The Antediluvian

God's judgment rained down from heaven in the form of the Flood. The world was washed away.

I remained, hidden in the Tree. The bark closed around me and the wood covered my eyes. In spite of God's vengeance against the world of sinners, I remained alive. Swollen, twisted in a prison of oaken hardness, my spirit remained attached to the earth as the roots swallowed the rainwater that drowned the rest of the world.

"We are one now," said the Tree in its jagged tree voice, each word whispered like splinters in my ear.

"And so shall we remain," I responded. This was our pact. Separate, our life forces were not strong enough to survive the Flood. But combined, our souls intertwined with one another, feeding off each other's strength. As the waters surged around us, tearing off leaves and bending even the strongest of branches, our roots held firm. The storm raged over our heads and, in the distance, we heard the screaming brays of thousands of animals as they rocked in the angry waters, held fast in that wooden ark that my cousin Noah had built.

"He deprived you of your right to passage," whispered the Tree. "You were of Noah's blood, but that was not enough for him. He demanded purity of soul. There, he found you lacking and so forbad you from his ark."

"Bleed your poisoned tongue elsewhere," I cried, somehow speaking aloud despite the fact that my face was frozen in unyielding wood. The words I spoke in my head were in some way transmitted to the Tree without benefit of vocal cords or human speech. Likewise, the Tree's whispering voice insinuated itself straight into my head, like a sliver of wood will bury itself unerringly in tender flesh.

The Tree was not done. "Baphomet, son of Joab, you will hearken my words, for they shall be the last to comfort you for the remaining Flood. Noah and his God have forsaken you, but I have not. Do you know what demon's deal you have entered, allowing my woody seams to embrace you?"

"No," I moaned. Each word was a prick in my brain. Each syllable felt like bleeding, gushing scratches in my head, my skull, my own personal being.

"My seeds were carried by the wind from the Garden. My progenitor was the Tree of Knowledge and the fruit which spawned me was offered by the first Woman to her Man.”

"So then you are..." I choked out.

"I am the offspring of the Downfall," said the Tree. "And with our coupling, so shall my own progeny come to seed and take root. So shall other torments be visited upon the new world of men, cleaned of sinners by God's unforgiving vengeance. So shall my beloved sin remain."

After that, the Tree whispered no more words in my ear and, together in silence, we listened to soothing roar of angry waters as the storms continued. Fish and frogs swam amongst our leaves as the broken corpses of my neighbors were pushed by the currents into our branches.

Together, the Tree and I abided the torment of being trapped underwater. For forty days and nights we did not breathe, surviving solely on the combined power of our life forces. Finally, when every minute seemed like agony and all our leaves had withered, the water began to recede.

As the top of the Tree broke through to the surface, sweet oxygen and sunlight combined in a blessed, leafy inhalation of all that was good and filling. From that pure moment onward, our strength returned with every new branch that made its way to open air. Finally, the Tree was able to stop feeding off of our life forces and could, once again, sustain itself through more natural means.

When the last of the Flood finally disappeared into the muddy dirt of what had once been my city, the Tree released me from my bondage.

A crack appeared in its trunk, which then widened and widened until my gnarled, twisted body slipped out from the wood. The separation jarred me and I clung desperately to the Tree, unable to get my balance. For the first time in months I was alone in my head. No longer did I share senses with the Tree. I could no longer feel water soaking up through my roots, for I had none. The sunlight was a welcome warmth, but I drew no sustenance from it. The air, however, was pure and I inhaled for the first time since the Tree had enveloped me. Such a strange feeling, however wondrous: the pulsing rhythm of human lungs.

"Our contract is done, Oh Baphomet, son of Joab," said the Tree. "Go forth and do your human things and live as you did before God's reckoning."

"And what shall you do?" I asked the Tree, still clutching at its branches for balance.

"I shall bear fruit. In every fruit, there will be a seed of discord, which shall, when planted, grow to release sin and misery upon the earth and its inhabitants."

