Watching a Movie with Someone I No Longer—you fall asleep—you always have— / just as the murder happens / so i am left to fend for myself & your / body still i cannot bear to imagine myself translated / as rude & now i must / think of ways to carry a body /…

Iblisa was a native of Jannah. That was where she lived. In its center was an Old World Sycamore and a Well made of stones, wet with a coppery sheen. Scattered in perfect disarray were trees of olives, apples, lemons, oranges. Grapevines and tomatovines. Anything branched or stemmed, all meaty in their ripeness. Her djinn friends lived in these boughs, their black figures chattering amongst birdnests and beehives.

Of all the creatures the Voice had created, Iblisa was the closest to perfection. While the Voice imbued both Iblisa and the djinn with spirit, it was only Iblisa that the Voice also gave a heart. Though she could not see it, she could feel it—red and beating and full. Thump, thump, it went.Thump, thump.

“I am endlessly indebted to you,” Iblisa had told the Voice after her creation, her face turned up to the jagged clouds.

“And I will soon be indebted to you,” the Voice replied, echoing from above and beyond. “With your constitution comes privilege and responsibility. You must care for this place and its inhabitants. All you require is the water of the Well and the fruit of the trees. Just be sure to always nourish and protect the Old World Sycamore, for the water in its roots is the blood in your veins.”

This explanation confused Iblisa, so she inquired after its meaning.

“That is why you are distinct from other entities,” said the Voice. “I could gift you a heart only because your life was connected to another.”

Iblisa studied the tree, its pulsing leaves. It filled her with a special, intoxicating fear. How beautiful it was to have such a precarious bond, she thought. It was a blessing to be a keeper. To be chosen to keep. To be chosen at all.

Perched on the Sycamore branches were the djinn, little black shrouds. Though they had no eyes, Iblisa could tell by their stillness that they watched her with reverence. Their susurrus, though unintelligible, was a quiet, prayerful song.

Iblisa began each day by gathering the bucket from the Well, first drinking and then pouring its contents at the base of the Old World Sycamore. The water would chill her tongue and pulse under her ribs.

This rhythm was disturbed when two creatures appeared as if dropped from the crown of the tallest tree. Unlike her, they possessed neither stubby horns nor small flightless wings; instead, they had hair—the woman with brown waves and the man with black curls. Unlike her, neither had pink, fleshy skin; instead, they were a beautiful almond-brown, with some creases and tiny bumps on their faces. But like her, they had eyes, though theirs were not yellow but hazel. They had smiles with teeth. They had ears and chins and necks. Arms and legs. Most importantly, they had speech.

“Hello, I am Eve,” said one.

“Hello, I am Adam,” said the other.

“Bow down,” boomed the Voice from above. Iblisa knelt on the slick grass. The djinn amassed beside her, expanding and contracting. “Please care for my most recent creations as a good host would.”

Iblisa welcomed the two and led them through the endless garden. The leaves on the trees sparkled with dew and could be mistaken for stars were it not for the ground below. Iblisa listened to their steps—the confidence with which both Eve and Adam walked. It warmed her to know that she could make them so comfortable as to move in such bold ways. They wove around the thin and thick trunks, under high and low branches, alongside bees and butterflies. She led them to soft straw hayplaces where they would sleep. Eve and Adam smiled in what was perhaps gratitude—but then abruptly frowned.

“I am hungry,” said Eve.

“Me also,” said Adam.

“I will show you,” said Iblisa.

Her voice was firm—ready to share her world and see how it could grow . She turned to the Old World Sycamore. The gold in its leaves oscillated like blood in a fragile vein. The djinn watched breathlessly.

Over three days and three nights, she taught them how to work the land; to pick and soak olives; to save grape seeds and select the soil for planting; to wash an apple in the cold, cold creek and eat it after. On the fourth morning, sitting under the Old World Sycamore, Iblisa explained: “You can work almost everything here, excluding that which is divine.” She pointed at the leaves above, their gilt Arabic script akin to pulsing flames. Eve and Adam looked up at the tree and nodded.

However, later that day, Iblisa felt a stabbing rip from her navel to her breastbone. A phantom wound. She looked toward the Sycamore, and that was where she saw him: Adam holding a leaf; its gold turning gray; his eyes marbling with disinterest; his hand releasing what it had plucked.

“Stop!” Iblisa yelled. “You cannot touch this tree. Have I not clearly explained?”

“My apologies,” Adam said. “I hadn’t realized the gold would fade.” He kicked the leaf and walked away.

Iblisa watched him that afternoon as they sat around a large tree stump, eating. Poor Eve! Adam took the food from her hands. He ate Eve’s pears, grapes, and apple, too. Eve tremored with impatience, her face purpling. Iblisa was shocked into silence; it disgusted her to dine with someone who held others in no regard.

“I picked those by myself, for myself,” Eve said.

Adam shrugged. “I apologize.” There was no shame in his voice.

Iblisa went and picked more fruit, bringing back pears and grapes and an apple—setting them on the stump before Eve. Their skins were dewy and they impressed wet traces onto the wood. Splotches of imperfect circles. Eve ate in the order each fruit was given. Iblisa enjoyed watching her, but not directly, for she did not want to cause discomfort. Just a glance every so often. She loved hearing the crunch of the pear- bite, the pop of the red grape. She loved seeing the juices of the apple dripping onto the rough wood. Nothing was more endearing, Iblisa thought, than a messy eater. Someone who eats with their heart and not with their stomach.

Adam rose, his legs imprinted by zigzagging blades of grass. He threw his seeds onto the ground, disfiguring it with his carelessness.

“There is a proper place for those,” Iblisa said.

“Won’t they grow the same wherever they are?”

“It is irresponsible to grow something without considering where you’ve planted it. You can’t give a thing life just to let it die. There is no room here for the tree to grow. Can you see the roots under this stump?” They looked down at the protrusions, which resembled veiny and curved legs that might pick up and travel far away.

