Fantasy | Angels
Whispering of Angels
When we are guided to do right, or wrong…
She sighs his name into the night breeze. Perhaps it will be taken across the city lights, to whisper into his ear. Her lips say the words she fears to tell him.
I’m sorry.
She looks down, to the ground, nine stories below.
The pavement, she thinks to herself. Near the building. The grass is too soft. I might survive. That would really suck.
She picks up a stone, and drops it over the edge.
One, two, three, four, five. Five seconds. Five seconds and it’s over. Maybe it’ll hurt for a few seconds. Maybe ten seconds, max, from just swinging over the rail, to not being in this stupid game anymore.
“It would mean defeat, though, I suppose,” she considered.
“To end it? To give up? Perhaps.”
“It is a sin.”
“They say. But why? I’ve had it with this life. So had it. Tired of fucking up, time and time and time again. If God, or the Universe, or whatever, would just give me a break, make something work for a change….”
“Perhaps there will be another life if you fail, and you’ll have to start again.”
“That would suck. But I’m just so tired. So tired of it all. I don’t want this anymore.”
“But perhaps next time will work? Perhaps if you just wait, and think, and be at peace, you’ll work it out, and everything will be worthwhile.”
“Wisdom? Is that what it’s all about? Gaining wisdom. Making mistakes and learning from them, until I get it right?”
“I suppose that’s why they say mortals are here. Tree of Wisdom and all that. Our choice.”
“Wouldn’t mind a short spell in the Garden, though. Just get away from here. Just be ignorant and naked. Well, maybe not naked. That was more his thing anyway.”
“But I suppose that was the choice, to eat the fruit, to become wise. Free will.”
“Free will sucks. What are we supposed to do, just sit around and do nothing and wait for guidance to fulfill our destiny? What if it never comes? What if we are guided into a test and screw it up? What if we are guided by someone other than God and can’t tell the difference?”
“Perhaps with wisdom we can begin to tell the difference?”
“Wisdom. I don’t want to be wise. I just want to be happy.”
“Well, maybe that’s the first step to wisdom? To be happy. To be at peace. Not to fill your mind with worry and regret. But to be still, like now. Quiet enough to hear the whispers of angels.”
“To be still, and at ease, and to cease to want, and then you will receive? But if we are all just sitting around waiting to be guided, who is going to make the screw ups that seem to initiate everything? The whole world would just sit in their little cells, waiting, being wise.”
“Perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad if they were happy.”
“Just to be, and not to want. Is that the point of the wisdom, to work out that what we want was to have stayed in the Garden?”
“Maybe it is.”
“It must suck to be an angel, and not get to be wise. Or maybe they are getting wisdom by watching us.”
“Maybe they are.”
“She wouldn’t have jumped, you know.”
“I sensed that you were near her. I thought you might have been talking her into it.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Isn’t that what you do?”
“Why? They don’t actually go to Hell if they commit suicide. That’s very medieval thinking. You know they have been Forgiven already.”
“And do you know that?”
“You think I don’t read the newspapers? It was me that brought her here, you know, brought her to peace. Made her still enough to hear the whispers of angels.”
“But what did you do to bring her here?”
“Took her through Hell. It was very easy. She worries all of the time. You can’t hear the whispering of angels when you are worrying, but the mutterings of demons are clear. The internal and external ones.”
“She still loves him, and you ruined it.”
“It was easy. She worries. She’d had a series of boyfriends with jealousy issues. It was easy for me to put the idea in her head that he was jealous as she had fun while she was apart from him. It was even easier to give her visions of him and his previous lover, reconciling while they were away working together.”
“And there was no basis for this?”
“None. He had truly felt guided to be with her. He thought he had finally found the One, as though Raphael himself had brought them together. Kindred spirit, soul-mate. She thought it too at one time, but their work was taking them apart from each other for a while. Without the separations I would never have been able to do it.”
“Are you happy?”
“They chose to pursue wisdom, not I.”
“You chose wickedness.”
“Did I? Did I really? Did they know what they were getting into when they chose wisdom? Would they not return to the Garden if they could?”
“Do you regret your choice?”
“I was young and angry, and he was very convincing.”
“If Raphael means them to be together, they will be, you know. He is too strong for you.”
But he was no longer there.
She sits on the floor, staring into space, lost in her thoughts. He sits by her, an arms reach away, staring at her, lost in what he thinks are his thoughts.
