Cain and Abel

Adam was numb. In the span of two minutes, his entire world had come crashing down, and even as he watched, barely seeing, his boy Cain was hastily shoving his belongings into an impromptu knapsack, muttering something angrily under his breath. Adam’s wife, Eve, was on the floor, eyes wide and lips turned into a quivering frown, tears gathering into an imminent storm. She had been saying - mumbling, really - something about their other son, Abel, wondering what he had done. But somehow, Adam knew that this was all his fault.

With a flourish of finality, Cain shoved one more tunic into his bulging pack and, shaking his head with frustration, threw the rest of his clothes back at the closet. Then, grabbing the corners of the sack, he tied it off, hefted it over his shoulder, and wheeled about. “See ya,” he grunted with a nod and started for the door.

Suddenly, Adam knew that he could not allow this, and so, without even thinking, he rushed to put himself between his son and the world outside and, a wave of fear crashing over him, pleaded, “Cain, please. Don’t go. Tell us again what happened. Maybe... maybe there’s something we can do.”

“Dad,” the man who Adam still remembered as the toddler with curly black hair and a quick smile condescended, “I gotta go. God cursed me, remember? He won’t let me stay here any more.”

Adam knew that Cain’s hasty departure had nothing to do with God. God had made clear long ago, when Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden and yet God’s presence pursued them, that He wanted nothing more than to be with them. So none of this made sense; Adam had to hear it all again. “Please, Cain. Just tell us again. What happened?”

Cain stopped halfway around his dad and, turning, shook his head. “Dad, I told you already. I took a bunch of grain and made an offering to God. Everything was going great until Abel came along. He asked what I was doing, and when I told him, he wanted to make an offering, too. He went off, and the next thing I know, God’s got ‘regard’ for Abel and his offering. And none for me.” The young man’s eyes flared with rage, and he boomed, “What does God expect? What’s He want from me? I’m the eldest! I brought my offering first! And I gave three bushels of corn!” He stammered angrily before finally spitting, “What does He think Abel’s precious flock eats, anyway? Really, if it wasn’t for me and my produce, Abel wouldn’t have had an offering to make at all.”

Cain shook his head again, snorted, and ducked through the door. Adam turned to follow, but abruptly, Eve wailed and charged after her son, shoving her husband aside as she went. “Don’t go!” she cried.

Their boy stopped a dozen paces from the house and turned back slowly. “I told you, if this is the way God’s going to be, I can’t stay here anymore. I won’t stay here anymore.”

“We’ll talk to Him,” Eve insisted. “We’ll get Him to change His mind. He has to understand that it wasn’t your fault. If only Abel hadn’t...”

Adam placed his hands on his wife’s shoulders, and she stopped. The argument was ridiculous, and they both knew it. It hadn’t worked when they had tried it that day in the garden. And it wouldn’t work now. The God they knew shone favor when people did things right. And He withheld it only when they chose to do things wrong. And He most certainly was not going to change. “Where is Abel now, Cain?” Adam asked firmly, realizing that the boy had never really answered this most basic, essential question.

Throwing his free hand up, Cain rushed back, screaming, “Don’t you get it? He’s dead!” The word puzzled both Adam and his wife as it struck their ears for the first time ever. Of course, they had been there in the garden, after the whole fruit incident, when God pronounced that they would not be allowed to live forever, among other things, but in this instant, as the word still echoed in Adam’s ears, its actual meaning was finally real. And as if that wasn’t enough, Cain, stepping menacingly closer, continued, “I took him out into the field and, when he wasn’t looking, hit him over the head with a big rock.” He paused a beat and added with a grim finality, “He’s dead.”

Eve collapsed, face to the ground, and started sobbing loudly, uncontrollably. Stricken, Adam staggered back before the force of Cain’s rage. “Dead?” he echoed weakly, his voice and his knees trembling.

“Dead,” Cain declared once more, a bit softer if not gentler. “And now God says I’m cursed. The ground isn’t going to yield crops for me. I’m going to be a restless wanderer. And He’s going to taunt and torment me for the rest of my life. Some loving, fatherly God He is.” He turned away to go once more but stopped again after only a couple of steps, wheeled about, and continued his rant. “I just don’t get it! What does God want from me? I mean, sure, Abel gave the very best of the flock, but everyone knows he’s a suck up! It was my idea to give an offering, and I gave what I could. God owns the heavens and earth. Why’s He want more from me? And what’s the big deal if it’s not the very, very best? It’s not fair.”