Kneeling, he collected seeds one by one until he groaned and said, “I cannot find them all.” He held out his palm with enough seeds for only one pear, a few grapes, and half an apple. The rest were lost in the verdant mess. His line of sight moved beside Iblisa—to the hand she had not realized she raised, cupped and ready to swing. She lowered it, slowly. Adam walked away, as if unaware of what Iblisa’s impulse could become. The independence of her body startled her, but she found herself more affected by Adam’s unaffectedness.

Eve leapt up and took Iblisa’s hand into hers. “Forgive yourself,” she said. Eve’s palms were full of such warmth that Iblisa felt ashamed to be the subject of her care. She felt undeserving, worried about the bounds of her power.

The djinn warbled low and long. Iblisa had never heard such a sound. When she looked their way, they shrunk back, as if afraid of her gaze. Iblisa’s heart ached like something uglier than itself.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Night came and the stars curled into new constellations. The djinn formed opaque masses on the branches of the trees—obscuring whatever fruit lay behind them. Butterflies blended into leaves; bees crawled along scaly trunks. Eve and Adam went off to slumber. Iblisa slipped into a faraway corner of the garden to speak with the Voice.

“I greatly admire your work,” Iblisa began.

The Voice thanked her, Their tenor pounding in her ribcage.

“But, respectfully, I think this last one is defective. Not Eve. The other one.”

“Adam? Defective? However do you mean?”

“He provokes and disrespects others. Worse yet, he seems unmoved by the distress he causes.”

“He has faults,” the Voice answered. “But he will learn. What else can we ask of him? After all, he is a person.”

“What is a person, exactly?”

“A being who hopes and fears,” said the Voice. Just like herself, Iblisa thought.

The Voice spoke again. “Give him time. Adam needs time.”

“But I fear the emotions he draws from me,” Iblisa said. “I shudder at the creature he could make me become.”

“He cannot make you anything. You are your own becoming.”

Her throat went thin. The stars blurred into each other.

“You, too, need time,” the Voice added. “After all, a raised hand is a threat. Learn to comport yourself, as you mustn’t harm Adam. It would be a disservice to your being.”

The conversation left Iblisa dissatisfied, and her fear transformed into bitterness. Jannah was full of time, and she believed she used it to the best of her abilities. But how much more of it would Adam require? From where would it come? And from whom? She returned to her hayplace, thinking of the uselessness of her heart if it could not translate itself into words—misunderstood by her own creator. The tree trunks now appeared scabby and dry. Unattended wounds.

A few more days passed in relative peace as the trio took to their chores. They watered the trees, disposed of rotten fruit, rehoused fallen bird nests, picked tomatoes off vines for midday meals, snapped pomegranates from their stems—splitting them open and beating the arils into their palms.

“The work of care is not easy, but it is rewarding,” Iblisa said one morning, studying Eve’s fingers under the shade of a plum tree. The laboring had stained them scarlet, olive, and umber. Above, bees buzzed, flying to and from a hive scaffolded along the trunk. The slender tree drooped with the weight of the honeybee home. How brilliant was the miracle of life, Iblisa thought. How random its choices and, still, how flourishing.

“Rewarding how?” asked Adam.

“We will be gifted sweet surprises,” said Iblisa. “Such as this.” She pointed at a piece of beehive at Eve’s feet. She tore the honeycomb into three parts, handing one to Eve and the other to Adam. The honey oozed. They knew, intrinsically, how to eat, drink, and enjoy it.

“Immaculate!” Adam marveled. “The bees made this?” His eyes watered pink, seemingly in awe. Iblisa nodded, surprised by his appreciation.

“And what are your thoughts?” Adam asked Eve.

“It’s delightful,” she said. Her tongue cleaned her honeyed lips.

Adam took a bucket of water and gave it to her. Eve drank zealously, and when she finished, he gestured toward Iblisa.

“I have no need,” she said. “But thank you.”

He smiled and bowed his head.

It was unusual to hear laudatory words from Adam and his interest in the opinions of others. It was even stranger to witness such displays of hospitality. What if the Voice was right? What if this man was full of hopes and fears? Was capable of being something more than himself? The bees buzzed and buzzed. Iblisa welcomed being wrong, for she could relinquish the burden of being right. There could be a future for Adam. For Eve. For herself.

At dawn, Iblisa did not awaken to the usual sunlight. It took several blurry blinks to realize the djinn were looming over her. They stood on the ground, not bobbing in the trees. Their forms had grown terrible and bipedal—forms like humans, forms of shadows. Iblisa still could not understand their whispering, but she did not need to, for they extended their opaque hands and lifted her by the arms. They pulled her along, her skin hot with unease.

They wove around the thin and thick trunks, under high and low branches, and stopped at the plum tree where the hive was now broken, its innards exposed and dripping. Jagged bits of comb weighed on the grass below. The djinn guided Iblisa along a matted honey trail, gliding quickly and quicker until they reached the Well. They crammed around the structure, their long black fingers spilling over the Well’s lip. A djinni pointed at a bucket nearby. Iblisa retrieved it and assumed her position, peering down into the Well’s magnetic obscurity. She imagined throwing herself into its abyss, how long it would take to fall. The djinn clutched her arms and pushed the bucket forward, latching it onto the hook. Iblisa let the rope rush and burn the meat of her hands. There was a splat. As she pulled it up, she noted the abnormality of its weight. The alarming imbalance.

She hugged the bucket and scrutinized what she had dredged. Chunks of hive were sharp at the water’s surface. Some bees still squirmed adrift, legs and wings propelling them in spirals. Others floated like pits of cherries. Iblisa scooped the living few, but they could not drag themselves along her skin. The little lives stopped their efforts. Each one a carcass.

The djinn exhaled as one massive black lung. Iblisa remained frozen. Held the dead bees in her open palm. How was such horror possible in a place so serene? In her home? Her bones hardened. One djinni took the creatures from her hand and walked them to the base of the Old World Sycamore. Upon its return, the shadowy figure pried the bucket from Iblisa and poured the remaining contents at the roots, too. The djinn took turns gathering the deceased from the Well until the water ran clear. They put a clean bucketful to Iblisa’s lips and she drank slowly. The chill restored her senses but not her heart.

