Last Plane to Heaven

Angels i: The Houses of the Favored

I smell lamb’s blood. Walking the dusty streets, sword in hand, I hear only silence. High, silver clouds sweep the moon’s brightness like the linen wrapping a lover’s face. These clouds are mine, the silence my shroud. There are tasks no one should be forced to do, not even by the loving hand of He Is Who He Is.

One of my brothers stands in a grove of olives and pomegranates, waving a flaming sword, occasionally killing snakes. A symbolic post, with little business to execute.

Others were sent to despoil virgins and lay waste to cities. Symbolism and execution, but at the end, they went home with their hands clean and consciences clear. Sinners live for punishment, after all.

But here is a city of a million beating hearts crowded together on the banks of their Father River, now sleeping. In my presence, the dogs are silent, the vultures huddled uneasily on temple roofs. Even the louche crocodiles doze among their muddy reeds.

Who He Is has charged me with vengeance. Not Eden’s dangerous hungers, nor Sodom’s hot sins. Here it is only for me to still the hearts of ten thousand sleeping sons, most of them innocent of any sin worse than craving the breast or a sweet, or perhaps a pretty girl.

My feet bring me to the stony regard of a jackal-headed god. “You, friend,” I whisper, “are at least honest in your falsehood. I wear Heaven’s gleaming mantle as I set about my murders.”

A thin spray of dust trails from the jackal’s muzzle as his smile cracks open a little wider.

Fang, I tell myself, I am the tooth of God. He Is Who He Is, and it is I who will render flesh.

Honest acknowledgment is needed of the suffering that will arise with the morning sun. Suffering simply to make a point. Though the pain reaches my heart, I tear all my feathers loose to lay them at the jackal’s feet, each great pinion radiant with holy power. The blood from my back I smear upon my face and hands, coat my sword, echo of the lamb’s blood on the houses of the favored. Many and legion, I step into the darkest shadows to wound the hearts of ten thousand mothers.