Grapevine
interlude
The birth of something is always overshadowed by something greater above it. A drunken man littering the streets at night may have careened into another oncoming van, killing a man and a woman (husband and wife) and orphaning their three children, but such coverage never make the 6 o’clock news simply because there are no minutes left in the daily hour. We go about our lives unbothered and unknowing of things that need our attention because they so easily pass us by. We are too preoccupied with our own mediocre grade or work presentation, always surpassed by the higher mark of an older sibling, the ingenious solution of another employee. We cannot afford to dwell on things, big or small, that does not concern us, even if we pass by them every day we leave our houses. We see sidewalk artwork and alternate between marvel (there is nothing more beautiful and arbitrary all at once) and horror (because we are good public servants and it is vandalism, after all). In the midst of gawking at the big picture, taking photos and touching still-wet paint as if to make ourselves part of such a grand scheme, we forget to look elsewhere. All around us lesser forms of graffiti may adorn the surrounding walls; even past the cracks in the concrete another image had been painted over and forgotten.
Some stories are never told because they never rise to the full expectations of time, of interest, or of audience. Maybe some of us would like to hear it, but we never do, so we never knew what we were missing. In the midst of Gabriel’s letters, sometimes we find the anecdotes of other angels who did not have words of their own, and so relied on the discerning eyes of others who could, maybe, tell it for them. It is never the full tale, perhaps not often unbiased, and thus truth may be compromised; but all in all it is better than nothing.
*
Her name was Saraquel, and she was assigned the design of soliloquies and other related spiels. In the scrolls, one would find her name filed under those who worked to form the creativity of the Creation, under Art, head of the Stage. She was the angel of the theater, bearing the quills of Drama and Comedy. She would be there in dinghy bars with collapsing stages made of cardboard; she would be there in every full house among red-covered seats and every private box whose purposes were sometimes compromised. She would be muse to all the great playwrights, guardian of all the known actors, and mentor to legendary producers; though if you ask them they will take credit for all their work, sometimes giving an insincere acknowledgment to Up Above at awards shows filled with emeralds and jealousy. But she did not seek to be named, as none of the angels really did. The most they can ask for is a worthy interpretation of their work, and the humans rarely disappointed.
She did not mean to be, but she would become a participant in the very first lies; when Adam and Eve clothed themselves in fig and when Cain called out “Am I not my brother’s keeper?”, they had acted, and she was there to make sure they were, at the very least, convincing, though the Father could see through any guise. No one could really blame her, and no one did; she was merely in accordance with her duty.
Until the very end angels would wonder if He did all of this on purpose, if He made each of them the same, but different, fashioned each of them for their calling and had already predicted every move, and each next move that would hinder it. If some of them had already been destined to oppose Him from the very start, and, to an extent, if that was as fair as He made it seem. Each wondering would be proven for naught, for none of them would ever be answered.
*
Early in the first days of eternity, Carasel would rise before the light could fill the horizon with the color men would come to associate with daylight, without knowing why. Strange enough that she would even sleep, because their kind did not need it, but hers would be interrupted every few moments or so. Maybe we can call them hours. This would leave her as tired as she could be, and trace faint gray circles under equally gray eyes, but it would leave no merit on her disposition. She did not quite know it yet, and she would not until she held one in her arms, but Carasel was the angel of children, and she was mimicking the habits of a woman with an infant, waking in the night to tend to the cry in the cradle. She was not a guardian, for there were far too many of them even for one such as her to handle, but she watched over them anyway. She was kind and gently stern, mild-mannered in play with quick to come with a soft rebuke.
She would be there when Eve bore Adam his two sons, when Cain and Abel laid down their sacrifices to Him, and she would have turned away when a brother turned against another and made blood spill on the ground. It is not a swift connection, but children are all too often associated with murder; in each abortion clinic where candles are put out even before they are set aflame, and by the hands of psychopaths who made them victims because they practically ran around with bull’s eyes on their backs. Put a child to testify on the stands if they witness an injustice, and worry not, depending on whose side you’re one, because nothing will be revealed but the truth.