“How did this happen?” she asked.

The djinn ushered Iblisa back to the site of the transgression. While their mouths could not speak, their bodies could. Several shifted into myriad shapes: one into Adam, another into Eve. A third figure contorted into a hive. Grumbling came from their stomachs, and Adam-djinni took a rock from the ground, using it to beat the hive. Eve-djinni grabbed another and joined his feral toiling. A chunk of comb came off into Adam-djinni’s hand, but the rest of the hive collapsed to the ground.

The hive-djinn split into a swarm of bees. They buzzed, every one diminutive and unforgiving. They swarmed Adam-djinni, who held onto his honeycomb and fitfully swung at them. He sped through the trees, the bees hounding him. Eve-djinni watched, trembling. She picked herself up, turned her attention to the fallen hive, and began dragging it along the grass.

Iblisa followed.

Then it happened: Eve-djinni stopped at the Well and heaved the hive-djinn into the structure’s depths.

There was a splash.

Before Iblisa could process her shock, the djinn returned to their humanoid silhouettes. Their eyeless, mouthless, and faceless bodies stared. Had they no sense of responsibility for the world of which they were a part? How had it become her encumbrance alone to care for this land while others neglected it, abused it?

“Why didn’t you do something?” she asked. They stood unwavering.

“You should have done something!” she yelled. Buzzing rattled her insides. The djinn shrunk into inchoate masses, slinking up and away to the boughs. They were far now. Out of reach.

Iblisa ran and ran. The wind grazed her skin, whistled deep in her ears. Clouds ripped through the gray sky, for the land was in mourning. Tears pearled down Iblisa’s face in funereal procession. The Voice said Adam needed time but mentioned nothing of Eve. What more damage could be done under the guise of patience? The djinn’s reenactment replayed in the worst parts of her mind. The heave. The hive. A haven, gone.

When Iblisa reached the hayplace, she found Adam lying with his head on Eve’s lap. He moaned, his face and neck and hands swollen into gnarls. He was red and shiny. It reminded Iblisa of her own skin, and she resented that they could be alike. Eve soaked her arms in buckets of water. Her skin was rosier. Mounds and bumps blemished her shoulders.

Iblisa had intended to reprimand the pair, but the sight of them filled her with self-reproach. It was her fault, she thought, for not advising them to be cautious around the bees, else they might do the creatures harm—or be harmed. But how was she to know such danger if she had never been stung? Could one be warned of what has not yet been discovered?

Nonetheless, Adam provoked the bees while Eve helped kill them, and in the most horrific way. “Why?” Iblisa asked. Her choler emerged as a whisper.

“We wanted more,” Eve said. “But there were too many of them, and you weren’t near to help when our modest desires turned awry.” She groaned and took an arm out of the bucket. Her fingers were pruned.

“But why discard them? Drown them?”

“I was scared,” Eve said. “Of the bees. Of what such a scene would do to you. What that would mean for us.”

A being who hopes and fears.

How awful it was to act out of panic, Iblisa thought, and shape the world with its recklessness. She begrudged Eve for blaming her, as if the abominable killing were Iblisa’s doing. But what was the nature of Eve’s fright? Was it selfless? Iblisa was concerned that it was not the same emotion as her own. It gave her the sensation of being an unfinished creation.

And yet, Eve was right in some way. Iblisa hadn’t been near to prevent the matter. To fix it. To help those who knew no better. The ugliness in her heart turned inward. It felt as if a small beast had manifested in its chambers. It fed on the organ. On the muscle. On her flesh. On her.

Thump, thump, thump.

When she stepped toward them, she noticed flecks where the skin was raised. The bees had left parts of themselves in these people. Divine justice.

“Promise me you will do no harm,” Iblisa said.

Eve winced in pain and put her arm back into the bucket. “I promise,” she said, nearly inaudible. Iblisa knelt beside Eve and studied the stingers. She pinched one and plucked it, like picking a cherry from a tree, over and over until they were all removed. Her vision bleared from the strain, her shoulders tensed. Even so, she then tended to Adam. Iblisa felt herself to be inadequate, that there were stingers still lodged in parts unknown. Never to be found, always to be endured.

The day Eve fully recovered, Iblisa found her waiting at the Well, buckets in hand, ready to water the trees together. Part of her face hid under her hair. The brown waves were tangled into small nests. She smiled without her teeth. Iblisa smiled, too, her cheeks quivering; it pleased her to see this person ready to right wrongs and care for the world she loved. The world she grew. Iblisa would trust what Eve had promised.

Wordlessly, Iblisa took a bucket, set it on the hook, and lowered it into the Well. She pulled up the thick, braided rope and gave the overflowing object to Eve. As she readied the next one, a stabbing pounded from her guts to her lungs. She coiled and dropped to her side. Eve tugged her into standing. In her periphery, Iblisa espied Adam under the Old World Sycamore. Plucking its leaves.

Iblisa’s rage churned, her body volcanic. The garden morphed in hue. The greens turned to reds, the reds to purples, the purples to blues, the blues to yellows, and all the colors in between.

“You!” Iblisa clawed his arm. “What use are your ears if you do not listen? Be grateful the Voice gave you such capacities! Use them!”

“To what was there to listen?” Adam asked, pulling away.

“I told you not to touch the leaves of this tree! To stop! I showed you the life in the garden. Its abundance! Yet you touch the untouchable.”

“How can it be untouchable if it is here, and I am touching it?”

“Being able to touch and having the permission to touch are far from the same.”

“I can make them the same,” Adam said.

“If you do, then that is theft. You are robbing it of its peace and me of my calm.”

“The tree does not belong to you,” Adam said.

The djinn came out to listen, bobbing and chittering; their presence reminded Iblisa of her inability to show bodily and vocal restraint. She threw her hands and sunk her fingers into Adam’s shoulders.

