Once there was a land of paradise, a land containing Man and Woman. They were not perfect, and therefore were not suited for the land that was.
“Come, let us wander amongst Paradise,” said Man.
And Woman agreed. The two roamed Paradise together, observing the splendor of the land and the beauty of the rivers. Finally, they found the most blissful area in all of Paradise: the gardens. Man and Woman knew of the gardens, knew that the one forbidden thing was located there. They found the Tree of All Knowledge, and with burning curiosity, decided to partake of the fruit. Upon the first bite, they were cast out of Paradise, for they had done the one thing that was forbidden.

“We have made what others could not,” the pharaoh declared. “We have brought the lands of Osiris to the lands of the living.”
“Hubris is not becoming in the eyes of the gods,” said his advisor.
“But it is not hubris. Look at what we have made. Look at how we have created Paradise. Look at the domain of the gods on Earth.”
The pharaoh looked out over his lands, proud that he had surpassed the ones before. He had created Paradise- he had made his lands into the perfect place of legend. As he observed, he did not take in the sight of the men under the lash. He did not take in the sight of young boys starving and pleading for food. He did not take in the sight of women watching their children waste away before their eyes.

“I am as a god,” the emperor said. “I have made Elysium in the mortal world, as no other has done.”
“You equate yourself with beings far above any man,” his advisor warned.
“Am I not as powerful in my own way? With no divine powers to speak of, I have created a kingdom spanning the ancient lands.”
But as the emperor surveyed his kingdom, he did not notice the slaves bent double under heavy rock, nor did he notice beggars atrophying with plague, nor the soldiers giving up their lives in battle for the man who fancied himself a god. He saw only the beauty of the supposed perfection he had created, and none of the horror that he had brought with it.

“Behold the heaven on Earth, gentle lords.” The king looked around to the nobles, gesturing to the sweeping lands visible from the balcony. “Can you see what has come of God’s favor for me and mine?”
One of the nobles nodded. “Take care that you do not lose that favor, Your Majesty, and your reign and that of your descendants will last for evermore.”
“It shall be so.”
Beyond the king’s balcony was his Paradise, his land of perfection. It had been hard-won, but after years of the king’s altruistic reign, he knew that this was Earth’s Paradise, that this was the afterlife before death. What he did not detect in his Paradise were the men dangling from nooses, the people in the stocks, the ones who were whipped, beaten, and downtrodden by his benevolence.

“We are newly formed, yet we have become the land of refuge, the land of freedom, and the land of plenty,” said the general. “Look to the rest of the world, see how they treat their own. Theirs is the land of Hades, just as ours is the land of Paradise.”
“It is clear to see that our country is perfection.”
“Perhaps not perfection yet, but time will make it so.”
And the general observed the land with pride. He knew the struggle and hardship of freeing it, of the lives lost, but now would be a new age of prosperity and wealth. It would surpass every nation until it could be only likened to the kingdom everlasting. He saw visions of what it could be, what it would be, but he did not see what it was. How some people were people, and how some were only three-fifths of one. How families lived in crippling debt, trying to dig themselves free of an unfillable hole before they were thrown in prison. How people lived in uncertainty as their government fought. He thought his country Heaven when in reality it was nowhere close.

“It is our people and our land that are God’s chosen. We are superior. Our nation is that of Paradise, and the citizens of Paradise do not suffer on the account of rats,” said the leader.
The crowd roared their approval, for the leader and his ideas. It was a time of new beginnings. A time of fortune and happiness. This was the one who could lead them from the desolation of the common folk to the bliss only found in the house of the father.
Walking away from the podium, the leader reflected on his Paradise. Paradise came at a cost, he knew, but for God’s people, there was no price that could not be paid. What country and what leader deserved it more? But Paradise was not Paradise, because the leader ignored the starving, the dying, the parents torn from their children, and the smoke in the sky wafting away with the souls of the deceased.

Generations upon generations passed, and the descendants of Man and Woman had found true Paradise. The rolling hills were green, the rivers blue and sparkling, and the sky the color of a robin’s egg, dotted with fluffy white clouds. There was no pain, nor was there death or suffering. Those were things of the past, not found in Paradise.
The father looked down his kingdom. Like the others, he saw only beauty in this land. Unlike the others, there was nothing but beauty to be seen. There was only one true Paradise. There would never be pain or suffering or death, because Paradise is a land only for those who had already felt pain. For those who had already suffered. For those who were dead and had moved on to the next life.