Cain and Abel
by Anna Starkey
Illinois State University
Anna Starkey is a senior at Illinois State University, graduating with a BA in English Studies in May 2026. She’s a writer through and through, but her heart and mind lies in linguistics. Her goal is to return to school to study global English’s impact on East Asian languages.
Everyday we go into the field. We run around and chase each other like the dogs chase the rabbits. Sometimes we wrestle and sometimes we nap. Man tells us to hunt and we do. We sharpen sticks or rocks and stab thick insects and juicy fish. Woman sits a lot in front of the loom. All she does is weave lustrous scenes of waterfalls and flowers and fruit of every color which look so bright, a flavor we only know from memories Man shares with us late at night when the fire starts to fizzle out. She does not speak often and she hardly eats. One bite, and she is full of regret. Something is missing, though. Like there should be more in this world. There is a feeling down in my stomach that can only be described as hollow. Like the emptiness of a shell with no resident. Something should be inside, something resembling life. I like to think about what it would be like with another family across the field. Able and I would chase the sons who belong to a different Man and a different Woman. And they would look like us. Their arms smaller and legs shorter than Man with shoulders closer together just like me and my brother. We would wrestle them and nap with them. Maybe there would be a small Woman who I could meet and we can raise our own Cains and Abels.
Today, we go out to the field and I am the chaser. I am chasing today because I feel heat in my stomach towards Creator and Man and Woman and Abel. Creator wanted a sacrifice. Abel gave him meat from a purely white lamb which he raised. I gave him grain from my tallest crops which I raised. Grain is not a favorable sacrifice. It is not Abel’s fault, I know. But that does not stop the boiling I feel in my core. Chasing makes me feel better usually. Today, though, I do not laugh. I run. I pump my legs quicker than I normally would. Abel is slower, so I never have to try very hard for a fun game. The best game of chase is one where the dog almost catches the rabbit.
I catch up to him and lunge towards him, grabbing his knees in a tight hug. We fall into a pile; Abel’s laugh echoes in my ears. Wiggling beneath me like a stubborn fish, he slides his legs out of my grasp, but we both know I am faster and stronger from pulling the plow. I grab his wrists and pin them by his ears. The way he is still giggling, grinning so wide, it makes the stew in my stomach boil over. Just a few inches behind his head is a stone. One that is heavy and sharp as if it fell directly off the tip of a mountain and landed here for me to use.
When Man taught Abel how to raise lamb, he also showed him how to make them into meat. He showed both of us, actually, but Abel and me and Man all knew it would be Abel who would raise the meat and me to raise the grain. Man used a large stone. One that looked quite similar to this one, just already painted with crimson from the many meals fed to us as children. The stone fell onto the lamb’s weak head with a crunch. A sharper rock was used to rip open the skin and harvest the body. And then we prayed. And then we roasted, then prayed. And then we ate and prayed.
When Abel gave his sacrifice, he did the same. With the heaviest and cleanest stone, he made the white lamb into meat. The red spread far and wide. So far, Creator saw from the sky the painted Earth beneath Abel’s fingernails. I watched him pray on his knees. I prayed as well, for my brother to pass his test. And then the grass grew twice as quickly and the sheep bred out of season to replenish the sacrificed meat. I did not have red to offer, not necessarily. It did not spill onto the land and spread through the rows of crops. It did, though, burst from the blisters on my hands after long days with unpolished tools. My skin peels back to a fresh layer of pink after the harvesting season. They match the color of the deep scars scattered across my body from the sharpened knife I use to make grain into food. Grain does not spill red, it is grown with it.
It is the pure white lamb I think of now when I grab the stone and lift it high above where Abel’s head lays in the dirt. He no longer is trying to squirm out from under me. His eyes are almost completely white, just like the sacrifice. Pure white must be painted red for Creator to be pleased.
When I drop the rock, I am not thinking about meat. I am not thinking about my brother. I am not thinking about Woman’s cries into the night or Man’s indifference. I am thinking about Creator. I am praying, pleading, with him, to find me worthy.
The scream which seems to come straight from my brother’s heart echoes through the field before he falls silent and still. So still, stiller than when we play rabbit, stiller than the clouds in the midst of a drought. When I lift his hardly recognizable head, it falls back, limp. Abel looks asleep, but he usually wakes up after being tapped on the shoulder. Now, I shake his body because I am scared and I want my brother. I want him to wake up. Please, God, let him wake up.