“Oh, but it does. It is my lifeblood! But it needn’t belong to either of us to constitute theft. Stealing does not mean taking from another. It means taking what is not yours! You stole the beauty I cultivated. Therefore, you are a thief.”

“I took a leaf! Are you not stealing by taking lemons, pears, and apples?” He held up a barbed finger.

“That work helps the tree stay strong and bear more fruit. It keeps me, the caretaker, healthy. This Sycamore you are touching, though, binds me to Jannah. To this life. The Voice has made me so.”

Eve stepped forward and spoke: “Adam, you cannot impose yourself on others. Look at the land. Let us respect it.” Eve motioned to the lush plenitude behind her.

“That is precisely why I must have what belongs to this tree,” he said. “Because this is not like those.”

“Leave it alone,” Eve said. Her newfound voice surprised Iblisa, how it urgently conveyed itself. It was heartening to have someone defend her in this way. A creature in whom she might finally confide and trust. Was there a name for such a being?

Adam stood there, his fists bony and imperfect. “I am perplexed,” he said. He opened his mouth again, ready to say more, then closed it. He strode in the direction of the orange and lemon trees, far enough to become small, smaller, and disappear.

The bucket shook in Iblisa’s hands, and she dipped it back into the Well in silence. Once she had filled several, she motioned for Eve to carry one in each hand to a patch of lemon trees. Eve rubbed her hands before taking one and tossing water onto the plants.

“I am sorry for his disrespect,” said Eve. “You have been so hospitable, even through our lapses.”

“I don’t accept the apology,” Iblisa said. “You need not be responsible for his puerility. It is unjust. You need only to realize your past wrongs. To be better, both for me and for yourself.”

Eve sighed and grimaced. “I hope we will all come to understand one another.”

A curious admission. Until now, Iblisa had only accounted for her own sentiments toward individual humans, not their relationships. “Are there ways in which you don’t understand him? What is your opinion?”

“Of Adam?” Eve poured the last of the water. “I do not know the right word. To say I feel revulsion is too strong. Disgust is too weak. I suppose it is my own fault.” She dropped the bucket.

“What is your fault?” Iblisa asked. Her skin pimpled with distress.

“Adam has been rough with me.” She picked a lemon off the tree, punctured its skin with her thumb, and began to peel. “Yesterday, he threw his body against mine, so febrile his skin turned green. I did not know what to do. I was given speech, but my voice is feeble. I wish I could have yelled as Adam often does when you are not around. I could have scared him into leaving me be. But his hands searched me until they stopped at my most private places. That part of me stings worse than the bees we suffered.”

Iblisa’s chest prickled and her heart slowed. To imagine Eve’s story was unbearable. She watched Eve rip the lemon and offer her half. Its flesh shone wet and bright as jewels.

They ate, and juice seeped into the splintered skin of Iblisa’s palm. She licked the tiny, stinging wounds. Her lips curled with the tartness.

“I can teach you to better use your voice,” Iblisa said, savoring the pulp and bitter skin. “That way, should Adam harm you again, you can scare him while I arrive at your aid.”

“You are magnificent,” Eve said. “Why create me when there is so much power in you?”

“Do not undermine your kind when the future may enable change. Be grateful we are here together. And look at everything we get to tend.” Iblisa opened her arms to their surroundings. The trees, the lemons, the grass, the water, the butterflies, the sky, the sun. “Let us protect it.”

And so Iblisa and Eve went back to the Well and watered more trees before resting on plush grass. Young birds continued to chirrup. The djinn murmured. “The most important thing to mind when yelling or screaming is not your voice, but your breath. The sound comes from the throat, but its force rises from the belly. Learn to breathe out your cries. Watch.”

Iblisa stood, took in a deep breath, and let out a yell that shook the grass and hushed the birds. The djinn peeked from the branches and watched, humming. She worried that she would see Eve’s face agape, full of fear. Instead, she was smiling. With her teeth! Eve rose, took a deep breath, and screamed. It resounded beyond their paradise, to places they would never know. Her face reddened and she laughed.

Iblisa laughed too. “Again!”

Eve grabbed Iblisa’s hands and screamed and screamed. Her voice wisped the clouds into impossible shapes. Iblisa screamed with her, the wind carrying their sounds so far that Adam came running, seemingly frazzled. His eyes were puffy, chest scarred from the bee stings.

“What is wrong?” he asked.

Iblisa and Eve laughed again. Iblisa had never experienced such joy—the way breath could intoxicate.

“What is wrong!”

Eve answered with a scream, and Adam brought his hands to his ears, closed his eyes, and wrinkled his face. He marched away. This time, they did not watch him become small. Instead, they listened to the birds. A pair of starlings flew up and up, toward a cloud that stretched itself to hug another.

She was grateful to feel the beauty of her heart, to be rid of its ugliness. Eve had gifted that to her in this moment—this sense of knowing herself. Who was her true creator, Iblisa began to wonder. The Voice or the woman before her?

From the ground, Iblisa grabbed another lemon. “And if I am unable to hear or help, it is important you know to use your hands.” She placed the fruit in Eve’s palm. “Squeeze until juice drips.”

Eve strained to crush the lemon, her cheeks reddening with exertion. Over and over she pressed its sides. Nothing excreted. Iblisa enveloped Eve’s hand in hers. “It is not so much about destroying the fruit as it is discovering your strength. It is good to know what you can and cannot do. The ways you are strong or weak. All you need is an awareness of your muscles, in something even as small as a finger. This will help you believe you can fight, should the time come.”

Eve’s eyes flittered. “I hope the time never comes.”

Iblisa took the lemon back, pressed the rind until it burst. The liquid spurted and dripped. It was difficult to tell whether it was her own strength or Eve’s that caused the rupture. Regardless, she delighted in accomplishing the feat together. How fragile were the makings of this world, she thought. How fragile were the beings who kept them.