"So that is why God meant for you to be destroyed."

"God meant for us _both_ to be destroyed. He failed." The leaves of the Tree shook and quivered despite there being no wind. "I needed you so that I could survive, but that time has passed. Leave me to my bidding."

The Tree loomed over me, despite the broken branches and discolored bark. In the veins of its fresh leaves I saw written the future: A dark world, tormented with the seeds of its undoing. An evil world, forgiving of nothing, bringing ruin upon all.

Standing by the trunk, I closed my eyes. Such an existence was familiar to me. The memory of my past transgressions swooped down upon me. Helpless to the flow of guilt and images, I remembered the torment I had rendered upon my brother, back before the City was destroyed and the entire world had drowned.

He had been caught, knowing a man in an intimate manner. Such actions were forbidden by the edict of the City elders. I had upheld the law and beaten him until the woven reed whip had bypassed the red, fleshy muscle and struck the white of bone. "Unnatural," I had screamed at him, my hand rising and falling in harsh and calculated strikes. "Perverse. Peculiarity. Abomination."

Though my wife had taken him back to his house and attempted to mend his wounds, he had died. I'd felt vindicated for the wrongs.

Later, in the privacy of the night in an empty bedroom (for since that incident my wife refused to stay in the same room with me), I would experience the feelings from that confrontation again and again. My hand would throb with the ghost pains from gripping the reed whip. My eyes would sting from the remembrance of sweat and splattered blood, dripping into my eyes.

Everything about my body would ache as my mind screamed at me, again and again, to remember that my brother was not the only one to have such deviant thoughts. To remember that I was the one who'd first looked lustfully upon the blacksmith's apprentice. Who'd first gazed upon a naked woman and found her wanting, while a male's form held all the appeal.

Hypocrite, screamed my conscience. Liar! Wonton ill-made judge!

In that darkened, empty room, whenever I closed my eyes I could see my brother's pained and bleeding face.

And now, in this empty world of mud and emptiness, I see the same vision behind my eyelids. The same sting of a hypocrite's whip strikes my heart with its merciless objective.

I did not deserve to be alive. I knew that now. I should have drowned in the rushing waters while the Tree was torn by its roots, delivering the world from its seeds of carnage and despair.

"There is one other thing," said the Tree, startling me out of my thoughts. "Because we have been joined, you and I, so together our life forces shall remain."

"What does this mean?" I asked.

"As long as I shall live, so shall you," the Tree said, its leaves shaking like the rattle of an aroused and vicious snake.

"You mean...."

"When your God created my progenitor, he declared that no axe may cut me. No fire may burn me. No storm may uproot me and no earthquake may swallow me. Save for drowning by God's judgment, I am immortal, Oh Baphomet, son of Joab. And because of our contract, now so are you."

"I shall live forever," I repeated, feeling my knees lose their strength and buckle beneath me, so that I landed hard on the rocky dirt that surrounded the Tree.

"So goes the final terms of the contract," hissed the Tree. "Now leave me. I must regain my strength. I have much to accomplish. Many preparations that need to come to fruition."

Eyes dazed, I walked away from the Tree and set out upon a desolate land, searching for my cousin Noah and his animals so that I could take his advice.

For 100 days and nights I searched, climbing mountains and crossing deserts. I suffered great thirst as I walked the sand dunes, my throat clenching and chafed as I longed for the water that had once covered this part of the world. Beyond the desert I discovered that the Flood had wiped out all the good growing things and so I starved, my belly growing big with nothingness and air as I stumbled through marshes and broken forests. My legs grew desiccated until they were the size of sticks and my ribs poked through the shrunken skin of my chest.

The misery brought about by starvation was great, but not so much as the unending loneliness of the empty plain. I missed the respite of death. It was no longer an option and, wandering in the vacant world, I felt as though an unknown friend had been stolen from me.

