Hi guys! So, this is a story I finished writing just over two years ago for my English Extension 2 Major Work, and I was just tidying up when I came across it. So, I thought I would type it all up, and share it to you. I hope you like it. A View of One's Own is a triptych of short stories. The first story focuses on Eve, the second one Mary Magdalene, and the third one Lilith. Since it's late, and I'm typing up the stories on my iPad, (so please forgive any typos), I'll just post the first story tonight.) A View of One's Own By Melissa Woods "For most of history, Anonymous was a woman." -Virginia Woolf Eve "You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend, or not." -Isabel Allende The sun streaked through stained glass windows, refracting onto the walls, the upturned faces and the sumptuous altar. The streaks of celestial light suggested beauty, enjoyment, excitement, warmth, and images of beach cricket on golden sans. It suggested lazing on a soft green carpet of lawn, lovers with arms intertwined, and convivial discussions with bringers and friends and sisters, as they laughed or fought or resolved the problems of the universe. But in here they ignored that temptation. In here, the hairs on their arms stood upright as they reacted to the icy air. She sighed impatiently as she sat next to her mother. Today was going to be the first week of listening to the minister sermonise about 'fallen women of the Bible.' She couldn't believe that her mother had decided that this would somehow be a beneficial experience for them. Especially as her mother knew what she thought of the minister. Such pompous, parsimonious preaching he always delivered. Such a mean spirited individual, and he would preach to them about tolerance, empathy, Christian values? As if! As if reading her thoughts, he turned and faced her, staring straight at her, a smirk playing around the corners of his lips. She stared straight back. Her eyes became opaque, her lips set and her face a mask. She would not play his games. Fall for his surface charm like so many of the more supposedly experienced female congregation. This was what church had become. A parade of superficial and puritanically fervoured followers. Church hadn't been like this before him. They were meant to be family. They were meant to be worshipping God together and yet... it just wasn't like that. If had changed. Instead of them being able to look up to him and follow him, what breathed in here was a sense of righteous and fanatical morality. "Settle down now," he called in his smarmy voice. Honestly, couldn't anyone else read this guy? She rolled her eyes when she noticed that everyone did exactly as he ordered. Silence invaded the room in order to allow him to share his profound insight into the Bible. It was as if he was God. It disgusted her. "Welcome," he stated. "Today we will begin our study of fallen women of the Bible and today we will begin with Eve." He glanced around at every single person, and she did the same. They were hanging on to every word he said. It was amazingly awful. Her eyes moved over to the window, and the light outside, where the sun embraced and entranced and smiled down on its worshippers. Yet in here, everyone was expected to look up to and fawn at him. "Ahem. As I said, we will be beginning our study of fallen women, and today we will be discussing Eve." Wrong. They wouldn't be discussing Eve, he would be sermonising about her. They wouldn't get a word in. They were his audience, passive, appeasing. They'd learnt well how to behave, how to acquiesce, how to be 'perfect women.' But her? Give her Eve anytime. What the Minister didn't realise was that Eve wasn't a fallen woman. Far from it. She hadn't been tricked by the serpent. She'd made her own decisions. She wanted Adam to taste test the forbidden apple, to experience something new. To just experience. ******* Yes, I admit, I always did love him. He was so sweet, so innocent, and ah, well, not so bad in bed, either. But I digress. Let's move on, shall we? It's just that he was also infuriating with his wish to protect, to be the perfect provider. And let's be realistic here - we were well and truly provided for anyway. What did he really have to do? Kill a beast for food? Hey - they almost had targets drawn on their hide. The truth was that we lived in an area that had everything we could wish for, but that, let's face it, was so perfect it was boring. What happened to challenge, to building resilience, to growth through adversity? That was what we needed. No. That was what I needed. I wanted to escape our little enclave, to see what was beyond. I wanted to feel excitement, fear, pain even. I knew that in our bubble we exuded happiness and that we played the part of the happy couple to perfection. It was a eternal honeymoon, but a honeymoon that led to... what? So I didn't want paradise. I wanted life. I knew it wouldn't take much to get kicked out. Beneath that benign smile, I always sensed a rigid, moralistic stance. I went out looking for a means of escape and it didn't take long to find it. Let's face it, Damien was a mere male and couldn't believe his luck when I sounded interested. But I really did feel for Adam when he realised what I'd done and had to make a choice. And what a choice! Really it was paradise or poverty. That was when I really fell for him. It took guys to choose poverty to be with me. Still, I would make it worth his while. Everybody has their own version of Paradise to which they aspire, yet I had abandoned ours. The world we entered gave us little relief. We had to build a shelter, find food to eat, and clothes to wear, to protect us from the cold of this world. There were endless fights. I won't refute the fact that Adam was upset with me for quite some time. Yet slowly, slowly I noticed his his body changed through all the