That night, Iblisa prepared for bed, content in knowing she had given Eve a gift. She slept soundly, surrounded by the chirping of crickets and the singing of cicadas. In the morning, however, she awoke in a circle of djinn who were again in human-like forms.

Something was amiss.

“What is it this time?” she asked, rising. Several djinn aligned. Two transformed into needled hayplaces, then another two fashioned into familiar figures: one the silhouette of Eve, the other of Adam. They were sleeping peacefully until Adam-djinni awoke. He threw himself onto Eve-djinni, and the struggle began.

The shadows transmogrified into horrible shooting shapes. Eve-djinni’s face reached up like a flame for oxygen. Screaming, grabbing, kicking, hitting. Adam-djinni fought her, covered her mouth, and forced himself onto her. Iblisa hated her inability to look away, the way her disbelief manifested such revolting focus. It was sickening: the undisturbed nature of the hayplaces, the other djinn unmoving in their bipedal forms. The watching. The silence.

A violent incalescence ignited Iblisa. She screamed and lunged for the djinn. Her fists thud into their silhouettes, but they continued their show as if she were absent. The others pulled her away.

“Useless creations!” she shouted. “Shadows of nothing!”

They finished their motions, and Adam-djinni laid back to sleep as if he had done nothing at all. Eve-djinni took to her feet, and suddenly, in her hands was a large rock. She hovered over Adam-djinni’s slumbering body and lifted the object. Just as she was ready to throw it upon him, she collapsed, holding it to her chest. She laid on her side, away from him. Restless and fitful.

And so the djinn ended their performance, prostrating in front of Iblisa. The other silhouettes finally let go, their hands imprinted on her arms. They shrunk into their nebulous selves and disappeared into the trees.

The clouds were infernal. She thought she saw Eve’s face amongst them, then her human fingers snaking around the largest of the billows as though to hurl it downward. Iblisa cowered and awaited impact. Instead, a heavy breeze blew through her.

Was she afraid of Eve or her courage? Perhaps that was what Eve required: someone to sustain her wrath, understand its strength. Someone to recognize the hope behind the violence. Where the djinn had watched, Iblisa resolved to act. She would let Eve hold justice and be subject to her judgment. She unfurled into standing, searching the sky for Eve’s face to invite her smite. But Eve was no longer there.

Then she heard screams.

Iblisa raced with such speed that her lungs labored to fill. Upon arriving at Eve’s hayplace, she saw her lying fetal, the shade of the tree casting implacable darkness. Eve had changed. Her belly was round and swollen, the size of a water-bearing bucket. Iblisa laid down next to her and put a hand on her navel. Her skin was tight and leathery. A thumping came from within.

“What is this? What is inside?”

Eve moved her head only slightly, hair knotted and covering her face. “Adam—” she moaned. “I could not scream. He gripped me hard, and I tried to breathe. Tried to fill my lungs. My belly.” She lifted her fingers. “Tried to use my hands.”

She exhaled with a shudder—the kind of breath released after laborious weeping. Her body jolted and she cried out. She turned onto her back, digging her fingers into her belly. Water poured out of her parts below. And then began her bellows, as if expelling herself from her body. Her legs opened, and she took Iblisa’s hand and squeezed so hard Iblisa thought she heard bones snap. A golden light came from Eve. Iblisa knelt between her legs and her pink skin became blood- orange against the golden light.

Slowly, it appeared: a head, with gelatinous threads of hair. Instinctively, Iblisa put her hands under the creature, who was sliding out of Eve, bathed in the glow. A thick, violet vein connected the being to her, and it throbbed as if a heart. Iblisa bit the vein at its base, and the light faded. Eve secreted an object like a wide, crushed rose— pulpy with blood. The creature cried. Sharp, shrill, and wanting. Eve looked on, sweat at her forehead, her lips cracked—the skin under her eyes sagging with invisible weight.

She needed water.

Iblisa left the crying thing in Eve’s arms and hurried to gather buckets.

And there he was. Adam. Looking down into the Well.

Her tongue slid around her mouth with the cord’s residual sliminess. It was hot and bubbling—the same as her blood at the sight of him. Odious. Was he not an example of the dangers of creation? Where was his punishment for what he had forced unto Eve? For what he had put inside her? Not in Iblisa’s garden. Retribution was to be had.

She started for Adam, her body uncontrollable.

“What have I done now?” he asked. “Why are you looking at—”

Iblisa seized his throat. Throttled him until her nails broke his flesh. It was as easy as sticking a finger into rotten fruit. Hot ruby liquid. He threw up his hands and tried to push her away, but he was too weak. Too human.

Iblisa threw him into the Well and waited to hear the splash. No sounds came from its depths, but it didn’t matter, for she knew he was dead. She let her heart revel in its ugliness. What she had done was the only thing she could do. It was the righteous way.

She stared into the darkness of the Well. The pupil of a soulless eye.

The djinn reappeared before her, replaying the scene: Adam-djinni at the Well; him turning around; Iblisa-djinni strangling him; her tossing him away; her peering into the Well. Never had she witnessed herself outside of her being. At the same time as her actions frightened her, she believed there was power in monstrosity, in fearing oneself.

The djinn bowed and flourished away.

She took the bucket and sent it down into the Well. When she brought it up, the water was colder and clearer. The water of Jannah. Perfection.

The garden was wild with the sounds of the living. Iblisa let Eve drink from the bucket. Large, hungry gulps. The little being was still wailing. Iblisa then poured the remaining water onto them, using her hands to wash their bodies clean.

“Come into the sun,” she said. “You will both dry more easily.”

So they did.

Iblisa cradled them from behind and tried to keep them warm. Her heartbeat sped to the rhythm of Eve’s shivers. The longer they laid under the rays, the steadier their breathing became. She reveled in feeling small with them. Their synchronized heartbeats.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

The sensation was fleeting and replaced by remorse when Iblisa remembered what act of Adam had made this moment possible. All she could hear thereafter was the suckling and gnawing of the voracious creature at Eve’s breast.

