In the Garden of Delights

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//On the banks of the Euphrates find a secret garden cunningly walled. There is an entrance, but the entrance is guarded. There is no way in for you. Inside you will find every plant that grows growing circular-wise like a target. Close to the heart is a sundial and at the heart an orange tree. This fruit had tripped up athletes while others have healed their wounds. All true quests end in this garden, where the split fruit pours forth blood and the halved fruit is a full bowl for travellers and pilgrims. To eat of the fruit means to leave the garden because the fruit speaks of other things, other longings. So at dusk you say goodbye to the place you love, not knowing if you can ever return, knowing you can never return by the same way as this. It may be, some other day, that you will open a gate by chance, and find yourself again on the other side of the wall.// <center>[[-0-|garden]]</center>

//An enclosed garden is my sister, my bride, a hidden well, a sealed spring. Your branches are an orchard of pomegranite trees heavy with fruit, flowering henna and spikenard, spikenard and saffron, cane and cinnamon, with every tree of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, all the rare spices. You are a fountain in the garden, a well of living waters that stream from Lebanon.// <center>[[-0-|You]]</center>

//How is your lover different from any other, O beautiful woman? Who is your lover that we must swear to you?// <center>[[-0-|garden1]]</center>

You are a garden. A garden stretches out before you. At the center a tree, bearing many fruits. Its branches hang low, heavy, casting shade over the rest of the garden. You sit down among its [[roots.|garden2]]

The smell of the blossoms hanging from every branch is intoxicating. You breathe it in. As you look closer, you realize that there are names etched into the sticky surface of the fruit. Juices bleed through the skin and drip to the ground, disappearing into the carpet of grass. You look up at the many-colored buds of fruitflesh hanging overhead. From which will you eat? [[The Orange|The Saints]] [[The Apple|The Sinners]] [[The Pomegranate|The Demons]] [[The Cherry|The Lovers]] [[The Fig|The Mothers]] <<if visited("The Saints","The Sinners","The Demons","The Lovers","The Mothers")>> Or... Fruit bobs overhead, but you see now the tree is barren. The garden blooms around you, laden with promises. The tree draws you in, over and over, its roots and seeds the ties that bind. But you will not sate your hunger until you [[leave the garden.]]\ <<endif>>

[[THE MOTHERS|Fig 1]]

[[THE LOVERS|Cherry 1]]

[[THE DEMON|Pom 1]]

[[THE SINNERS|Apple 1]]

[[THE SAINTS|Orange 1]]

The figs hang close to the trunk, identical, impossible to tell whether the tough inner flesh will yield under your teeth or send cracks up to your gums. There are two. Only two. [[Elsie]] [[Mother]]

Names, tiny, delicate, are carved dozens of times into the skin of the cherries. They hang overhead, just within reach, tantalizing, in two bunches marked with two names. [[Melanie]] [[Katy]]

A single pomegranate hangs from the tree, high above, of unknowable ripeness. You don't see a name carved into its side, its rigid skin unbroken, perfect, containing all mysteries. You stand on your toes to bat it down to the ground, where [[it splits open.]]

Like Eve, you are drawn to the apples, tempting and perfect, full of the ancient promise of knowledge and damnation. Like Eve, you pick one, chunks of apple oozing from each carved name. [[Ida]] [[Miss Jewsbury]]

Oranges hang huge and taut, grenades of juice overhead, threatening to come down hard and split over your scalp. They are uniform and untouched except for the names, carved cleanly by a deft hand, marring the sides. They are the only fruit, you have been told by someone, though you're not sure who. [[Pastor Finch]] [[Mrs. White]] [[Pastor Spratt]]

Erin Strubbe

The mother fig tastes of orange as the juice runs down your chin. The gritty solidity of the fruit shifts and twists, morphing sometimes into the sharp bite of citrus and others into the earthy sweets of fig. The taste comforts and holds you close, a kiss, a lullaby, punctuated by stingers of pain driven down your throat. [[It roils on your tongue.]]

Sweet and yielding, the fig gives way under your bite. It warms you, an igloo, a needlework blanket wrapping around you, crunchy and cloying and everything a fig should be. This might be the first fig you've ever really had. [[It might be the last.]]

You pick a bunch from the tree, ripe and sweet. A name wraps around every fruit like a web, "Melaniemelaniemelanie..." You eat happily, with abandon, basking in the warmth and sweetness of each fruit. Their sharp tang is a balm for your fears, your worry, your hunger. [[You could never eat of another fruit.]]

You pop a cherry into your mouth, turning it over between your teeth. You can almost trace the outline of her name, "Katy," with your tongue. You want to savor it, to let it last. But temptation caves you in, and you bite down, teeth cutting through soft flesh and hitting the pit. You gag suddenly and spit. [[The sting of betrayal as a worm, half eaten, flails from the half-eaten cherry left behind.]]

