Falling into nothingness, possessed by the emptiness of her entire being, the spirit of the young lady was traveling beyond time and space. It was like an endless and colourless corridor that inspired her with neither fear nor peace of mind. She didn’t feel her body anymore and didn’t dare to ask herself why. The void was all around her.
Suddenly, everything stopped: the crazy race through the strange corridor, her thoughts, her wonderings and that annoying feeling of…nothing. Like the blessing of gravity had come back to her: Eve was standing in front of two big gates framed with diamond sparkles. Up above, the sky seemed to be painted by a child who played with all the blue hues in such a harmonious and delicate way that she could swear it came out from a dream. Just a thought of her, wishing that the gates would open and a wonderful picture revealed in front of her eyes. Not a small park with trees here and there, neither an exotic square with abundant vegetation entangled in such a way that you thought it was impossible for any form of life to live there because of the lack of air, but a whole green universe, an overflowing of the wild nature. Looking amazed at the view, Eve was holding her breath dreading to make any sound that might have disturbed the angelical atmosphere so that in a moment all would have disappeared without any trace of existence. She was content just by watching the wonder that she was blessed to see. Feeling like no glance could overcome the whole place, the young lady didn’t know where to look first being continuously distressed by an imaginary hourglass which counted the time left for her to delight in that mysterious Paradise.
There were the mountains on the horizon, with their cliffs dancing in the milky fog; there, in the baby-blue sky, lived in clover the Sun and the Moon, like the king and the queen who were to rule over this Paradise forever; there, the endless forests, the great falls of water that seemed to have no spring; there, the chirping birds and a multitude of smells that she couldn’t resist without closing her eyes and feeling the next moment she would faint. And beyond the field of grass, exceeding even the imposing image of the mountains and the hypnotizing falls of the silver water, there stood, like an invincible, sly enemy of the spirit, the Prohibited Tree. Seeing it and remembering the ancestors’ sin, Eve sighed and hesitated at the temptation to pass through the opened gates. Before having the time to change her mind, exactly in the moment when her foot was ready to make a step to the entrance, she was pulled back by a dark force, coming from nowhere, wresting her a scream.
Questions rewinding in her head, blurred images, the memory of a far-away land, all made Eve feel she had no air though her lungs were supplied through the oxygen mask. The only thing that she remembered now was the lost world which she had left so suddenly: it was not her time to go…