They finally dried, and Iblisa pushed the hay into the half-shade of a larger apple tree.

“Do not worry,” she told them. “I won’t go anywhere unless you require it of me.”

“More water,” Eve said.

And so Iblisa ventured to the Well again, content. Proud, even. It gave her purpose to defend and avenge those who could not. That she used the privileges the Voice had given her to rid the universe of Adam’s defects. The garden took a more golden hue, and it became the undertone of the azure sky, the emerald leaves. Iblisa admired the world around her—feeling blessed that it afforded her such dependability. The capacity to need and, now, to be needed.

She noticed, though, that no birds chirped. No butterflies fluttered. No djinn whispered.

There was the crunch of an apple.

It was Adam. Free of wounds. Entirely himself, as the Voice created him.

“How?” she yelled. “I made you gone!”

He continued eating and the Voice boomed above.

“Iblisa, I created you to care for this garden and its creatures. When I procured Adam and Eve, I intended for them to thrive under your guidance. I intended they would eventually find their independence. But you have done the unspeakable. You have attempted to take the life of one of my most precious creations. Why?”

Suddenly, Iblisa was no longer small. It terrified her feeling this giant and visible. And yet she had to relay her tale.

“He did not respect the garden nor its inhabitants,” Iblisa said. “He brutalized and betrayed Eve. I implore you to perform justice and teach him what is acceptable in this world.”

The crunching of the apple again.

“But he is imperfect!” the Voice boomed. “Even if I were to teach him, he would act otherwise. Is that not what you also do, Iblisa? Don’t you, too, have the ability to act in any way you would so like? It is a gift I have given you. It is a gift both you and Adam share.”

“And Eve,” said Iblisa.

“And Eve,” said the Voice. “And what you did for her was undeniably miraculous. You held the first human baby, brought it into this world. Yet, you tried to kill Adam. How do I adjust for this matter?”

Another crunch of the apple. Iblisa loathed Adam’s face—its absence of expression, the dullness in its pupils. The golden hue that once washed the world faded in his presence. She clenched her fists.

“He caused the death of the bee colony!”

“And is there no such thing as an accident?” asked the Voice. “To kill with intention, as you have, is a different matter.”

“You cannot deny that I gave Eve her life when I did what I did. I acted out of integrity.”

“Iblisa,” the Voice said. “It was not your choice to make. You are not the sole entity to decide what is or is not just.”

She eyed the Well and the bucket beside it. Adam was walking near the Old World Sycamore, the gold of its leaves glittering. “So be it. Now, I really must get water. I must care for Eve and her creature.”

“I fear you cannot,” the Voice said. “There are no more actions I may permit you in Jannah.”

Iblisa keeled over, a stabbing from within. She looked at Adam and the Sycamore. No leaf laid on the ground. No leaf in his hand. The tree had not been touched, yet a fire burned through her.

“But I am the keeper of the garden! I watered these trees and plucked their fruit. I cared for the djinn. I admired the butterflies and mourned the bees. Everything you see here will wither without me! Eve will wither without me.”

“They will find their way,” the Voice said.

Tears ran down Iblisa’s face. She tried to wipe them, but there was no stopping the flooding.

Iblisa heard crying—a high-pitched and rattling sound. The woes of a human baby.

The wind lifted and took her. The baby’s wailing vanished, as did the garden.

Iblisa was plummeting through the air. Hurtling. She fell the only way a being like her could: less like a bird, and more like a person—heavy and alone.

She did not sense her landing, just that the chaos stopped. All went black except for a hole above. It revealed the deep blue of a sky. Green leaves flickering with gold. She sat in cold water, and her slight movements echoed in the vertical tunnel. Rivulets seeped from a couple of holes in the stone walls.

Beside her was a bucket. It was then that she knew she’d never be thirsty. Not because she had water, but because she resolved never to drink it again.

Human speech reverberated down the Well. A woman’s voice.

“Eve!” Iblisa called up. “Save me! Send the rope!” Instead of Eve, she saw shadows. The djinn.

Looming, shrinking. Heat pricked Iblisa’s ears and neck, knotted her throat; she was ready to shout her fury but had already exhausted herself. If they did not help then, they would not help now—they were of spirit and not of heart. Who was left to hear her?

Unable to go up, Iblisa resolved to find elsewhere.

She dug a finger between the stones, carving around their edges until she pried one out. Behind it was the end of a root with thin and spiraling tendrils. Same as the Sycamore leaves, it pulsed gold. She wondered if her blood was the same color.

Desperately, she bore past the roots, through the trails of worms and nests of earwigs, under the homes of rabbits and moles, around pockets of gold and silver. When she broke through ground into air, she found she was still in the Well. This time, there was a hive and bees—sprouting from the side of the tunnel above, just out of Iblisa’s grasp. She reached for them, regardless. One honeybee leapt onto her hand. Roamed her skin as if Iblisa were its home. How monstrous it was to have such a precarious bond, she thought. To have been a keeper. To have been chosen to keep. To have been chosen at all.

She cupped the tiny being and held it to her heart.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

SleepoverWhen I sleep with men, I will remember the sleepovers. Lying curled in the crook of that masculine tang, Old Spice and old socks, I will remember Bath & Body Works—Warm Brown Sugar, and the way the scent, sprayed, clung particulate to the peach fuzz on your neck.It’s Friday. We flip to that same, two-page…

Dear lovely reader,

To understand our fascination with gods, please step with me into this handy-dandy time machine I’ve conjured. We’ll press a few impressive, sci-fi, glowing buttons—beep-boop—and gasp as the metal craft shakes, hurling us back in time. Three thousand and twenty-four years fly by—and many, many miles, depending on where you’re cracking open this tome—and we’ll step out onto the dusty roads of Ancient Greece.

