The Tree of Knowledge

Dark.

So dark.

But I’m warm at least. And I seem to be lying on something soft.

“Kit Hargrove,” a voice says. The voice seems to be from far away. I hear footsteps padding closer to me. As the footsteps draw closer, the voice gets louder.

“You committed adultery.” It says. “You cross-dressed. You took the Lord’s name in vain. You spoke the names of other gods and willingly looked upon their images. You lied. You stole. You disobeyed your husband. And you killed two men.”

The voice is right next to me now.

“Kit Hargrove,” he says. “Open your eyes.”

There’s a man standing over me with skin the color of coffee with cream and bright blue eyes. He wears a long, deep red tailcoat and a black top hat. He has the longest, most graceful looking fingers I’ve ever seen. He’s framed by the bright blue sky behind him, the same blue as his piercing eyes.

He offers me a hand to help me up off the ground.

“Welcome to Hell.” he says.

I’m standing in the middle of a giant, sprawling garden. All around me sunlight bounces off of great tree branches hung low with fruit. Flowers bloom everywhere in impossible colors I cannot name. There’s a stream running down the middle and the water sparkles like diamonds. And I don’t mean that as a metaphor. It glitters amazingly, refracting the light with thousands of rainbows.

Birds alight on the tree branches with the most perfect, beautiful songs. The birds, they’re singing “The Origin of Love” from Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

The grass beneath my bare feet is the softest I’ve ever felt. It’s like walking on velvet. The intoxicating aroma of the flowers all around me fills me up.

It’s the most beautiful garden I’ve ever seen.

But it’s not a garden, I realize. It’s a library. There are shelves within the trees, like they grew that way, the branches contorting to form shelves. Hundreds of books line the trees, their covers just as fabulously colored as the flowers. More shelves are formed into polished stones. Stacks of books sit amongst the flowers.

It takes my breath away.

“Allow me to introduce myself.” the man in the tailcoat says. “I have a great many names, but I prefer to go by Lucifer.”

He tips his top hat to me.

“At your service.”

I still can’t stop staring at it all.

“It’s…” I trail off. Struck dumb by the view. Unable to find the words.

“Not what you expected?” Lucifer finishes helpfully.

“I thought Hell was supposed to be… fire… and pain and suffering.”

“Would you like it to be?” he asks me curiously.

“No.” I say, shaking my head empathetically.

Lucifer shrugs.

“Some people do.” he says. “Some people feel the need to be punished for the things they’ve done during their life.”

He approaches a door, a door that is also a tree.

“You late husband, for instance.” he says, opening the door.

Behind the door is a room far too great in size to possibly be contained by that one little pear tree. It’s like a twisted version of my bedroom. In place of the walls there’s only flames and hard, dark stone. But my dresser is there. The same lamp sits of the nightstand.

Ryan is naked and bent over the footboard of my bed. There’s a red skinned demon with three horns raping him in the ass. The demon’s cock is at least 3 inches thick. Sprouting out of the tip is a shining metal blade. The demon is telling Ryan that he knows he wants it.

Lucifer shuts the door.

“He has a flare for the dramatic, that one. Most people, they just imagine fire.”

“So I’m imagining this?” I ask, waving my hand at the garden/library.

Lucifer smiles.

“You catch on quickly.” he says with approval. “Yes, your mind cooked most of this up. But I added a few embellishments.” He waves his long fingers at the scenery with a grin of false modesty. “I think I did rather well, don’t you?”

I process this as I dip one toe in the diamond stream. It feels like bath water.

“So why didn’t I imagine being punished?” I ask.

“Because unlike him,” Lucifer says, gesturing towards the pear tree. “You don’t believe you did anything wrong.”

He smiles at me.

“I don’t punish people just because God tells me to. That’s not really what I’m about.”

“So what are you about then?” I ask.

He extends his hand to me.

“Kit Hargrove, would you do me the honor of accompanying me on a stroll through the garden/library?”

I take his hand and he leads me through the trees. It just seems to go on and on and get more and more beautiful. Every time I see a flower I think it is the most gorgeous flower in existence. Then, just a few seconds later, another one will top it. After walking awhile I realize that all of the trees are fruit trees. Oranges and figs and avocados. Pecans and peaches. Every kind of fruit imaginable.

“Do you know the story of the Garden of Eden?” Lucifer asks.

“Of course I do.” I tell him.

“Well,” he says, “Will you humor an old man and let me tell it to you again?

“God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where they could eat freely from the Tree of Life, living forever. But they had just one rule, to never eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.

“Then, or course, there was that business with the serpent…”

He smiles slyly.

“Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and the first thing they did was realize they were naked, and they were ashamed. Now why do you suppose that had never occurred to them before?

“… the fruit made them smarter?” I suggest.

“The fruit… made them self-aware. It may be hard for you to understand, but can you imagine living without self-awareness?”

“It can be liberating.” he admits. “You don’t have to know good and evil, to worry about what is right and what is wrong. If Adam and Eve had not eaten the fruit, they would have lived forever, without pain or suffering. Self-awareness means you can experience guilt, and shame, and regret. But it also means that you can feel love, joy, inspiration. With self-awareness comes art and creativity. Appreciation of beauty and passion.”

He pauses, shaking his head.

“God would rather you didn’t have those things.

“You asked me what it is that I am about. So for contrasts sake, allow me to tell you what Heaven is. Because you would have been happy in Heaven, Kit. There is no deigning that.

“Heaven is a return to innocence. Washed of all sin, your self-awareness vanished, Heaven is a place of pure, unadulterated bliss. Knowing no good or evil, just worshipping God, in awe of his light, euphoric for all eternity because you lack the mental capacity to gasp anything else. I’m told it’s wonderful. It probably is.

“But is it worth it? When Jace betrayed you, it broke your heart, didn’t it? I want you to remember how terrible that felt. How it shattered you. And now, tell me, would you have rather you never felt any of it. Is the ability to love worth it, when it comes with so much pain?”

I think about that perfect day. Saturday, July seventh, 2012, when Jace and I sat in the tree, holding each other. We watched Duke chase squirrels while we planned our lives together. I think about the way he kissed my bruised and broken body, like he kissed my skinned knee when we were six, making it all better. I think about the way he felt inside me. How happy I was when I was with him.

“There’s no question.” I say. “It’s worth everything.”

Lucifer nods in approval.

“Heaven,” he says, “is a place of bliss. But Hell…”

He gestures to the books.

“Hell is a place of knowledge.”

We’ve come to the center of the garden/library. In the middle is a giant tree standing eighty feet high, branches stretching in every direction. Books fill every branch, a library in and of itself.

“You know,” Lucifer says to me as he plucks a fruit from the tree, “All your modern art and literature always says it was an apple tree. But in older stories the fruit that Eve tempts Adam with is a pomegranate.”

He slices the fruit into wedges, exposing the bright red seeds within. He holds it out, offering it to me.

“Would you care for a taste?”