You roll over to your knees, the green sludge of molding cherry slipping from your hands and sinking into the soil. You retch, returning the rest of the cherries to Earth with them. [[You wipe your mouth.]]

You feel the halved worm wriggling in your mouth, clinging desperately to life long after its conviction, sentencing, and execution. Over before it really began. [[The taste of cherry and worm tangle inexctricably in your mouth.]]

You wish you could clean the sick-sweet-bitter taste from your tongue as your spit rotten cherry into the dirt. <<if visited("Katy")>>You could never lose your taste for cherries, that much is certain. You'll return to them one day. Once bitten, twice satisfied after all. And for a time, you were certainly satisfied. But perhaps some other cherries, from some other tree. Perhaps this tree wasn't meant to produce cherries at all. [[Return to the tree.|garden2]]\ <<else>>You will the taste away, the promised tang of cherry heavy in the back of your throat. [[You could try your luck at cherries again.|Katy]]\ <<endif>>

As you slow, the tang of cherry begins to change in your mouth. Your mouth tastes suddenly sour, and the rich pulp grows thicker, more bitter with every bite. You look down to the bunch in your hand to see the ripe fruits wilting to green sludge, their skins grown fuzzy and shapeless with mold. They collapse through your fingers, the fruits longing to return to Earth. [[All sweetness gone to rot.]]

<<if visited("Melanie")>>You could never lose your taste for cherries, that much is certain. You'll return to them one day. Once bitten, twice satisfied after all. And for a time, you were certainly satisfied. But perhaps some other cherries, from some other tree. Perhaps this tree wasn't meant to produce cherries at all. [[Return to the tree.|garden2]]\ <<else>>You will the taste away, the promised tang of cherry heavy in the back of your throat. [[You could try your luck at cherries again.|Melanie]]\ <<endif>>

No fruit lay hidden inside. A demon stands, grinning, impish and orange, within the rind. [["Who are you?"]]

The words leave your lips before you are even sure why you're asking. The demon laughs at you. "Who do you think?" it asks, leaning back leisurely, sprawling out in the empty air. [["You're what's ruined me."]]

You peel back the skin, flaying the name away, but as you take a bite, the orange overwhelms you, wraps you up in its clammy skin. You are small, a child, defending your senses from an assault on the balance of acid and base, of right and wrong. "Repent!" a voice echoes in your head as the orange juices burn your tongue. [["No," you say, and take another bite.]]

Smaller than the others on the branches, your first bite carves away nearly half the orange. It seems to quail under your grip, shrinking, condensing even further as you suck away what little juices were held inside. Protected by skin as perfect and shiny as any other, the fruit inside is dry, shriveled, hardly enough to eat. [[It burns your tongue anyway.]]

The largest fruit of the tree hangs down in front of your face, drooping almost to the ground. You pluck it from the branch and dig your fingers in deep. Before you can peel back the skin, unveiling the fruit itself, [[it bursts.]]

"Wrong," says the demon. "I'm what makes you. You think you're the only one with a demon?" You open your mouth to speak. The demon is wrong. Every word from his mouth lies and trickery. But his presence is a comfort, a calming wave, the Orange Sea, quietly parted. "Every fruit in this garden has a demon living inside," he says, picking his nails. "They just keep theirs under lock and key, bound up in their skins. But you, [[you're not so easily bound]]."

The papery skin of the apple breaks open. Its flavor distant, intangible. It speaks to you of summer days and ice cream. Of sweets and stolen moments. [[It's a comfortable, unfamiliar taste.]]

As you bite into the apple, you realive that you've heard of this flavor before, seen it described, pointed to, but never tasted it until now. It's a flavor you know well. [["Unholy" is its name.]]

"What can I do?" you ask. The demon shrugs. "Enjoy while you can," it says. "Keep secret what you must. You wouldn't be the first fruit in this garden keeping secrets, and you won't be the last." The demon snaps its fingers and disappears in a puff of orange smoke. Pomegranate seeds spill from the empty air into the empty rind it emerged from. [[You scoop up handfuls and eat in the shade of the tree, its other, many-colored fruits bobbing in the breeze above you.|garden2]]

Apples were always denied you, whisked away if ever they were found too close to you. There's something grounding, real about them. They speak to some part of you left always unspoken. You feel an understanding, that ancient damnable knowledge of Eve, creeping up around the edges of yourself, dawning over you but not yet breaking your horizon. You open your mouth to take another bite, only to find your teeth crushing the skin of your fingers instead of the fruit's crumbly flesh. [[You look down.]]

The apple has gone, magicked away, never existing in the first place. You search the ground, your body, the air, but it has vanished. You feel, unspeakably, like some part of you too has vanished, denied form by the universe itself. <<if visited("Miss Jewsbury")>>[[You turn to other fruits|garden2]]\ <<else>>Your half-filled mind hungers for the apple, your empty fingers turn back to the tree for [[another.|Miss Jewsbury]]\ <<endif>>

Divine knowledge floods you so fast it makes you sick. You want to heave, throw the apple away, but instead you take another bite and another and another, until your mind is spinning and your body aches. You drink understanding, slurp it in with the rivulets of juice, so sweet it burns your tongue. [[You eat the apple to the rind.]]