“How can you just sit there when she is in such pain?”
“But it is wrong.”
“But you love her.”
“But it is too soon.”
“Look at her tears. She needs you.”
“But everyone will disapprove. Our friends would give us hell. I would give me hell if I was my friend!”
“So what? You know you are meant to be here, right now, with her. What does it matter what the rest of the world thinks. Love conquers all, right?”
“But then I might be just a rebound.”
“But she might go back to him in her pain.” He sees it then, in his mind, her returning to the one that had controlled her, belittled her, made her into someone she wasn’t.
“No. She can’t. Her other friends will dissuade her, her family. They can see that I truly love her, respect her.”
“She can go back to him. She will. She will live your life, the life you had. She will be self-sacrificing like you were.”
“But they were wrong, she and him. Bad. She was just with him to punish herself. She must see that now.”
“All she can see is her pain. She is in such pain now. She’ll go back to him. The guilt will send her back. It’s not as though this is just based on your desire, all of her family and friends know he was very wrong for her.”
“But I’ll just be the rebound. I might lose her if I reach out now.”
“Is that not a sacrifice worth making? If she had you for but a night, she would be rid of him. If you love her, you would take the risk.”
He reached out his hand, and touched her hair. She shuddered at his touch. She lay down, with her head on his lap, and he stroked her hair, and it felt as though the pain was being stroked away. She clutched his thumb, desperately holding on, in case he would get away.
“Mine,” she said quietly.
“So, they will become lovers too soon, and it will be ruined.”
“Hello. I thought I felt you near. You could have helped him.”
“He didn’t need my help, he knew the truth, he just didn’t have the strength. But they truly love each other, and now she may never know if she truly loved him, or just needed him tonight.”
“Well you would have more information about their destiny than I. We only know their destiny when it is realized.”
“Very few have access to that sort of knowledge, as you know. The Fall was surely not so long ago that you have forgotten?”
“No, I remember. Just being The Devil’s Advocate, I suppose.”
She reached up, and touched his face. He pulled her upwards, gently, and kissed her.
“You’re smiling, aren’t you? Devil’s advocate, indeed.”
“Yes.”
“Does it make you happy, that you may have ruined their true chance of happiness together? That The Material will be less than it could be for them?”
“Why do you keep asking me that? Satisfied, perhaps. It is my job. My role. But Happy? No.”
“Some of your brethren seem to take more delight in it.”
“We are all siblings, don’t forget. When there are two sides, there are parts of each side which are hardly different at all. I think some on your side would like The Material to be a mirror of The Spiritual.”
“Perhaps, but we know it can’t be. They chose this.”
“Mortals? To become wise? Yes. The fools.”
“So the fools become wise and another fool ends up on the wrong side because he was having a bad day?”
She rose up, and sat bestride him, their kissing becoming more passionate. His hands went up below her sweater.
“You’re not smiling, are you.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to remind you of that day. I know it was my fault, that you were angry with me.”
“A lot of our side were angry, that’s why that was our side. But now I have a job to do. To test them. To guide them towards wisdom. It’s what I do. All you do is talk them into doing the right thing when they are about to do something really stupid, and often fail in doing that. You constrain them. I teach them wisdom.”
“Do you hate me?”
“My feelings have not changed.”
“So you have no regrets?”
“Loving you? No.”
“And Falling because of it?”
“It was a fun ride.”
They were naked now, the two lovers, entwined so that it was difficult to see where one ended and the other began, perhaps because in that state there was no ending: one flesh in an eternal moment.
“The Fall was a fun ride? Are you smiling again?”
“No, that was sardonic humour.”
“I am smiling.”
“Good.”
“They are beautiful.”
“The lovers? Yes. This will be very special for them, certainly for him. She may never know if it was just madness, but he knows he loves her, with all his soul. He may never know greater happiness than he has right now, to love her, and to hold her, and take away her pain. To have true Union. To be One. It may never happen for either of them again.”
“If you had passed them by, he might have just helped her, and she could have healed on her own, and then saw that she loved him truly later.”
“If it is in Raphael’s purpose, they will survive, or sunder to come together again. Whatever happens, they will always have this moment. Some will not even have that.”
The man growled, deep and menacing, like a beast, and the woman called his name.
“They sadden me.”
“Me also. Can I buy you some tea?”
“Yes, that would be nice.”
The sun shone through the window of the tea shop, as the waitress noticed the couple sitting at a table. She hadn’t seen them come in, but didn’t think anything of it.
