worth it, when her teeth break open the inner seed, releasing a bitter tang.
Lesson: sin takes effort to get into,tastes sweet for a split second, and leaves a bitter aftertaste in your mouth. Yeah, it was the pomegranate that taught that lesson. Any type of regular apple is just too easy and rewarding. Imagine trying to kiss up to a teacher by setting a pomegranate on their desk.
No comments:
Post a Comment