At this time, Athens is the peak of civilization (in the West), the birthplace of society, of democracy, of philosophy. Sure, the Indus Valley and Mayans were arguably more technologically advanced (thank you, actual flushing toilets and intensely complex timekeeping!), but what was special about the Greeks is that they were one of the first civilizations that wanted to find answers to everything, from how the elements mixed in our bodies to where knowledge comes from. They were thinkers, philosophers, scientists, sociologists, psychologists—all the things we hail as highly intellectual, highly grounded in fact and method. And in terms of lasting influence, man, they kicked ass and took names. Everything from modern-day democracy to the first concepts of atomics (the idea that stuff is made of littler stuff that we can’t see) and heliocentrism (that our planets revolve around the sun) was influenced by these toga-clad thinkers.

But at the same time as this science was on the rise, faith—what we’ve been told is the antithesis of science—not only thrived but also was needed to make everything else work.

For example, let’s strap on our sandals and wander up the rocky pathway to the Parthenon. It’s not in ruins.

The roof is intact and painted gloriously. The Ottomans haven’t used it to store explosives that “accidentally” go off. It’s beautiful, a sixty-two-foot-tall acropolis overlooking the city full of sun-bleached roofs.

Rain starts to patter on the stone. A storm is coming. Now shudder with me as a bolt of lightning blazes through the sky, scaring the bejesus out of us both. Someone beside us mumbles, “Zeus must be angry.”

Our modern-day brains are tempted to judge this person. Surely for such an advanced civilization, a big old shirtless god in the sky tossing lightning bolts feels foolish… but let’s think about where science was at the time.

Advanced as they may be, the Ancient Greeks have no understanding of weather patterns, of the cool air in the clouds that conjures rain, of colliding positively and negatively charged particles creating flashes of light to carve open the sky. They know only what they can observe. They see enough to know there are four seasons but not why some years are wetter than others. They can observe a healthy body corrupting, but they have no microscopes, no way to understand the many, many ways we can decay on a cellular level.

You see, the Greeks are smart, they are method-centric, they believe in logic… but when there are that many question marks, logic simply doesn’t cut it.

Without modern-day physics, chemistry, astronomy, if you look at the sky broken open by a bright, blinding light and a crack so loud it shakes your bones, what explanation makes more sense than god?

And, for the Greeks, a whole pantheon of them! Don’t understand the movement of the sun? It’s Apollo, dragging the sun along behind his chariot. Are your crops doing better than your neighbor’s? Well, Demeter just likes you better. Are you struggling to get pregnant while your sister can’t seem to stop? Better get your ass down to the temple and pray to Aphrodite.

Like the Greeks, most ancient civilizations used gods to explain natural phenomena that people could observe but not fully understand. Gods, you see, have always been a convenient Band-Aid we toss over anything we just don’t understand. But more than that, in Ancient Greece, science and religion are, in many ways, one. They aren’t competing for dominance. Instead, they team up to explain the biggest, most complicated elements of our world.

But, of course, like any powerful coupling, science and religion were bound to break up.

Now let’s jump in our time machine and cruise forward to the first century CE and the birth of Christianity. For anyone who’s studied the history of religions, you’ll be sick of talking about how much Christianity disrupted the entire field, but think about it: before Christianity, almost all the major faiths’ pantheons— certainly, Greek, Roman, and Norse—all had warrior gods, gorgeous, sexy, capricious bastards who only took a shine to the most magnificent of mortals. The Achilles and Minamoto no Yorimitsu of the world. The 1% of the 1%. Only they mattered to the stars of the big soap opera in the sky.

Those religions, dear reader, were not made for the masses. They were made for the few. Not everyone, after all, is invited to dine forever in Valhalla.

But then, here comes Jesus, who loves you just the way you are, every last one of you. And you don’t need to be great—in fact, being great might be quite bad for you. The meek, he tells us, will inherit the earth.

Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, and Christianity all share this ground-breaking idea of a God who loves anyone, anyone, who is devout, who follows divine laws, and who loves and celebrates their religious values.

These religions no longer try to explain natural phenomena, largely because society was starting to get a grasp on them. During the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, science had at least some explanation for the movement of the stars, for weather, for the human body. Certainly, it wasn’t always right—Earth as the center of our solar system, leeches pulling toxins from the body, flies spontaneously manifesting—but an authority figure could stand before you and deliver an explanation that lined up with your lived experience.

Instead, the question mark centered on the unseen world: Do we have souls? Where do we go after we die? How should we live?

And man, oh man, did the birth of modern-day monotheistic religion tell people all those things and more. Not just how to live and die, but who to love, who to hate, who was worthy of forgiveness, and who was too far gone. Across the globe, religion became one of the most successful forms of government, of community, of moral order.

And suddenly, the days of the Greeks were over. Faith and science didn’t work hand in hand to help us understand the world. They were enemies, destined to battle it out to the end. And so began the wild escalation of murdering scientists and philosophers. Of “Us versus Them” thinking. Of holy wars and the massive, massive, money-making machine of the church.

Let’s skip over the dozens of centuries of religious wars and blood-soaked battlefields and cruise right back to the modern world of Starbucks caramel macchiatos and smartphones. Statistically, in the West, religion is losing its hold. In America, less than half the population reports being religious, with 20% considered devout, weekly churchgoers. Europe is even lower, with only 40% identifying as religious.

Every decade, these click a little further down.

Of course, there are strong exceptions beyond the West, with South America, Asia, and the Middle East still largely identifying as religious, but from the places where most of us are reading this Editor’s Note, it certainly looks like science is winning the war. And that a deep exploration of gods—say, in a lovely little lit anthology like this one—is growing less and less relevant with each passing year.

But, let’s face it, I just accidentally wrote four pages about the history of gods—and I’m not even at my favorite part yet! Because no matter what the stats about the decline of religion tell us, we are, as a people, fascinated by it. Look at the best-selling fantasy novels of the last fifty years: Circe, Percy Jackson, The City We Became, Dune, Good Omens. We are fascinated by the idea of the divine, from police procedurals starring Lucifer to Bruce Almighty generally sucking at playing god.

