Forbidden Fruit

By Miriam Gosu

Oh Evi.

Sweet little Evi.

The name is dull on his tongue, but his eyes glow when the syllables meet his lips.

Poor, naive, sweet, little Evi.

How unfortunate she was to approach that very day.

The sweet thing wasn’t supposed to walk up to him

Wide eyed and inquisitive, so full of life, yet clueless all the same.

Empathy was her undoing, and when she spoke those first words, that first ‘Hello’, her life was destined to end. For

without joy, there is no life. Only an empty shell of desires. His desires.

Behind glasses, she couldn’t have guessed. His eyes were smiling for all the wrong reasons.

Then came the first strike, the Evi trapped inside the cage ate and chirped happily. What little anxiety she felt was gone, she looked at him with trust. He was her friend, always her friend.

Friends trust each other.

How wrong he was, fixing the tiny bird with his scarlet eyes. He had made no attempt to hide it. The little one was a fruit in spirit, but a young girl in flesh; an apple from the garden of Eden he plucked right off the tree. God had made no move to stop him. A child of flesh and blood, an innocent being, a succulent fruit for him to gorge himself on.

There was no care, no fear. He laid with it as a man lay with a woman. If heresy had a sin beyond it, he had embraced it. Tremors and tears served no purpose, begs and cries had done nothing to stop him.

How easy it had been to convince her; how easy it had been to grasp her tiny chin and tell her it was normal. But she knew.

Oh, she knew.

The doubt in her eyes was clear as day. But how did she feel, to be betrayed? By a friend no less? He did not care

for it, for he had cut open the bird’s chest.

He touched the sky with a finger. That should have been enough for him. Then he grappled for it. Surpassed it.

All because of her.

The bruises on her thighs and her bloodshot eyes were enough of a sight already.

Like a madman, he dug and dug through the bird’s insides, savoring the fruits of his success. For once, he wasn’t a

nobody in life.

By Miriam Gosu