Remythologizing the Myths: Genesis

Chapter Two 
Adventures Gone Sideways continued
Inspired by Genesis 3

Then they plopped down onto the warm sand and rested in the sunshine for a while...

The salmon berries were no riper here than on the valley side, so as their hunger grew fierce, the man and the woman hiked into the forest to see what else might fill their bellies. The territory was unfamiliar and therefore very exciting. They saw new creatures and laughed at a strange gray animal scampering high in the canopy to fret the perching condors and dodos. ("Squirrels," thought the woman.)

The  man and the woman wandered farther and farther away from the lakeside into the afternoon. They were happy, doing what they loved most, stretching muscles and sharpening minds. They noticed some new kinds of trees with blue-green needles like porcupine quills. They drank from a stream and found crunchy grubs to eat on the rocky bank.

Now, the stream was fast moving and wound in wide arcs through a rippling gorge. As they followed the stream along, a flock of birds flying away towards the distant west drew the woman and the man's curiosity. The young people had never seen such birds, small and swift and colored the same yellowish salmon as the berries they'd inspected that morning. They took the birds for a sign and began running after the flock.

Skirting around a sudden bend in the gorge, the woman stopped, sudden, in her tracks. The man behind her also stopped, gaping in disbelief at an enormous hill that had seemed to just step sideways into their gorge as they'd rounded the bend. The hill was distant and had no trees on top, and its bald pate was covered in white. "Mountain," the boy decided with confidence (and a little bravado, truth be told). "That's the right name for that big hill."

They kept hiking westward, away from the lake, toward the mountain. They quite lost track of the time until the sun's rays became a nuisance in their eyes.