So, as with all issues of F(r)iction, we listened to our readers, our students, and our own passions, and started putting out calls for submissions about gods. As a lover of world religions, I expected lots of retellings, wild fantasies where old gods try to walk among us. Or perhaps new gods who mimic what we fret about today, Gods of Instagram and our nightly worship in front of our God of Televised Entertainment.

But like every issue, I’m always surprised by what our community conjures. A first glance at this content will show a big fascination with death—in many ways, a question mark that makes even the most devout Christian or fervent atheist hold a sliver of doubt. From a ride-share app for ghosts to complete their “unfinished business” to a pastor using crazy sci-fi tech to find a way to die that won’t destroy the faith of his flock, death was everywhere.

It’s even seeped into our “In-World Interview,” in which bestselling author Neal Shusterman is interviewed by his own characters from his Arc of a Scythe books, a rad sci-fi series in which a god-like AI has cured all the world’s woes, including death… but in a world without death, someone needs to keep population growth in check, thus introducing a world of modern-day Gods of Death who can “glean” a select number of the immortal humans.

There were also far more works rooted in modern-day Christianity than I expected, including creative nonfiction grappling with the guilt and pressure of standing strong in that remaining 20% devout church demo. We’ve got poetry, essays, and stories that bravely explore contrasting belief systems and how damn hard it is to balance joy and obedience.

And, of course, there are some profoundly hilarious pieces too. I’m particularly tickled by the opener feature by F(r)iction alum K-Ming Chang, exploring how gods evolve to stay relevant, and an utterly fantastic comic by Kieron Gillen in which two tech bros try to disrupt the oldest industry out there… badly.

However, of all the pieces in this journal, the one that takes gods and makes them so deeply human and relatable for me is “Good as God,” a comic memoir from one of our justice-impacted students.

You see, when this theme was just a random thought, I brought it up in one of our Frames Comic Program courses last year. We were teaching a class for formerly incarcerated and justice-touched folks, particularly those with felony drug charges. As it turns out, our students spend a lot of time thinking about God, not only because many of our students are religious themselves, but also because selling drugs is its own form of god-like power. Many of our students were high up in the trade—big money, big influence, lots and lots of worship by their communities… and goodness me, does that sort of power leave a mark.

The class discussion was a Great Flood of questions: How do we redefine ourselves without this power? How do we fight the temptation to go back? How do we accept that there is something or someone bigger than us, and will that make our lives better?

And as our students started delving into their own turning points—moments in their lives when their choices most deeply impacted the trajectory of their lives—one of our students, Jaron, was particularly drawn to the theme. You see, Jaron was writing about growing up in his father’s drug empire, but he was struggling to really land what it was like to feel so in awe of that power, so taken by it even when it killed those he loved.

I won’t ruin the memoir for you, dear reader, but as one of his teachers, I can tell you that the lens of Greek mythology finally helped Jaron express what it was like to be split between his father’s powers and his legit family, a demigod torn between two worlds.

And as I watched Jaron and the amazing artist, Shan Bennion, bring this memoir to life, I thought again and again of that time machine we traveled in. Of the question marks in my students’ lives that they needed gods to answer.

In fact, in all the stories, essays, and poems in this issue, that same lesson applies. Gods—whether of a mystical power source or the power we find within our mortal reach—are still the go-to answer when we can find no other explanation. When our senses fail us. When logic breaks. When the microscope just can’t zoom in anymore. When there is a question mark, God lingers.

And as you read these stories, looking for the question marks in each work, wondering about the question marks in your own lives and experiences, I wanted to leave you with one last mini-jump in our time machine… This is only a wee step back, to the 60s.

Science is having one hell of a heyday, the world marveling as science fiction finally becomes fact. We’re sending people to the moon, “discovering” quarks, inventing things that will shape our modern world: weather satellites, video games, robots. And, as a result, religion is starting to get pushed around. Creationism starts to be replaced with evolution in school curricula, and the world starts to change.

But then… something happens. A crack in the trend.

It starts with the split electron study. For those non-science nerds out there, this theory purports that an electron can exist in multiple states (wave and particle) until it is observed. If you haven’t heard of that, you’ve surely heard the thought experiment that popularized it (Schrödinger’s Cat, in which a cat and some murder toxins are put in a box… and until we open the box, the cat is both alive and dead).

Now this might seem simple, but this idea—that something needs to be observed to actualize—is actually pretty earth-shattering.

Now, of course, most people believe in the Big Bang. Hydrogen, helium, and lithium collide in the universe, and suddenly, stuff exists. Atoms, elements, planets… life. It all appears as a powerful chain reaction, when just a millisecond beforehand, we had empty space… certainly there was nothing “conscious” kicking around in that oblivion. Something from nothing.

If we are to believe modern-day science and accept two facts: one, that the Big Bang happened, and two, that everything needs to be observed in order to happen… there seems to be only one explanation.

Something with consciousness needed to exist when there was nothing… and this thing needed to “watch” the Big Bang happen. But science has no way to explain what or who that thing is.

You see, dear reader, another question mark formed in some of the most advanced scientific minds… and we all know the best fix for a big, old question mark…

So, science invented a “first observer,” some being that witnessed the start of the universe, somehow living outside of time and space (sound familiar, dear reader?). This theory, that observation is needed for everything to transition from the “possible” to the “actual”—called the Copenhagen Interpretation—is currently the most commonly adopted explanation by the scientific community to explain how the quantum realm functions. Think about that. The smartest, most skeptical minds in the world, with the most knowledge, openly adopt a theory that needs a “first observer” to work.

Reminds you a bit of our first time-traveling adventure, does it not? When we looked up at the cosmos from Ancient Greece, and lightning couldn’t be solved just with science or religion… we needed both.

And as you read these amazing stories, dear reader, I hope you remember how much humanity’s question marks have changed… but also, how much they haven’t. And I hope you discover your own question marks and think about how you best can find those answers.

Cheers,

Dani Hedlund
Editor-in-Chief

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