Week 3 Story: The Forbidden Flower

I walked around the palace gardens, blissfully taking in the bright sun, light breeze, and soft grass. But my favorite part of the gardens has always been the abundance of flowers in it. Every day, I came out and picked a bouquet from the various stems and bushes of tulips, roses, daisies, petunias, lilies, and carnations. Today,  I walked around on my daily walk selecting the most beautiful flowers I could find. As I reached the center of the garden, I came upon a single orchid. I pass by this flower every day, but have strict orders from my father-in-law that I must never touch this flower. I never questioned him, but rather just admired the flower's beauty every time I walked past.

As I selected a red rose, the finishing touch for today's bouquet, I was approached by one of the palace workers. He came up and said," Princess, why is the orchid not a part of your bouquet? I see you admire it every day, and yet you never pick it." I replied, "The king has told me that I must never touch this flower. It is poisonous, and if I pick it, I will die." "But princess, the king is lying. He only does not want you to pick the flower because everyone will realize how beautiful you are when you are holding it, and he wants the people to admire only him. You deserve a flower that is as beautiful as you, and this is the only flower in the garden that's beauty even comes close to yours." I contemplated what he said, and every time I thought through what he said, it became more and more true. The worker was right. I did deserve a beautiful flower. Everyone in the kingdom would realize how beautiful I am I if I hold this flower. I turned back to the center of the garden and pulled out my shears. I added the orchid to my bouquet and called my husband out to the garden. I handed him the bouquet and I knew he was immediately captivated by it too, forgetting about his father's former warning.

Moments later, the king ran outside, fuming. He yelled, "How could you have completely ignored my warning! I have told you that if you touch the forbidden flower, you would die. However, I am a just king and will only give you each a punishment." Turning to me, he said, "Since you were the one you picked the flower, you will be subject to a life of being ruled by your husband and you will be stuck in this palace until you die." He turned to his son and said, "Because you went along with your wife's disobedience, you will take on difficult tasks around the palace and constantly have hard work." He finally turned to the palace worker and said, "You are the one responsible for the wrongdoing that has taken place, so there will always be a divide between you and the royalty you serve and you will be a lowly worker within our kingdom."



Author's note: I chose to retell the story of the fall of Adam and Eve. In the original story, a serpent convinced Eve to eat fruit that God has told her not to eat. She then convinces Adam to eat the fruit too. As punishment, God subjects Eve to have a painful pregnancy and to be ruled by her husband, Adam to have a difficult time living from the land, and the serpent to be a lowly creature and to have a divide between it and humans. I chose to change the setting from the Garden of Eden to a palace garden to show the story has become a universal, timeless tale. For this same reason, I chose not to give the characters Adam and Eve are based on. I changed God into the king/father in the story, both because he is considered the king of the universe and because he is the father, especially to Adam. I wanted to change the two main symbols of the story: the serpent and the fruit. The serpent became the palace worker to show that deception can take many forms, and the fruit became the flower to show temptation can take many forms.

Story Source: King James Bible (1611): Genesis 3

Orchid by nuzree. Source: pixabay