Gnomy tells all: stories from his lifetimes throughout the universes

While out walking through the woods one fine summer day, Adam and Eve met a new resident of the Garden of Eden. It called itself a snake. This snake flicked its forked tongue at the two humans and introduced itself as the serpent of knowledge. It claimed it was sent to answer their questions about the Garden and the natural world around them.

The snake was a welcome change from God the Creator of All, who always grew very angry when Adam and Eve expressed curiosity. The slippery reptile satisfied their thirst for knowledge by teaching them as much as their still-developing brains could comprehend. The humans loved the daily lessons the snake set up for them. In consequence, the snake easily gained their trust and was made welcome.

The humans found the snake’s stories about God’s creation of their natural world uplifting and awe-inspiring. Stories about the lovely plants and beautiful flowers within the Garden were very popular. The humans also liked hearing about why there were so many kinds of animals and why they behaved as they did. Most of all, Adam and Eve enjoyed stories about animal parents and their babies. They wondered if they could ever have their own human babies.

Adam and Eve asked to hear the stories again and again. They treasured every bit of information.

The snake told tales about how bees traveled all over the Garden to pollinate flowers. It smoothly slipped in an explanation about how apples were fruit, and fruit grew from flowers on trees. Sure enough, Adam and Eve observed tiny white blossoms becoming beautiful red apples. And they only had to observe animals eating the crisp and fragrant fruit to wonder how apples would taste and whether they would like them.

Well, we all know what happened next. Adam and Eve found apples to be just delicious. In fact, they became quite fond of mixed fruit salads on top of watercress. They enjoyed the fantastic new flavor sensations. The happy humans almost forgot that God had specifically forbidden apples to them.

Now really, things in the Garden of Eden did not have to end the way they did. God could have just accepted that humans had inquisitive minds and would never be happy as lovely but ignorant figurines. God could have found a way to provide knowledge while keeping humans humble and content in their perfect Garden.

Instead, the story goes on to say that God severely punished its human creations. It drove them out of paradise and into a terrible poverty of body and spirit. God abandoned the humans and left them in the wilderness.

The snake and the fickle creator gods, not wanting to get caught up in scenes of heavenly wrath, left the planet.

Adam and Eve were all alone. Fortunately, they were able to use their recently acquired knowledge of the natural world to help them survive. That information was all they had left to help them as they started over. The practical lessons from the serpent ended up being the thing that saved them.

Humans concentrated on adapting to their new, bewildering and incredibly difficult environment. They learned to survive and even thrive. However, they never quite forgot the story of the Garden of Eden and their sadness at having to leave its perfection.

All in all, God had struck a terrible setback to early humans. The world outside of the Garden was a difficult place with much danger and little leeway to make mistakes. It’s a wonder that these weak beings survived at all.

The story of the Garden of Eden has never been forgotten around the universes. There have been many historical documents written about that time period on Earth and its effect on the following generations of Earthlings. Indeed, scholars point to events in the Garden as one of the causes of the anger that still seems to drive human beings. Rage and poor judgement have followed humans throughout their history.

It seems like all types of beings across the universes have strong opinions on the future of humans. Should the human beings be left alone to evolve naturally? Should their cranial capacity be increased to help them develop faster? Should they be helped during crucial events in their timeline? Or was the Creator correct to leave them alone to struggle? And should they be allowed to colonize and risk spreading their poor decisions across the universes?

At this point it’s still up in the air whether humans will achieve their destiny as a valued part of the cosmic neighborhood or fall back into the pit of ignorance.

Living and working on Earth eventually became too much for a peace-loving gnome like me. I was burned out watching the struggles of Earth to become a successful planet. Going through the dinosaur obliteration, watching humans flail after they left the Garden of Eden, then seeing the humans turn around and create their own destruction on their beautiful planet, was really too much for me. It was healthier for me to move on to another work project. I had to sever all ties.

Still, I have never changed my name from Eden during all my time away from Earth. I like the association with the creation of a vital new life form. It’s also an acknowledgement that I still have hope for humans to achieve great and lofty civilizations across the universes.

We’ll all be watching to see what happens.