The Garden

One man's search for paradise

Prince Henry the Navigator squinted in the dim light of the single oil lamp, studying the scrolls. A thousand times he’d pored over the words. The answer was there, he could feel it. Staring at him, taunting. If only he could lift the veiled meaning of the ancient texts.

He knew the scrolls were perfect copies of the original tablets, the Original Story. He’d journeyed himself, risking his life and his soul, into the godless lands of the heathens, to Petra. To the last outpost of the descendants of Noah. Keepers of the Story. He had expected to find a lonely group of withered old rabbis. Instead, he stumbled into a small community of mud brick huts and tidy streets lined with colorful flags. Green fields beyond, incongruous with the dusty clay landscape. The women kept the tablets, tended to them like precious babes. Even now, he felt himself stir at the memory of the green-eyed beauty, her mahogany hair, her graceful hands as they meticulously copied the text. He watched for days, entranced. He would have watched forever, if not for his quest.

In his travels, Henry had heard of a monk, a man sacred beyond any religion, who knew the secrets the tablets would not tell. The lengths Henry went to bring the monk here. He urged his men to sail farther, faster. Developing new methods to navigate away from the shores, around the great bulge of Africa, and into the seas at the edge of the world. Then this winter, the message: A unicorn is trapped.

The runic traditions told of the unicorn, frolicking in the rain rather than boarding Noah’s boat. A flight of fancy whispered to children and dismissed by any decent Christian. But it was true, in a manner. The scrolls told of another pair, man and woman, who refused Noah’s help. Instead, they would go to the Garden, where it had all begun, for that was where man was truly happy. Noah had scoffed.

A noise startled Henry from his thoughts, then again when he saw the old man appear in the door of his chamber. The unicorn. He was bent and weathered from sun, but his countenance seemed younger than Henry’s. A gleam in his eye hinted of stories that shouldn’t be told. He moved with agility and grace as he rounded the table, clasped Henry on the shoulder and took a seat by the fire.

Henry had never felt such a luminous presence in all of his thirty years. His voice came out a tight whisper. “I’m honored beyond words. How… how can I make you comfortable?”

“Pour the wine and have a seat!” The monk’s strong voice laced with laughter. “So, you have been searching for the Garden?”

“Yes, for years. I’ve gone to much trouble—”

“Why do you seek it? What is there that you do not have here?” The monk waved broadly, indicating not just the room, but the opulent palace.

“The Garden is transcendence. A release from this realm, if only for a moment. A release from burden.”

The monk’s smile held ages of understanding. “Bring over the scrolls.”

Henry set up a small table and spread them before his teacher. “Look here,” said the monk, “what does this tell you?”

“It says Adam and Eve ate fruit from the tree of knowledge.”

“And then?”

“They were naked and expelled.”

“Exactly!”

“Exactly what?”

The monk patted Henry as if a boy. “See? When Eve ate the fruit, nothing happened. No wrath of God, no expulsion. It was her fruit, then Adam took a bite. A bite of Eve’s fruit. Adam took knowledge of Eve.”

“Took knowledge?” The monk smiled, watching the revelation spread across Henry’s young face. “Carnal knowledge?”

He nodded. “And then they were naked. Not exposed. Naked. They knew of each other, laid each other bare. God was angry. With that knowledge, they’d always love each other ahead of God.” He sat back. “Tell me, how was Adam punished?”

“Condemned to toil on the land, to work for it to bear fruit.” Henry understood the moment he said it. “Not to work in the fields. To work to taste the fruit of Eve. Eve is the Garden!” He stared at his hands, as if seeing them for the first time.

“Yes!” The monk stood in his enthusiasm. “The Garden is a location, a secret location, but it is all around us. And man must work to find it. He must nurture and tend, he must plant and water and weed. Only then will he know paradise.”

A year after the monk, Henry strode through the mysterious village at Petra, heading straight for the scribe’s hut. She was standing, mahogany hair flowing over her shoulders, a smile playing at her lips as if she was expecting him. As if to ask what took him so long.

Henry kissed her from the depths of his soul. “Come,” he whispered, “let me find your Garden.”