war on heaven

There are angels in muddy trenches on edge of the fourth sphere--angels pulling their wings tighter around themselves in order to ward off the cold; angels balancing rifle butts against the shoulder of their plate armor. Michael squints at a map; trying to read the spidery writing of dispatches by only the light of a gaslamp and his halo.

(Michael tired, Michael bone-wearied and his courage flagging but still walking among his brothers; clasping them on the shoulder and saying "look there, look--you can see the dawn coming" and then--Michael drawing his sword; leading them over the top with glorias on his lips, searching out Lucifer in the chaos of the field; pulled toward him like a compass to north.

Lucifer laughing when their swords ring out against one another's (the sound is a sound like thunder) and Michael--Michael wants to drop his sword and gather Lucifer into his arms, steal him away and back to that place where they were brothers; where they were one and whole and holy. But Michael has the corpses of his little brothers emblazoned on the backs of his eyes--their broken wings and bodies weight him down, the crown of heaven sitting heavy at his temples, so he only tightens his hand around his sword.

(The lie is that they are so evenly matched in battle that neither of them can gain enough upperhand to deliver the mortal blow. The truth is something closer to how Lucifer leaned in and snarled "did you miss me brother?" instead of reaching for his dagger, or the time Michael had his foot on Lucifer's throat and a sword poised to strike--and he froze there; shaking. How he turned away and launched himself at another rebel angel; leaving Lucifer to suck in a ragged breath and pick himself up out of the mud. In the chaos of battle who would notice if Lucifer attacked with less ferocity than he was known for; if unflinching Michael flinched?)

The battle ends with too many angels dead; their wings sullied and spread in the mud; Michael adds their bodies to the weight he carries.

(Michael is always tired now; Lucifer always calls him 'brother')

(the war drags on)

on the disciples

ANDREW
Peter’s younger brother, the sort of vague embarrassment of the family because what sort of son abandons an honest future in fishing to follow around a dirty hermit in a loincloth? (he eats locusts, Andreia. I don’t care if this Baptist claims to be a prophet, he can still eat food like a normal person.) Kind of a space cadet, loves religion more than is probably healthy. If his family had been wealthier, he probably would have been sent to rabbinical school, but instead he follows around every Joshua, Joachim, and Jephthah who claims to speak on God’s behalf.

I think the first to recognize Jesus as Messiah would have to be a little credulous, with Heaven on his mind.

What do you think of Mary Magdalene?

I think that—underneath centuries of Da Vinci Code style-conspiracy theories, being labeled a prostitute or a mystic, exalted above the disciples or placed beneath them, conflated with the other Marys or vilified in comparison with them or ignored entirely or reduced to an archetype, a symbol, something gold-leafed and enshrined or rebellion given flesh—underneath all that—

I think she was just a Jewish woman.

the early days

I have this crystal clear image in my head, of he week after Jesus' ascension--most of the lesser followers leaving, in ones or in pairs, making their goodbyes fondly and saying in an apologetic tone, my family, my fields, my household, I'm needed elsewhere--

(not one of them says, Jesus is gone, there is nothing more here. It is time to wake, and rise, and return to the lives we were living before this dream, this insanity seized us. It was always going to end. None of them say it, but it is implied, it is in their voices, unspoken.)

second-generation nephilim

probably the first generation angels would be like first-gen immigrants, who have a hard time adjusting to human culture and always referring to old-world traditions of total obedience and smiting and their proud culture of fratricide. the second-gen would grow up with only the stories, which they think about with a strange mix of amusement, disbelief and horror, because their parents are peculiar but kinda very frightening sometimes, you know? third-gen would take the stories less seriously, because didn’t grandpa and grandma go crazy towards the end, screaming about fire and destruction and the apocalypse that was supposed to happen years and years ago? a fourth-gen kid would scoff at the stories and say, “nah, i don’t believe in angels.”

#SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS OF NEPHILIM FORGETTING THEIR HERITAGE     #the second generation trying to explain away their parents' wild-eyed fervent faith with a shaky laugh and a ''yeah my parents are religious     #nutjobs; don't mine them--let's go up to my room.''     #the third generation who knows only the shuttered expressions and tense body language of their parents when grandma brings up the charge     #of the heavenly armies in the battle for the eastern gate     #and some of them a weirdly fascinated--it's always the later generations that try to figure out their roots     #maybe secret societies start to form--grandchildren of nephilim all coming together to enact old rites     #(or what they think are old rites)     #and discuss the strangeness and divinity they are heirs to; the privilege of their bloodline and the righteousness of them     #they probably call it something terribly pretentious like the cabal of lucifer and refer to one another as morningstars     #but really this just mirrors the sects that developed even in the first generation--when the fallen warriors sought out     #other warriors; guardians to guardians; scribes to scribes; and they all observed and told of different ways and so     #the splintered leavings of heaven splinter further     #they are human now     #what else is there to do?

I’ve just got this image of an angel tugging exasperatedly at their hair and wailing “WHY?!”

humanity is confusing, though

like, they make all this art and music that doesn't seem to serve any purpose? not all of it praises god and a lot of the semantic content could be expressed in more effective and less labor-intensive ways?? even their unadorned communication is inexact and dependent on things like body language, tone of voice, context--what's even the point of having a language if the words won't stay where you put them???

and like, bodies??? bodies are weird, and humanity's relationship to their bodies is super weird--it's integral to your understanding of yourself but also not you in the truest sense; it's your point of access to the world but also part of the world and unreliable, really unreliable. angels don't really get that, they're all pure understanding and platonic knowledge, the idea that your mind could play tricks on you and that's normal, to not see everything or hear everything, to be constantly and consistently ignorant and have to learn things--

learning freaks them out. angels don't learn things. angels are.

(well--they aren't. that's part of the problem.)

but probably the most confusing thing about humanity is that humanity is charming. humanity crowds its way into the angels' non-space and humanity makes them be, makes them piecewise functions of beast and bird, writes entropy into an otherwise perfect system. And the angels are frustrated (emotions, those are new) and the angels muse wistfully about if humanity had never come (the subjunctive, that's new too) but humanity moves through a world of half-certain shadows singing, wearing divinity in its skin.

and angels ask why

(that's new too)

Who is your favorite angel?

GABRIEL always Gabriel because of all the narratives about angels, Gabriel’s leans closest to humanity. Gabriel who translates between the Word and the messy inexactitudes of human language—we are creatures of connotation and context; our vocabulary is slantwise, all ill-defined shapes and inexact transliterations. We barely understand one another, and yet angels are messengers, bending right angles into fractals just to try and express a fingernail of what the Lord said.

But Gabriel speaks; Gabriel bends low and whispers; Gabriel tries harder than any other to understand. And as a consequence I think Gabriel loves a little differently than the other angels, because human love is like human language—messy and inexact and shifting; powerful when wielded by one who knows its power.

Gabriel who is sent to deliver the good news to the Mother of God without sin; Theotokos and the Queen of Heaven—and gets Miriam of Nazareth instead.

(She’s slender and sun-browned and faithful, but not a queen—just a girl like any other from a backwater Judean town. And Gabriel basically follows her around for nine months trying to figure out how this human becomes the mystical figure the angels were told she was, where she’s keeping her grace and power and wisdom hidden.

It’s Gabriel’s hand she holds while giving birth—her nails would have drawn blood, if he had any—it’s Gabriel who laughs when she tells him the story of her friend’s wedding, the water into wine and her impertinent son—it’s Gabriel who holds her when the news of Yeshua’s arrest reaches Nazareth and it’s Gabriel who walks beside her on the long road to Jerusalem, to watch her son crucified.

She is still sun-browned and faithful, and Gabriel thinks maybe that is the point.)