Adam felt a strange, surreal pain in his chest, different from any he had known before. It was not a sting as when he had been scratched by thorns. Nor a burn as when he had discovered fire. No, this was different, as though someone had taken hold of his chest and started squeezing. It was hard to breathe, and yet, when he tried, it seemed to take no more exertion than usual. And in fact, when he tried to pinpoint the pain, it was as though it was merely a phantom.

Suddenly, Adam realized that his was not a physical sort of pain. Rather, it was the feeling of a man whose heart had just been rended, and not neatly, in two. He knew sorrow at the death of his son Abel, for sure. But as Cain stood before him now, his face still twisted with rage, somehow, the bulk of Adam’s anguish was founded in his surviving boy’s resolve to leave. There was nothing he could do for Abel. But maybe, just maybe, he could do something for his surviving son.

“Cain,” Adam begged, the tears filling his eyes now, “don’t go. You are our son, and we love you. And while killing Abel was a...” Adam’s voice caught as he realized that there was no word which could properly embody the horror of the world’s first death, the world’s first murder. For a long moment, he fought against the overwhelming wave of sorrow which was washing over him, a wave which he just knew was taking with it every semblance of normalcy which he had known since he and Eve were evicted from the garden. And as it finally subsided, he was compelled to start the sentence anew as what would probably survive as history’s greatest understatement. “Killing Abel was bad, Cain. It was wrong. It was... sin. But you don’t have to leave. If you just tell God you’re sorry, and mean it, I know He’ll let you stay.”

For a heartbeat, Cain’s expression seemed changed, even compassionate. It was as though Adam’s speech, pathetic as it was, had moved the boy, but then his brow lowered once more, and anger returned with an unshakable resolve. “No,” he declared firmly, coldly. “I will not stay here with a God who expects so much. I’m going somewhere where I won’t have to worry about Him looking over my shoulder and disapproving of me and everything I do. Good bye.”

As the man turned away once more, Adam asked, “Where will you go?”

Cain paused, as though realizing for the first time that he would have to go somewhere, and then answered, pointing off to the east, “That way.” He started walking again, and Adam knew that he had to follow.

“How far?”

“I don’t know.”

“When will you be back?”

Cain stopped again and spun back. “Look, Dad,” he spat. “I don’t know. Whenever God comes to His senses.” He wheeled east once more and continued, Adam following a few paces behind.

“And if He doesn’t change?”

“Then never,” he growled with a note of finality.

Adam slowed and came to a stop, stunned by his son’s anger and resolve. And as the boy who was now, undeniably, a man, strode angrily away, he knew that there was nothing more he could say, nothing more he could do but watch. Cain had always had an independent streak. He had always been determined. And once he had committed to something, Adam knew that there would be no turning back.

Sadly, and with more than a little alarm, Adam recognized himself in the back of his son’s head, and again, that sense of guilt rushed back. God had said that that serpent, the devil, would be out to get all of the descendants of Eve, and now, as Cain descended the slight rise on which Adam and his bride had settled after their expulsion from the garden, Adam saw just how true it would be. Adam’s and Eve’s decision to eat that fruit had somehow warped the minds of their kids, even years before they were born, and in that moment, Adam knew that Cain’s children would inherit the same. He supposed that every generation would be affected, and all because he had fallen for the lie that God wasn’t telling the truth. God didn’t really want the best for him. God wasn’t really being fair.

Oh, what he would have given in that moment to revisit that day when Eve offered him that fruit! Perhaps he would not now have one son lying dead in a field, somewhere, and another shrinking in the distance.

Standing there alone, Adam said, sadly, “I guess this must be what you felt like when we sinned.” There was no audible response; only an unmistakable impression that he was right. “And is it normal that, as angry as I am that he killed Abel, I still would give anything for him to turn around and come back?” Again, not a single sound was heard, but in Adam’s heart and mind, he felt the answer: “Now you know a little of what I feel.”