Eve Dreams

Eve hadn’t dreamed in Eden. But in the years since leaving Eden, she had gotten used to the strange sensation of waking up to the last wisps of a dream, soon forgotten.

This dream, however, felt different. She found herself in a dark and dreary waste, awash in greys, the edges of her senses soft and smokey. She perceived no ground, as if she stood on water. It was disorienting, but most dreams are if you really start analyzing them.

She started walking. Surely something must exist here, or this was going to be a very boring dream. She just had to start moving to find it. Whatever passes for time in dreams went by. Eve perceived it as an eternity. It felt like she was walking in figure eights, nothing to use as a way marker. Until she came across a large rock.

Eve considered walking past it. It wasn’t a particularly exciting rock. But it was the only thing of substance she had come across (if a dream rock can be referred to as having substance). So, she sat on the rock. Just as she was beginning to feel restless, she saw a light, growing larger as it came towards her. The light took the form of a person. An Angel.

The Angel—Eve felt a moment of familiarity as though from another life—sat down on the rock beside her. “You look tired, Eve.”

Eve thought maybe it wasn’t so much that she was tired, but perhaps that she had entirely forgotten what it felt like to be well-rested. Her muscles ached, her body was heavy. Her skin felt tight, stretched thin over her bones. Her mouth felt like she had swallowed a mouthful of sand. She was so thirsty. Thirsty for so many things. Her exhaustion felt like a tidal wave washing over her, crushing her. She wondered if she could ever rise again.

Eve meant to tell the Angel that she was fine. She would just rest for a moment on this rock, and then she would keep moving. But instead, she said, “I don’t know if I made the right choice in Eden.”

She could barely remember Eden anymore. It felt like the kind of fuzzy dream that slipped through her fingers like sand upon waking. She did remember long evenings spent talking with Adam, walking along a lakeshore. The water, a perfect temperature, lapping her bare feet. She remembered slow, warm, unhurried mornings. If she had the option now, she would return to the soft gentle womb of Eden and sleep, perhaps forever.

In response the Angel stood, drawing Eve up with her. With her hands joined with the Angel’s, Eve felt lighter, like her legs could once more bear the weight of this mortal body. Smoke pooled and billowed at their feet. “Come,” the Angel said. “If you are willing, I will show you what your choice created.”

Eve hesitated. Did she want to see? Eve took a fortifying deep breath. She was willing. With the Angel’s hand in hers, Eve stepped forward through the smoke.

Eve squinted in the blinding light of the sun revealed beyond the smoke that had surrounded them. Too bright after the dimness of the dark and dreary waste. The nonexistent dream ground beneath her feet was replaced by something hard, unnaturally flat. The Angel pulled her to the side just before someone ran into Eve. She gaped. People were everywhere.

The Angel gently pulled her to a flat, straight, wooden surface. “A bench,” the Angel explained. “I’m rather fond of them. More comfortable than your rock.” Eve barely registered the bench. The people filled her view.

They moved like a herd in constant motion, all seeming to go in opposite directions. Children darted past her, their feet not bare like Eve’s, but wrapped in colorful fabric. People moved with great haste, dressed in cloth so fine and bright it might have been spun from water and sand. Lights flashed like lightning. Everywhere she looked there was noise, color, and movement. She drowned in the sound of a thousand conversations, laughter, shouting, startling sounds she couldn’t recognize or name.

Eve’s breath quickened. The press of people and unnamed things felt crushing. She wanted to bury her face in Adam’s chest. Wanted him to name things for her, as he once had.

Even as Eve felt overwhelmed by everything, she also began to notice the familiar. She saw her daughter’s face in a baby who watched her from his mother’s arms. As the baby stared at her, Eve couldn’t help but smile, eliciting a wide, gummy grin from the baby before they disappeared in the crowd. She saw Cain and Abel in a pair of young boys who ran past laughing, jostling each other.

“Is there nowhere quiet?” Eve asked.

