The Book
8 Isaac felt as a stranger in his own land.
2 Leah felt as if her soul would contaminate the balance of good and evil and tip the system into realms of disease.
3 But, the purity of the blood was a façade: the people of the city polluted the earth and the vein-like streets with their singularity of vision.
4 There, in that circular city, it was believed that God’s breadth was contained within the perimeter and that his embodiment rested in the center.
5 A belief so strong that it imprisoned them within the city and forced them to revere the garden.
6 How falsely they saw the tiny world in which they lived.
7 Isaac and Leah heard the creaking as the wood gates closed and the sun fell past the density of the outer wall.
8 The city lay in darkness like everything else outside.
9 They moved closer to one another, somehow comfortable in the other’s presence.
10 Their pulses faster. Palms sweating.
11 The wind ceased.
12 Isaac grabbed Leah’s hand and together they walked to the center, eyes wide.
13 The vegetation opened up before them where there was once no path.
14 At the center rested a fountain with four angry heads, tongues out and flowing water, facing in each of the cardinal directions.
15 And Isaac drank from the water flowing west. And Leah from the east.
16 They rested in the cover of a nearby tree.
17 Isaac grabbed Leah and pulled her to him.
18 And together they lay in sin.
19 And the night and the dawn were the
first day.