I stand on the precipice, right upon the toe-curling edge of the abyss, and stretch my arms out wide, as wide as they will possibly go. Try to imagine the feeling, the way it once was, with wings to hold me aloft, to soar above the world, immortal, invisible. I remember it so clearly that the muscles in my back still ache for what is lost. The city spreads out below, a concrete cancer where once a lush green river valley undulated down to the gaping bay. The wind, carrying the stench of an overripe civilization, tugs at me with greedy hands. It smells like Babel did, like Gomorrah. The stench it leaves on my skin revolts me. I don’t belong here.

My cry is silent. It shakes the clouds all the way to the heavens where it bounces back, an unheeded echo.

Why have you forsaken me?

It would only take a small step to end it, just tip forward and let the combined forces of gravity and inevitability do the rest. So why do I hesitate?

“It is easy to fall,” Gabriel said, an eternity ago, after the war in heaven and before my mission on earth became an exile. “It begins with doubts, then questions and before you know it…” He mimed a swan dive with his hand.

It disgusts me. After so long patrolling the earth, I even think of angels in human terms. Gabriel doesn’t talk like that, doesn’t mime, doesn’t actually speak – not the way humans do – and yet that’s how it is replayed in my mind. I’m going native. Or perhaps I went native a long time ago. I don’t know. The fear of it gnaws at me because I am not human. I know we were the first-born, the prime creation. Or are we just outmoded, like mankind’s inventions, rapidly superseded by a newer model?

Tears burn in my eyes. I must wear a human body so I can live amongst them and even it conspires against me. But it is necessary. If they saw my true form, their little simian-like brains would melt. Knowing, as He must have known, how I felt even then about them, how could He send me down here to be their protector? But that’s what He did. Who said He has no sense of humour?

The wind chilling my tears to ice brings me back to the edge, to the moment and my dilemma.

It is such a small step, the wind seems to croon. Not even a step. Just lean forward. Let me take your weight.

All I want to do is to go home. But, if I fall, that will be forbidden forever.

Humans have no concept of forever. They live in the blink of an eye, mayflies in comparison to my existence. Their light burns brightly, but not for long. Over the years I have seen it. And the brighter the soul, the more darkness seeks to feast upon it. Some burn so brightly they are hard to look on for more than an instant.

I want to go home, but the wind is calling and this city repels me. Every city, every place where they spread their parasitic little lives…

A presence blossoms behind me where there was nothing. I freeze, knowing that He stands near. I feel Him like a flower feels the sun, or birds follow the same routes as countless generations before them. Like a child can sense the approach of a parent.

I fear His wrath, for what I am doing is rebellion. I try to lean forward, to push my petty insurrection further. I have learned free will. It is one thing that even the earliest humans taught all too well. Who do you think inspired the Morningstar?

Please.

It is but a whisper, the gentlest voice in the back of my consciousness, yet it wraps a cocoon of protection around me. It is the voice of love.

The love that abandoned me. I try again, fixing all my will on the people below, scurrying along like ants.

Please.

My eyes are drawn up again, not entirely against my newfound will. Love has an inexorable attraction, especially for a creature formed from the same matter. But I do not look at Him. To my right, on the other corner of the building, a thin girl perches on the roof’s edge, her arms wrapped tightly around her body, her glistening face turned up to the sky.

Lord, how brightly she burns.

Please.

That’s all He says, and now I understand. I step back, drawing my cloak of humanity around me and approach her cautiously, emanating love and peace from every fibre of me, as only an angel can.

“Please,” I say to her. “Don’t.” I reach out my hand to another lonely soul.

Behind me, I sense His smile. 

 

 

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