Paradise Lost 2057
Eve in the garden of Eden, John Martin, 1825.
On the green bank, to look into the clear
Smooth lake, that to me seem’d another sky.
As I bent down to look, just opposite
A shape within the wat’ry gleam appear’d,
Bending to look on me. I started back,
It started back; but pleas’d I soon return’d
Pleas’d it return’d as soon with answering looks
Of sympathy and love. There I had fix’d
Mine eyes till now, and pin’d with vain desire,
Had not a voice thus warn’d me: ’What thou seest
What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyselfExtract from Paradise Lost, Book IV, 2nd edition.
John Milton 1674
A beautiful woman, naked but covered by long curly hair, asleep on the grass by a lake, seen from above. The scene is beautiful. A toad sits nearby looking at her.
She awakens and streatches.
She leans over the lake and looks at her reflection.
We see the reflection in the lake through her eyes. She is beautiful and happy with what she sees.
A view from above again, we see her walking away from the lake towards an apple tree on a hill. A single large apple hangs near the top of the tree.
She is climbing the tree.
She is reaching for the apple.
She slips and falls, banging her head on the ground.
A black or blurred frame — she has lost consciousness.
A view from above again, the same scene from above but it looks completely different. Post-apocalyptic. The tree is old and diseased, the ground stony and desolate. Trash blows in the wind. In the distance we can see huge dirty factories with black smoke bellowing from chimneys. Eve is lying at the foot of the diseased tree, her body looks worn and unhealthy, lank hair covers her face.
Final scene — she is looking into the lake, and we see her from her point of view again. The water is scummy and full of trash. The reflection shows an ugly puffy face with scabs and scars. She looks over a broken oily metal plate with sensor devices and lenses on it, which the fall dislodged from covering her eyes. A trickle of blood pours from where the device was previously welded to her skin.