From Dust to Dust
by Nicholas Biel


On the third day I was dust, ordinary common dust like you
see on a country road in a dry spell, nothing expected of me,
me expecting nothing neither.

On the sixth day he comes along and blows. "In my own image
too", he says, like he was doing me a favor.

Sometimes I think if he'd waited a million years by then I'd
been tired maybe being dust but after only two, three days,
what can you expect? I wasn't used to being dust and he goes
and makes me into Man.

He could see right away from the expression on my face I
didn't like it so he's going to butter me up. He puts me in
this garden only I don't butter.

He brings me all the animals I should give them names What
do I know of names? "Call it something," he says, "anything
you want," so I make names up: lion, tiger, elephant, giraffe.
Crazy, but that's what he wants.

I'm naming animals since 5 AM, in the evening I'm tired I go
to bed early, in the morning I wake up, there she is sitting
by a pool of water admiring herself.

"Hello, Adam," she says, "I'm your mate, I'm Eve." "Pleased
to meet you," I tell her and we shake hands.

Actually I'm not pleased from time immemorial nothing, now
rush, rush, rush; two days ago I'm dust, yesterday all day
I'm naming animals, today I got a mate already.

Also I didn't like the way she looked at me or at herself in
the water.

Well, you know what happened, I don't have to tell you, there
were all those fruit trees she took a bite, I took a bite,
the snake took a bite and quick like a flash, out of the
garden.

Now I'm not complaining; After all, it's his garden, he
doesn't want anbody eating his apples, that's his business.

What irritates me is the nerve of the guy.

I didn't ask him to make me even dust; he could have left me
nothing like I was before and such a fuss for one lousy
little apple not even ripe (there wasn't much time from
Creation, it was still Spring), I didn't ask for Cain, for
Abel, I didn't ask for nothing, but anything goes wrong,
who's to blame?...Sodom, Gomorrah, Babel, Ararat... me or my
kids catch it,....fire, flood, pillar of salt. "Be patient,"
Eve said, "a little understanding. Look, he made it was his
idea, it breaks down, so he'll fix it."

But I told him one day. "You're in too much of a hurry. In
six days you make everything there is, you expect it to run
smoothly? Something's always going to happen. If you'd a
thought first, conceived a plan, consulted a specialist, you
wouldn't have so much trouble all the time."

But you can't tell him nothing. He knows it all.

Like I say, he means well but he's a meddler and he's
careless. He could have made that woman so she wouldn't bite
no apple.

All right, all right, so what's done is done, but all the
same, he should have known better, or at least he could have
blown on other dust.