Jonathan Goldstein (5:24)
Back in those first days, things changed very quickly. A new person being born meant there was a giant spike in the population for Cain, his younger brother. Abel's birth made the planet feel lopsided. He watched Eve bounce Abel in her lap and felt the Earth's gravity tilt in their direction. It pooled at the insides of his stomach and made him seasick. Years later, Adam and Eve would have many more children. But just then, there was only Cain and Abel, because there was nobody else. The brothers grew close. They played each other's stomachs like snare drums, cracked each other's knuckles as though they were cracking their own. They were different, though. Abel was a thinker. He thought about things. If he bit off his own pinky toe, would it grow back? Cain, on the other hand, was a doer. He'd reel back his fist and break a donkey's nose for the sheer thrill of it all. One day, when Adam and Eve thought the children were old enough, they sat them down and told them about the screw up. What does it mean to die? Asked Cain. We're not exactly sure, said Eve. But basically, one day, and this is not any day soon, we will no longer be. There was silence. Then Abel spoke up. If we won't be, he said, then we won't even know that we're not being. There will be no we to see that we can no longer be. Yes, I guess that's true, said their mother. Well put. Abel smiled and went back to mashing a mutton liver into pate. Cain, on the other hand, felt like a sharp plum pit had been forcefully lodged down his throat. All his life he had felt like himself that his face and fingers, that his thoughts were his own. Now he felt like they were someone else's, someone who could yank them away at any chosen moment. Until then, it had never crossed his mind that such a thing could even be possible. The brothers continued to live their lives, but all the while Cain felt a new sadness. It ate with him, worked with him, and in the morning it raised from his bed. With him dying. It just didn't make any sense. He knew this deep in his heart. He thought nothing was more important than making God change his mind. He began to take his sacrifices more seriously. They became elaborate and garish. They involved richly choreographed interpretive dances, colorful oblong facial masks, and the very best of his legumes. But God never answered. Cain started to change. When he got a splinter, he cursed the heavens all out of proportion. Back in the Garden of Eden, there were no splinters. He even started to resent his parents. He spoke of them as though they had gambled away his inheritance. If it hadn't been for Dum Dum number one, tempting Dum Dum number two, we'd be living in luxury. Cain tried to get Abel all worked up about the whole thing, too. But Abel had an easy come, easy go, we all have to die someday attitude that drove his brother nuts. Cain invented a game. He called it get the hell out of Eden. He always insisted on playing God. Get your naked asses out of here. Yelled God. What? But we just got here. Yelled Adam and Eve. Maybe there's some kind of mistake. The Lord does not make mistakes. God would then kick his brother, who would fall to the ground. Please, please have mercy on me. His brother would cry. Let's play something else. But God would only laugh. Abel also made sacrifices to God. Every week, he would choose the fattest sheep as an offering. Everything Abel did in life was for a reason. He ate so that he would not be hungry. He made clothes so that he would not be cold. But making sacrifices to God, he did it for reasons he could never know. He did it simply because he was told to. There was something about that that made him feel clean and deep. Adam and Eve made their sacrifices out of fear of being further punished. And Cain was pleading for answers and changes. But Abel fulfilled his obligation and walked away, expecting nothing from God. He was glad with the way things were. And God could not have helped liking that. Meanwhile, Cain decided to test out a new approach with the Lord. He believed that God would have greater respect for him if he did not kowtow. And he's going to kill us, he thought. He wanted God to understand that he couldn't walk all over people and then still have them come crawling back with their arms loaded with gifts. No, they had to get tough. So Cain's sacrifices grew lackadaisical. He didn't even bother to check if his gifts were being received. That would look like he was caving. Then one day, while Cain was lying in a field, Abel came running over. God spoke to me, cried Abel. Cain sat up and looked at his brother. What did he say? He said he was a great fan of my lamb chops. He told me to keep up the good work. Was my name mentioned? Asked Cain. It didn't come up. What was it like to hear his voice? Asked Cain. Look at me, said Abel. I'm still shaking. There was a certain pang that Cain started to feel. It was in his stomach. He felt the pang grow sharpest when he looked upon his brother. He could hardly speak with him without having to hunch over in pain. Since the world was still new and no one had yet felt this way, Cain did not know that it was jealousy he was feeling. Instead, he decided that his stomach no longer wanted to be his stomach. It wanted to escape his rib cage. It wanted to be Able's stomach. This was because he wanted to be able to. There was no shame in this. Being able meant being happy. Being Cain meant being wretched. He had a plan. He approached Abel with it. He decided to just spring it on him. I am no longer Cain, he said. I am now