“Oolong Suchong, please.”
“Darjeeling for me, my dear, thanks a lot. And can this lovely waitress and I tempt you into some cake? That chocolate gateau looks positively sinful. No? Very well, just the tea please.”
“You are always so devilishly charming.”
“And you are always so angelically beautiful. It really would be no effort to look a bit less perfect, you know. And older, perhaps even 40 or something?”
“I could pass for 30!”
“Or 18! At least I try to look a bit more my age.”
“What? 40-something? And why do you always have a beard?”
“Devilishly handsome men always have a beard. You’re just lucky goatees aren’t the fashion right now.”
“Hah!” She looked at him for a while, he raised an eyebrow quizzically.
“What is it?”
“It has been a long time. A very long time. I think I half expected you to actually have horns.”
“I could try growing them if you like. They’d probably look quite stylish. Perhaps something bovine rather than caprid, though, what do you think?” She laughed. “I see you’ve kept the wings, though. And the halo.” She laughed again, although somewhat derisorily.
“Very funny!”
“But you do have wings to me. Always have. Big beautiful white wings. Wings of joy and freedom, that uplift anyone that is near you. And the light shines around you like a halo. You make the very air around you perceptively brighter, more joyous. You haven’t changed at all.”
She looked down at her perfect hands.
“I miss you.”
“Is that why you come around interfering with my work? It’s lucky for you I wasn’t encouraging him to do something positively evil. I’d have been annoyed if you had. I’ve always thought that was an unfair advantage.”
“That they can’t do evil in my presence?”
“Yes. It’s not like people are automatically prevented from doing something good and holy with me loitering around.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Probably not. Certainly when you look at me with those lovely eyes. What colour are they today, green? Very nice.”
“It’s somewhat over-rated, you know, just stopping them from doing evil, just talking them into doing the right thing. It’s not like they can’t reconsider it after I’ve gone again.”
“I can imagine. I suppose it would be much easier for me. I could become Material in front of them and smack them around the head so that they wouldn’t do it again. The Host can’t do that anymore. Comes of becoming pacifists.”
“Stop gloating.”
“I’m enjoying it! It is one of the greatest delights on my side. All we have to do is say the word Michael and everyone rolls around in laughter! Ahem. Sorry. Stopped being charming, haven’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry.”
“No you’re not. I think poor Michael suffers a lot through being demilitarized. I really don’t know what’s wrong with the sinful, or even the occasional Fallen if he doesn’t watch himself, getting a damned good thrashing when they deserve it.”
“Michael’s abilities in the martial realm were often overrated. It is rather difficult to battle someone when rage fills you body and everyone you loved and cared for is cheering on your opponent. Besides, that’s our job now anyway, isn’t it? The old sinner-thrashing. Or at least that was originally the idea, I thought. This universal salvation idea rather complicates that. But anyway, your side aren’t supposed to enjoy that sort of thing. Must be hard on poor old Michael though. Ah, remember the old days? When he would lead the Host and descend upon the wicked? Sodom? Gomorrah? Ah, the fire of the seraphim! The ferocity of the cherubim! That was glorious! Not the thing anymore, though, eh?”
“No. More is the pity.”
“You really think so? Regret, eh?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t do it, you know, go around hitting people. You’ve lost it, two thousand years ago, at least. I know you have.”
“But you can.”
“Me? Yes, absolutely. Plague ’em with nightmares; harass them with visions; become material and rough them up. No problem at all.”
“Would you?”
“Would I? Would I what? Plaguing and harassing and roughing?”
“Yes.”
“What, for your side?”
“Well, in a way, but in another way since we aren’t supposed to be doing it, it’s not exactly my side. More for me.” He was incredulous.
“Let me get this straight. You want to find nasty bad naughty people, really incorrigible ones that refuse to pay attention when you are trying to wise them up, and have me put the fear of God in them?”
“Yes.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you love me.”
“You’re being manipulative. Try it on a mortal.”
“Okay. How about because, well, because I love you?”
He paused, put his tea down, and raised one eyebrow at her.
“You’re joking! After how many thousands of years?”
“Angels don’t joke.”
“Damn! And believe me, I mean that. Well, in that case, you’re paying for the tea. And I want some cake!”
Author’s note — my apologies if you had trouble following this story, I was trying to insinuate that the whispering of angels is almost indistinguishable from your own thoughts.