These are some of the things she would have to deal with, amidst playgrounds and stuffed toys and music boxes.
*
Between the two of them, their first meeting was nothing but coincidence. Of course they would all eventually earn that there is no such thing, but sometime there came the matter of injustice about whether a child should be allowed to act, much less lie. Angels whose jobs were to do that sort of thing informed both of them to see each other and discuss what should or should not be done. Now, neither of them had ever associated with others outside of their division, because it had never been a necessity. Saraquel was told to meet Carasel near the patch where peonies grew, and that was where she found her, stringing flower crowns that would adorn no one else but herself, for the time being.
They did not need introductions; upon sight they knew what the other was there for. Saraquel sat beside Carasel and went right to the point.
“Why do you oppose this? Why deny them that right?”
“Because they are only children.”
“And only human.”
“Humans who know not the different between right and wrong. Not yet.”
“Well, we are not allowing them the capacity to lie, at that age. Children or not, they are still bound to free will, something even we do not have. It would be their choice to take upon anything they wish. Besides, it would go against everything we are here for. I only ask that they are able to participate on the stage, not that they would sin every time they do so.”
Carasel fingered the surface of a petal contemplatively, her touch so light it did even push it down, not a fraction, not an inch. “You believe in what you are doing, Saraquel?”
“It would be quite contradictory if I did not. You understand, Carasel.” It was the first time they had spoken each other’s names, but it did not feel that way. A more fanciful text would imply misplaced fireworks, aggravated butterflies, or non-lethal jolts of electricity buzzing inside such a moment, but there had been none of that. It felt natural, like they had said it before; perhaps thought it before, even before they knew it.
But it was quite bewildering, the strangeness of it. “Have we met?” Carasel asked, the tone of her voice somewhat lost, although she knew the answer quite well.
“I am quite certain I would have remembered if we did,” Saraquel replied, not really smiling, but not doing the opposite either. Carasel nodded, pulling herself back from her thoughts.
“Ah, yes, of course. And yes, I do understand.”
“So we have come to an agreement?” Saraquel looked over her shoulder to extend her wings.
“I believe we have,” she heard Carasel say, but when she looked back it seemed she had been beaten to leaving. Carasel had already gone, a ringlet of peonies in her stead.
*
Rest assured, that first meeting did not promise grandeur at the very beginning. Neither of them really crossed paths because there had been no need to, and in those days most things were dictated by necessity, unless one had some kind of divine blessing looking down upon them. Such a smile mostly donned the shoulders of the Archangels, the five highest chosen to carry out the most sacred of His will; the rest were content to bathe in the light of its aftermath and go about what they were made to do without complaint or demand. He had better things to do than make sure each of them felt validated in their own right, and anyway, they should know they were loved just because they were there. At least, that had been the consensus then.
When they did see each other, they were usually too occupied to even acknowledge it. They all had the rest of eternity (or so they thought) to mingle among themselves, after all, so in the meantime they busied themselves with making sure Creation would go right the first time. Certainly a do-over is completely out of the question, and what they were not certain of is if they would even be forgiven if they were to err. There had been a saying that their Father is merciful, but only to those He chooses to bestow it upon. None of them ever had enough courage to think of the consequences if they did not happen to grace that list. It was seen as the wise thing to do.
So if ever Carasel passed Saraquel in the halls, the scrolls they held in their arms would have been enough to deduce that the proper conduct would be to bow her head low to avoid meeting her gaze, even if Saraquel did try so hard to, at the very least, a glimpse of her eyes. And if they happened to be placed in the same choir whose turn it was to sing perpetual praise to the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, neither of them would mention it. Not even if they were both humming the same song the next day they passed each other in the halls.
