Eve

George and Harriet sat on the crumpled sheets, their heads close together and their eyes on the small bundle that would be their retirement plan. Smiles played across their lips as they watched the child's fists and feet punch at the blanket and wider world. George's gruff voice, a voice that had struck fear into the hearts of hundreds of adults, was kind toward Harriet and the small bundle.


"She's beautiful. She'll definitely be able to use that too her advantage," he said, dreaming of some of the beautiful women he had met in his long life. He'd be 2,639 years old in a couple of weeks, but he didn't look a day over 35 to the doctor's and nurses.


Harriet smiled at him, a twinkling in her eye. "Do you remember that first young woman you seduced? She was a beauty too. What was her name again?"


Gorge thought back, way back, thousands of years back to his youth. "Eve," he said with the softness of an unexpected remembrance. "Her name was Eve and she did wonderful things for all of us."


"Let's name her Eve then." Harriet stroked the babes cheeks, a child of her own. It was her first child. All of her other children had been taken from other mothers. She glowed in recognition of the anger she would feel if someone were to take this child from her. An anger and devastation she knew she had caused so many.


George stroked Harriet's long black hair. "I like that. A name thought to be sweet and innocent in today's world. A name of a girl that has been easily corrupted in the past. But I am worried about the easily corrupted part." George furrowed his eyebrows in concentration. He sat like this for a long time. Harriet waited patiently for his next thought. Shadows passed through the room as the black dial on the clock marched in its endless circles. "Let's give her a small hint of who she should be while maintaining some of the innocence of the name. Let's call her Evelyn. We'll pronounce it Evil-in."


Little Evelyn shrieked. Harriet and George embraced, pleased with the child already.


*** One Minute Writer ***