The Book
3 They remembered being small.
2 They remembered hiding beneath chairs, behind doors—listening to their families wonder about from whence they came, but their parents loved them nonetheless.
3 Upon deliberate doorsteps the newborn Isaac and Leah were placed by unknown hands as far away from each other as they could be, yet still within the confines of the periphery.
4 Neither told of their puzzling creation; they trusted they belonged where they were forsaken.
5 But as they grew older they both began to question their lineage and to listen to the voices of the city.
6 And they both began to wander in search.
7 In a city where those who have souls have no homes—who sit, selling chicken feet and sleeping in feces—they heard the whispers and saw faces turn as they stepped over prone figures.
8 Under the overpasses where the litter sleeps they were drawn.
9 Compelled by the men that came from beyond the outer wall: drawn to those that possessed answers.
10 Isaac spoke to those who had no shelter of what lay beyond.
11 Many revealed conjectures, some truths, and still others, fables.
12 And many agreed the garden was an Eden and outside the city lay a land of desert
and darkness: a land yet untouched by the hands of the gods.
13 Leah, captivated with the lore of the center, questioned whether anyone had ever been inside the wall at night.
14 By day Central Park was open to everyone.
15 By nightfall the gates were closed, even to the men that tended the earth.
16 Trapped between two worlds of immense darkness, Isaac and Leah dreamed of passing through walls and finding light.