*
In all honesty, Saraquel saw Carasel more often than she would have liked to admit. Or perhaps saw was not the right word. She noticed Carasel even if she did mean to, and she would have openly preferred not to do so. Carasel occupied her mind more than anyone or anything ever had, except for exalt of the Father in thought or deed. More than any angel had a right to occupy another angel’s mind, and it was unnerving. Many times she would see Carasel in a group, tinkling on string instruments or playing with those flowers she was so fond of, and it reminded her how very unalike they were, for beings of the same breed.
Perhaps it was their calling that decided it, but Saraquel, though she had her own division to worry over and discuss matters with, had always wanted to be alone. She realized it long after she turned down offers of working together for too long even if it would lighten her load, or when she flew by in her own lane while others danced on air in flocks, like glorified birds. An angelic profession that tiptoed the line between deceptions and not was taxing for someone who tried only to see the good in things, but could not overlook the bad, even if bad did not necessarily exist yet. Such concentration she exchanged for the price of loneliness, and maybe her unselfishness wished not to inflict that same fate upon anyone else.
But Carasel was the complete opposite. She was there to understand and to know innocence to its very core, even in its heart of hearts where some not-so-innocent things may have been planted and would push through the ground later, weeds choking the most precious blossom. While Saraquel tried to imitate tears and laughter, she sought to make them come alive to the earth without pretense or falseness. Carasel knew only genuine things, because she found them in other people.
*
Golden streets had never paled in comparison to golden hair, not until the day it was Carasel who took a step forward, a detour and a half away from her usual route in the sky to settle next to Saraquel, who had been tracing the indents on the priceless ground with her toes.
“I am trying to think of a color,” she said to Carasel as if she did not seem the least bit surprised about her presence, like she knew she would come, and that this would happen, sooner or later. Their meetings just screamed, quietly and politely, of a natural occurrence, something unavoidable, unstoppable, and unnamable. Truth be told, that is the impression one would give off if they were trying to qualm a gladness inside them that would have frightened even the merriest of men.
“Pray tell, for what?” Carasel asked dutifully, something humoring in her tone, as if she knew exactly what Saraquel was trying to hide, only because she was familiar with the unfamiliar emotion herself.
Saraquel gracefully made an awkward shape with her hands, and with it a motion that obscured her cheeks, nose, and forehead, leaving only her eyes visible. “Something for the theater. Something humans can use to hide their faces if they so wish. I do not know what to call it yet.”
“But what would it be for? Would not hiding behind their ‘acting’ be enough?” Carasel’s long, soft curls seemed so striking against the alabaster of her collarbone, and the contrast, which Saraquel had seen before on billions of other angels, seemed enough to strike her down with awe, for a moment. She had found her color, though she did not say so. She answered the question.
“Sometimes I think the truth must be hidden to make it really worthwhile.”
Carasel smiled, the rays of a blinding sun. “You are so very strange, Saraquel. Quite odd, if I do say so myself.”
Saraquel did not look bothered, but actually pleased. “But it is to my merit, yes? I interest you. What other reason can there be for you being here?”
That prompted a laugh out of Carasel, pliant as a baby bird’s wing; some truths, to Saraquel’s delight, are not so easily concealed.
*
Heralds sang of moments like these spent in the Father’s presence, but neither Saraquel nor Carasel thought it was possible to experience with anyone else. But such things, such paltry gifts of time, were not wasted on them. Heaven had found another pair to walk the riverside sometimes with dangling hands; two other pairs of wings that raced each other across an eveningless sky. Every person, at least once in their life, had heard of this before.
Saraquel named things with Carasel’s insight; Carasel invented games because of something she might have heard Saraquel say. They bounced off each other and were no longer opposites, but parallels, two halves of the same whole. They marveled at their differences (Saraquel’s locks, like onyx framing her face; the summer breeze of Carasel’s scent) and at the things they happened to share, like the exact sheen their feathers took on at a certain angle in the sun – like every color from God’s mouth put into existence.
