Oliver Benjamin
each others’ balls.”
“It is now. But it used to be a huge, inland lake. According to the
theory, when we lived there it was a place of safety and plenty, but
then the lake dried up and they had to start looking for new sources
of water and food on dry and dangerous land.”
Roy tried to imagine it. “The Coral Gardens of Eden.”
“Sounds like it, doesn’t it?” she said, rolling out of the bed. Roy
watched as the altudinous figure, taller than he, made her way to the
kitchen and set about preparing lattés. The sinuous shadows that
dappled her form reminded Roy of the hypnotic dance of seaweed.
“That could be why we drink so much,” she called from the
kitchen, “Most other animals don’t get thirsty so quickly like we do.
Maybe it’s because we lived so long in a place with unlimited water.
We never evolved the ability to be without it. Each time we take a
drink, then, you could say we’re toasting a lost paradise.”
She returned to the bed, carrying a tray of the dark nectar, Roy’s
favorite drink: Blue Mountain Rat-Cut Special Reserve. Only a single
distributor in town carried it.
“And this was the fruit of the garden of Eden,” she smiled. “Here,
drink it. It will give you sapience.” She was pleased how seamlessly
the images fit together.
Her mobile phone rang, startling Roy into spilling some of the
coffee on his white linen sheets. Ellie answered it. It was Morris. She
told him she was out shopping. He insisted she come home
immediately. He would not tell her why, only that he had a big
surprise for her. Her excitement, feigned or not, cut through him like
an electric drill.
“What do you see in that guy?” Roy said.
“Lots of things. He’s powerful and passionate. Even a poet.”
“A poet? Come on.”
“Listen,” she smiled, and recited a verse that Morris had written
for her:
Amazon women cut off their breast,
That they might pull the bow the best,
And slay the rogues, before whom, undressed,
They likely languished unmolest.
“There’s no treasure here, the chest is spare,”
Hirsute barbarian soon declares,
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