Abel. We are both able all right, said Abel. The two Abel's performed routines for the amusement of their brothers and sisters. How's that apple, Abel? It's fine, Abel. But then one day, Cain asked, if I am Abel, am I just as much able as you yourself are able? I suppose that's true, said Abel. Then before God, are we both not able? Asked Cain. Well, in the case of being before God, I think at that time I would be able and you would go back to being Cain. Cain's eyes lingered on his brother. He looked at this other Abel as standing in the way of who he was. He was Abel. He knew this in his heart. He simply wanted it more. Abel was among his flock. When Cain neared him. Slowly, Cain pulled out his rock. And slowly he lifted it into the air. This way God will have to show himself. This way God will have to stop playing possum and get directly involved. These were Cain's thoughts still, though there was no sign of God. He looked at the back of Abel's head. Then he looked into the sky. Just in case God was reading his mind. He thought to himself, I'm really, really going to do it. He brought his rock down onto his brother's head. He could hear no sound at all. Abel just toppled over. He toppled over the way he did everything. With an easygoing acceptance, he sank to the earth as though thinking, I must fall, so I will fall. I am falling. I have fallen here. It was death. Cain couldn't believe it. He'd been sure that at the last moment God would step in. He'd have thought only God could take a person's life. But it was as simple as killing a sheep. Abel, his eyes wide and unblinking, stared directly into the mystery of life and death. And he was not saying a word about any of it. The sheep continued to graze and the sun continued to shine. There were no bolts of lightning, no booming voice. From behind the clouds, life went on. That night, God appeared before Cain in a dream. Where is your brother? Asked God. It's always about my brother, said Cain. Do you ever ask where I am? No. That you don't think of. What have you done? Asked God. Am I my brother's keeper? Asked Cain. God did not answer. He just gave him a look. It made Cain feel naked and small. He then felt the finger of God upon his forehead. It sank through his head and into his brain where it spoke. The earth shall scorn you, said the voice from the finger. I shall scorn you. You will wander the earth and death will not come. There will be no escape. All will look upon you, and none will dare kill you, for they will know you by your mark. God withdrew his finger, leaving behind a fingerprint on Cain's forehead. It was shaped like a teardrop. At first, he tried to convince himself that the mark was to protect him, that he had a secret pact with God, that they understood each other. For a while, he would wake up in the morning and pretend to be immortal and famous. But he was not very good at pretending. As the centuries passed, Cain abandoned farming and roamed the earth. He walked with a sense of purpose, just in case anyone was watching. But in his heart, he knew he had nowhere to go. He became so lonely and full of regret that instead of fearing death, he became yearnful of it. He would chase after bears and they would scamper away. They haven't the guts, he'd say. Run, you little cowards, he'd call after the tigers. Look at me, he'd cry into the face of an alligator as he tried in vain to pry open its jaws. More centuries passed, and Cain's desire for death became nearly constant. He would think about Abel up in heaven, palling around with God, flying through the clouds on God's shoulders, while he was left to putz around for hundreds of years, begging his own children to drive sharpened branches through his heart. In life, Cain had been jealous of his brother, but it was in death that he became more jealous than he ever thought possible. Over time, Cain could no longer remember very much at all. Twenty years after the death of his brother. It seemed like it was only Yesterday, but after 200 years, it felt like something that might have happened in a dream. There were details he remembered that now seemed improbable, like the way he saw his brother's soul leave his body and the way he'd waved goodbye to him and winked. After 300 and 400 years, it all felt so long ago that who he was back then felt like someone else. When people he met asked him questions about the old days, he just made stuff up. We had wings, he said. After 500 years, his story was repeated so often that he only remembered the repeating, not the events themselves. It sounded like a fable, something that might have just as easily happened to a fox and a rabbit as to himself and his brother. He began to doubt everything. He even began to wonder whether he had actually ever heard God's voice, whether the mark on his forehead was the mark of God and not just another liver spot. Was this a part of the punishment, he wondered, to be left so uncertain of whether God really was, or whether God was only something inside his own Head. After 700 years, when he told the story to himself or heard it told by others, he felt nothing. He was too old to feel guilt or remorse or anything. He didn't even miss his brother anymore. He wanted nothing from God. He wanted nothing from the world. The world was what it was. He didn't need it to change. And in this way, he finally got his wish to be just like Abel. And then God let him die. Thank you. After the break, a Q and A with Stevie, Kahlilah and me. But first, our producer Phoebe headed to the Wall of Regrets to see what regrets were trending.