hard physical labour, as did mine. We became resilient, stronger. We learnt to laugh at the silliest of things, and our little private jokes created our little private world. Adam struggled more than me. He always used Eden as a yardstick and that was why he could never see what I saw in our new world. He could only compare the dryness here to the lush surroundings in Eden. But I saw the ochres, the vivid light, I felt the extra warmth on my skin and saw how that warmth could bake clay to provide walls for shelter and pots to carry and even cook things. He compared the downpours to the soft mist of Eden, but I saw in the downpour clean water to drink and lakes of water to refresh ourselves. I even saw how new life sprouted from the rivulets and puddles. It was fascinating, enticing even. And soon enough, the baking sun would dry us and warm us again. It took time and many arguments before he began to see our world through its own prism and not that of Eden. It took time for him to work out how to build walls that would not fall down, too. But I, too, was on a learning curve and soon realised how to influence him. Those old clichés of heart, stomach, penis and brain aren't too far wrong. I learnt to cajole, rather than to instruct. He always responded better to that. Sometimes he was just like a child, who would sulk and remind me what we had left behind and there were times when I responded in kind, angrily asserting he find another if he wasn't happy. Not much chance of that! But there was also plenty of time to explore our new world and to laugh at new discoveries and make love in our own little haven. All that love-making ensured that it was not long before I noticed changed in my body. We both didn't really know what to make of it and Adam used to look at me sometimes wondering what was happening. Before long we found out. They often say that you forget the pain once you have your baby in hour arms. Rubbish! You never forget it, but you do accept it. And so did I, again and again. Adam and I had many children, too many. You could suggest we were trying to create our own little fiefdom, a little congregation of followers. It did make for interesting times though. Those years were a blur. Always finding new ways to grow more crops to feed us all and finding ways to milk and cream and butter and sew. Still, we shared everything and there were few demarcation disputes in our household. Ironic really, considering the argy-bargy in your world. Let's face it, we had little choice. It was two of us against many of them. We put up a united front and when we did have our arguments - yes, they didn't ever really stop - we made sure the children couldn't hear us. The arguments were usually over them anyway by this stage. Me yelling sf Adam to help me cultivate crops or collect cream, while he was more interested in playing games with the boys and plaiting the girls' hair. Or me yelling out to help pick the fruit and vegetables, while he was more interested in trying out a new dish to cook for dinner that night. Pity, he never really took to cleaning the toilet though. Come to think of it, that was another ongoing argument. As time went on, it was amazing what we were able to achieve. We had food, shelter, clothing and each other. There were some tough times too. The children were like children everywhere, either ganging up against us or ganging up against them. That meant fights - and there were lots of them. I can certainly tell you a thing or two about sibling rivalry. And let's not go anywhere near the teenage years. Suffice to say that meant tears were shed, by everyone. There were dark times, quite a few of them, but as I already mentioned, they only make the good times more special. Looking back, the harder we worked, the harsher the times, the less likely it was that Adam would mention Eden. When there was talk of it, I no longer sensed that fondness of it in his tone. It was as if it had become a childhood memory, because that is what it was, a child-like state, not a state for a fully rounded, mature being. It was innocence, but also ignorance, and I'm sure that Adam realised that what we achieved was far superior to that state. The children grew up and eventually left us. They created their own havens, full of the love and responsibilities they'd learnt from their parents. In our last years together, we loved nothing better than strolling though our orchard, grown over time and with tender love. We often reminisced about exactly when we planted particular trees. And often disagreed, of course. We enjoyed a variety of beautiful fruits for all seasons. The fig trees provided the reflect of flesh in their tender, green skins while the oranges were so sweet and juicy and tasty. But our favourites, always, were the apple trees. Adam died. It wasn't unexpected. He had been deteriorating for some time, his body bent and frail. Mine is much the same. The children tried to help me, but my mind wanders these days so it is difficult to keep track of who visits when. What I like to do when they do visit, is relate stories of our past. With so many of them, the opportunity is always there. I like to remember those times, many years ago when we fought and loved and laughed. When we supported each other, played tricks on each other, even at times hurt each other. That is love. That is living. Our paradise was here on earth and of our own making. This was not Paradise Lost, this was just paradise. And to think that one little apple, played just right, opened the door to our Eden. ******* So that's the first story! That's Eve. I hope you enjoyed it, and please feel free to give some feedback! I'll try and post the second story - Mary Magdalene tomorrow night. I'll try and use a computer to type it up this time though. Using the iPad was hard, and again, I apologise for any typing errors.