Now the huge dung beetle was more depressed and full of existential dread than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

The dung beetle said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”  And the woman said to the dung beetle, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,  but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”  But the dung beetle said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will see God as a faceless, oppressive government accusing you of crimes that you can’t remember, forcing you to fill out endless paperwork to try to prove your innocence, and at some point, if you’re like me, you’ll think ‘Maybe I really am guilty of something, for I do feel a good deal of guilt and shame, at which point one of God’s angels, really just a low-level bureaucrat, will stab you with a gleaming knife, and you will die like a dog.’” So the woman asked “What does it mean to die?” and the dung beetle explained, and she asked “What is a dog?” and the dung beetle explained.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then both felt guilt and shame, but weren’t sure of what, and they proceeded to bury themselves in paperwork, which made them increasingly confused, afraid, and despondent.