Fear

After Alice White

I do not know what it could be. The hard
painful lump. The hard painful swallowing.

There was a world beyond that boundary of
unknowing. For lack of a better adjective, the

chatbot tells me it is almond-sized, and so
whatever is hurting in my neck could be a

seed. Could be a fruit. A tree. Here’s what
you do not know*; before Eve and Adam had

fled, the fruit they had bit open had fallen
into the fertile earth, seeded completely its

dark womb. It didn’t take long for what was
once a garden to be choked with forbidden

trees. This is the thing about life. Your god
commanded us to multiply, to keep living. It

didn’t matter what I killed, what was killed.
The thing hurting in my neck could be a

gland, could be a lymph, a cyst. The cell
could split. The cell could burst open,

could be consumed by something malignant,
something more monstrous. It doesn’t

matter, the end was already mapped out from
the beginning. Right there, in Eden, your god

commanded us to multiply, to keep living. It
didn’t matter if you died, if you lived. The

almond buried in your neck could burst open
and germinate and bring forth a thousand

fruits. The gardeners could bite the fruit open
and flee their garden. The garden could

become a forest. Could become savage. Wild.
Whole.

 

 

Asterisked line adapted from “Ordinary Eyes” by Ameen Animashaun.