The Last Child of Eden

A Story by Pete Fisher

A piece of Flash Fiction that I won 2nd place with. The theme was taken from a picture which showed a dark hooded figure against a desolate background.

The light had been sucked from the land many years ago. Plump flesh that was once warmed by the Sun was now just a distant memory and the stuff of tales that had, upon a time, been told by the Grey people.

“Draw closer, my child,” a bony hand extended from the ragged cloak. The child turned its head towards the sound of the voice; eyes closed where vision no longer remained, and nostrils expanding in the hope of smelling food.

The fire was leaping into the sky, revered by all. It had become the sun, the moon, the stars the giver and the taker of all things.

“Hold my hand child, I will tell you the story of warm sun, green fields, full bellies and water that flowed in rivers and streams that had not been tainted with the taste of death.”

Paper-thin flesh stretched over fragile bone that could hardly feel the sensation of a touch. The nerves that would transmit these senses to the brain were dying; a merciful relief from the torment of pain, but a cruel deprivation of the touch of love.

“Can you feel that, Child?” A thorn was slowly pushed into its hollow cheek.

“It feels like a kiss. Is it a kiss?”

“It is whatever you want it to be my child. Remember this: all the while that you can hear me, and your mind can conjure the images from my words, I can take you to those lands of long ago. To that place where a child like you was the hope for the future instead of the legacy of the curse from the past.”

A rain-stick was held to the child’s ear and it sounded like cool water tripping over river stones. A cloth bag filled with the dust of long forgotten flora, and yet still holding the scent of meadow flowers, was held to the child’s nose.

A tapestry of images was weaved in the child’s mind with words well measured and chosen, and the child smiled. “It is beautiful. It is beautiful … never before have I seen it so vividly. Will I soon feel the warmth of the sun on my skin?”

The child was lifted and cradled in bony arms and they moved into the fire. Its flames, for a moment, bowed before them and then closed them in its embrace.

“I can feel the sun, I can feel it upon my skin. It is wonderful. Will you walk with me in the summer meadow?”

“It will be my honour to do so, for you are the last of your kind,” said Death.