The Angel smiled. “Come.”

The Angel stood from the bench, startling a flock of birds, and for a moment Eve felt as though she were enveloped in feathers and wings, and she shut her eyes. When nothing touched her, she opened them again. She was surrounded by walls and hushed silence. Eve could hear the soft murmur of voices and the occasional shadow of movement in a doorway, but this room was empty of people. It was empty of everything except a few benches and images on the walls. Eve moved slowly, wary of the strange reverence in the air. The images portrayed landscapes, people in fine clothing, strange shapes, colors she had never seen before.

She stopped in front of one image that drew her in. A woman’s face, pale and soft, a wry smile, a fruit in her hand, held out as though enticing Eve. A serpent curled around the tree behind her, watching her with a strangely human, smug, knowing grin.

“It’s you,” the Angel said, startling Eve.

“Surely not. It looks nothing like me,” Eve replied with a frown, squinting at the painting.

Turning around, Eve fell back from another painting, startled. It depicted a young man tied to a tree, pierced with wounds, bleeding. Soothing landscapes, faint echoes of Eden, had given way to images of violence and blood, pained faces, blood spilt like that of sacrificial lambs.

“I need some air,” she said with a gasp, and the Angel gestured through an archway.

Eve stumbled through and they were once more outside. The air here was dry and heavy, as though no one here dared to breathe. The children here ran barefoot. Tents billowed and flapped in the wind. Dust and smoke stung Eve’s eyes. The wind carried the sound of crying. Here, like in the paintings, blood was spilt. Were those bodies? Eve couldn’t bear to look closer.

From a tent she heard hacking coughs. Eve looked around her, but she could see no water or comfort she could give. Eve hadn’t thought anyone in the world could feel as tired as she did. But she watched a mother who, with trembling hands, crouched by a cookfire. She broke bread and gave the larger piece to her child. The child’s ribs pressed against her skin like the bones of a baby bird.

“Is this the end of the world?” Eve asked the Angel.

“Not yet.”

“I did not choose this,” she whispered. “I cannot imagine how any child of mine would choose this.”

The Angel looked at her with sad, knowing eyes. Eve didn’t like that look. As though the Angel saw something in her future that would cause her to utter those words again.

She turned away, unable to meet the Angel’s eyes. Instead, her eyes met those of a child who was watching her. Eve crouched down to her height. The child had wide dark eyes, bright with curiosity. Eyes that reminded Eve of Adam. The child reached out her hand, and in her palm sat a small flower. Eve accepted her offering with a smile and was given a shy one in return. A voice called from one of the tents and the child turned and ran off.

The Angel touched Eve’s shoulder and quietly said, “Come.”

She breathed in the silence when they returned to the dark and dreary waste. Returned to the rock. The soft grey darkness was a relief to her eyes. They stung with unshed tears and ached as though they had worked too hard taking everything in. She dropped onto the rock. The Angel remained standing.

“What am I supposed to do with this knowledge?” Eve asked. She felt exhausted, not just in body, but in mind.

The Angel shrugged. “You wake up. Or I suppose you can just sit here on this rock.”

The rock was tempting. Eve could pretend there weren’t any expectations of her here. No world out there with millions of children still waiting to be born. Eve closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It was silent here. No demands. The Angel was a warm, steady presence.

Eve’s buttocks began to ache. She shifted. Fidgeted. Her feet felt restless. The rock wasn’t really all that comfortable. Her mind began to wander. Adam would be wondering where she was. She would miss him sitting here. With a soft sigh, Eve opened her eyes and awoke. A small flower was clutched in her hand.

This piece, “Eve Dreams,” appeared in Wayfare issue 7.

Michelle Graabek-Wallace is a Danish-born historian and writer interested in women’s history, lived faith, and personal voice. She aims to contribute to a Latter-day Saint literary tradition, exploring the ways ordinary lives carry enduring stories and insight, rooted in her Danish heritage.

Art by Ella Anderson (@ellart234).