Unholy. Unholy. You suck the juices left in the apple core, desperate for the drops that seem to be shaping you from the clay of your former self. You feel, for the first time, real, and you hate it as much as you need it. You throw the apple away, bone dry and gnarled. <<if visited("Ida")>>[[You turn to other fruits|garden2]]\ <<else>> You are left with a hunger, unsated, a need for more, even as the apple churns in your stomach. You reach with sticky, empty fingers for [[another.|Ida]]\ <<endif>>

You stand, wiping the juices from your mouth. You have eaten of the Garden of Eden. You have enjoyed the Garden of Delights. The taste of cherry stings sharp and bright, and the burns left by oranges prickle in the breeze. You are weighted by the fruits in your belly. They drive you forward. The gate is sticky when you reach it, with sweat or fruit juices, by your own hands or those of some other who last passed through, you're not sure. You lick your fingers, the tastes comingled in your mouth, living together in your stomach, and push the gate open.

Your tongue is hellfire blisters and your fingers burn where the fruit touches you. Your skin goes red and bubbly. But the fruit remains serene, unaffected, dripping juice from your bite marks, but giving no outward sign of malice. You wonder, for a wild moment, if you might simply be allergic. <<if visited("Mrs. White","Pastor Spratt")>> You wipe your burning skin in the grass and reach for [[a different fruit this time.|garden2]]\ <<elseif visited("Mrs. White")>>[[You reach for another orange.|Pastor Spratt]]\ <<elseif visited("Pastor Spratt")>>[[You reach for another orange.|Mrs. White]]\ <<else>>[[You reach for another orange.|either("Pastor Spratt","Mrs. White")]]\ <<endif>>

You feel cheated as the juice carves rivers of pain, stinging into the flesh of your face. Why can you not simply eat an orange? You take another bite, out of spite for the thing now, so small, so empty of sustenance, yet still threatening you with anaphylaxis at every bite. When the orange is gone, you wipe your stinging mouth. <<if visited("Pastor Finch","Pastor Spratt")>> You extend your red fingers, reaching for [[a different fruit this time.|garden2]]\ <<elseif visited("Pastor Finch")>>[[Out of spite and stupidity both, you reach for another orange.|Pastor Spratt]]\ <<elseif visited("Pastor Spratt")>>[[Out of spite and stupidity both, you reach for another orange.|Pastor Finch]]\ <<else>>[[Out of spite and stupidity both, you reach for another orange.|either("Pastor Finch","Pastor Spratt")]]\ <<endif>>

Your face and hands are covered with juice, the orange all but inverting itself, sending its innards out across you and the grass. It scalds like hot water and you yelp, dropping the wilted rind. It deflates, a hollow shell, watering the grass with juice. You quickly wipe your hands in the dirt, hunger unsated, orange intangible. <<if visited("Pastor Finch","Mrs. White")>> Perhaps the time for oranges is past. You turn back to the tree and reach for [[a different fruit.|garden2]]\ <<elseif visited("Pastor Finch")>>You try again, [[reaching up for another orange.|Mrs. White]]\ <<elseif visited("Mrs. White")>>You try again, [[reaching up for another orange.|Pastor Finch]]\ <<else>>You try again, [[reaching up for another orange.|either("Mrs. White","Pastor Finch")]]\ <<endif>>

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and saith the fruit as its enzymes sting and digest the walls of your mouth. You keep eating it, this sharp-sweet, bitter-painful, safe-delicious fruit. You bite down, you hesitate, then bite down again. You can't keep it at bay for long. [[You heard once that every time you eat a fig, you're also eating the decomposing bodies of would-be mother wasps who broke in to lay their eggs, only to find the fruit barren, unlivable.]]

You eat the last of it, that unknowable fruit that rails against your every thought, your every classification. You pick the seeds between your teeth, wondering which ones really are seeds, and which ones are the half-digested carapaces of mother wasps. <<if visited("Elsie")>>[[But the tree bears other fruit, without the stench of soiled motherhood.|garden2]]\ <<else>>[[Hypnotised, unsatisfied, you reach for another.|Elsie]]\ <<endif>>

As you finish the last bite, you feel colder suddenly, a chill breeze wafts over you. You had expected something more, a moment, a closure. But instead, it's gone, nothing left but juices and seeds. You shiver. The summer is ended, and you are not yet saved. <<if visited("Mother")>> [[But figs, you know, are not the only fruit.|garden2]]\ <<else>>Another one, maybe. Another fig to give you what you need. [[You reach up and try again.|Mother]]\ <<endif>>