On the hundredth day, I found a pond of fish and so eased my hunger and satiated my thirst, but still I was unhappy. I knew, in my heart, that my cousin had been washed by the storm to the other side of the world. I was trapped here on this barren continent. Alone. Forever. Alone.

I made my way back to where the Tree stood atop a great hill. The hundred days had been good to it. Its branches were restored to their former glory and its leaves were dark green and vibrant. And, from its largest branch, hung a single pale globe of forbidden fruit.

"You have returned," observed the Tree.

"Yes," I said. "How goes your plan?"

"I have enough strength for a single offspring. See how it thrives in my branches? Soon it will be ripe enough to fall and the seeds within will take root and flourish."

I gazed at the fruit in wonder. "What will it grow into?" I asked.

"Plague," whispered the Tree, quivering with a father's pride.

The knowledge, then, of what I must do came to me in a burst of understanding. Racing over to where the branch dangled the fruit of Plague, I plucked the pale globe from the tree and brought it to my lips.

"What are you doing?" cried the Tree. "Let it fall! Let my seeds take their course!"

Closing my eyes, I bit down on the fruit and my mouth filled with its sour and burning juices. Acid, I thought as I forced myself to swallow. This fruit was filled with acid.

The juices burned my throat, searing it like liquid, biting fire. I chewed the tough and rubbery flesh and forced myself to take another bite even as the Tree screamed out the loss of its offspring.

The seeds were pointed, sharp little things. I could not chew them, any more than I could chew sewing needles. I swallowed them whole, praying that they would not tear up my insides as they made their course to my stomach. The entire fruit was a fruit of pain, each bite an exercise in the agony of acid and serration. I could feel the flow of blood run down the back of my throat, torn by the seeds and by the juices. Clenching, unrelenting pain consumed me as I forced the last of the rind into my mouth and swallowed.

Unable to handle undulating, aching blaze, my body fell into convulsions and I twitched on the grassy hill while the Tree watched, its wooden eyes seething with a raging hatred. Its branches writhed, struggling helplessly to reach me and tear me into shreds for my transgression, but the Tree was held fast by its planted roots. There was nothing it could do. Its lone child was destroyed.

"I will have more!" roared the Tree. "Each year, each new season, I will have more offspring, each a wondrous and terrible creation! You cannot prevent them all from taking root! Even immortal, you cannot handle a full crop! I will be stronger next year! My branches will dangle with fruit!"

Twitching uncontrollably even as I managed to quell the stronger convulsions, I rolled my eyes to the blue expanse of the sky and saw it for the first time.

A bending arch of every color.

Each hue pristine and perfect.

The end of each arch disappearing into the horizon. Infinite. Unspoiled.

After the great Flood, God had made a promise to Noah in the form of a rainbow; never again would He drown the earth. And now, with that same symbol, the rainbow made a promise to me as well:

This is my punishment for saving the Tree. This is my mandate. My responsibility. My duty.

For each and every fruit that the Tree could draw enough strength to bear, I was to consume. No matter the pain, no matter tears and serrations in my esophagus and stomach, it was my responsibility to consume the evil and render it ineffectual.

"This is my punishment," I whispered to myself as I stared at God's cruel, multicolored promise written into the sky.

The convulsions left me, but I stared at the Tree and wondered. How many fruits of his could I possibly bear to consume? What would happen if I missed one? What would happen if the seeds were planted and devastation were loosed upon the earth?

The pain of destroying my brother's life still haunted me in the darkness of night. I did not know if I could handle such destruction that a single seed could render, if planted unknowingly into the ground.

Lying on my back underneath the shade of the Tree, I closed my eyes and accepted my fate even as the acids burned away at my immortal insides.

"I am Baphomet, son of Joab," I croaked painfully to the open sky as tears fell helplessly down my cheeks to water the roots beneath me. "For you, oh cruel and necessary God, I will accept my punishment."