Everything seemed so much more beautiful seen through another’s eyes. There was nothing selfish or self-seeking about their companionship, except perhaps how it sometimes became a need to be with each other. They sought only understanding, and promised only love, nothing out of order as if someone had misplaced the seasons. Carasel no longer found lies in Saraquel’s acting if she did not insist on it (which she did not, because it made Saraquel happy), and Saraquel learned too, to be happy, without having to put a mask on it to make sure it was perfect (she knew what to call it now). But they knew not what to call this, and for the meantime they did not care.
“I am glad you are here,” Carasel said, picking grapes off a clutch of them, careful and methodical, even as greener, fresher globes sprung to life as soon as their predecessor was severed from its stem.
Saraquel stole a grape from Carasel’s fingertips, right before they touched her lips. “I am glad you are here,” she echoed, then, even more sincerely added, “with me.”
*
Then in one of those careless, carefree days, it was Carasel who suddenly raced into Saraquel’s arms, looking like a frightened little animal that had seen its mother fall into a hunter’s trap.
“Saraquel, Saraquel,” she said, with a rare urgency in her voice. “There is something I do not understand. I did not know where—I could not find—“
Saraquel mirrored a worry when she tried to calm Carasel down, hands sliding down her shoulders. “Please speak gently, my dearest. Even I would not be able to understand you with such a petrified speech.”
Carasel looked her in the eye, in that imploring kind of way that did not command, or even ask, but suggested, that someone please search for her when she is lost. “That, that. What you just said. You called me your dearest. Am I what you most hold dear?”
“I fail to see why that should be of any importance to—“
“But it is! It is! Do you not see? Do you know of any of our brethren who feel the same way? It is… certainly we are not a portrait of normalcy, are we?”
Saraquel grew quiet, either listening to Carasel, or to her own bemused thoughts. She did not respond with her lips, only with her hands, which coiled loosely around Carasel’s wrists, barely enough to feel the mimicry of a pulse that should be there; a gesture so loving it would never be considered platonic, in this world or the one before it.
Carasel regarded Saraquel’s silence, and perhaps it is what made her ask again, more tender, “am I what you most hold dear?”
It did not take so long for Saraquel to answer. “Yes. Yes, you are, my dearest.”
Carasel’s apple cheeks blossomed sweetly, tucking her smile into the skin just below Saraquel’s ear. “May I borrow that name, so I may call you my dearest too?”
Saraquel gave out a joyful cry, arms squeezing around the smooth planes of Carasel’s back. Carasel’s grin only inched wider, and they stood in that embrace, content for a while.
“Do you think we should tell someone? I… I do not want to keep it to myself, I cannot explain…” Carasel mused, after they sat together on the goldgreen grass.
“No, no. I do not think we should. This is the only thing we have for ourselves, you see?” Saraquel was quick to tell her, trying to make a peony necklace and giving up on that all too soon.
Carasel frowned, only slightly, only for a moment. “You… you reckon the Father would not approve—?”
“No, of course it is not that!” Saraquel said, even though it is exactly that, and they both knew it. “But would it not be better just between you and me?”
“You are asking me into some sort of trickery…”
“Do not be silly. I am only asking if you can keep a secret too.”
Carasel relented, finally, though perhaps she should not have. “Of course I can, my dearest.” And then she sighed, which Saraquel blissfully ignored.
*
Every day after that realization did not bode very well for their appointed duties. When before only required a slight occupation of each other’s thoughts, a meager space in the mind reserved only for the other, now there was a burgeoning desire to fill the rest of that empty space with Saraquel, or Carasel, respectively. It consumed them both, like a pillar of fire that spans across the desert looking for an oasis, and it left only ashes to take their place at work.
Carasel’s gaze wandered away during meetings about how many steps a child would be allowed every year, though she is not excused from wondering why animals seemed to be permitted to grow faster than the supposed Stewards of the Earth. Whenever she would see a solitary angel littering the outside of a structure, she would think of Saraquel, pondering colors and poetry under the vines. Saraquel, too, would sometimes switch over endings and beginnings, muddling the stories she would will humans to write thousands of years from her time. For what did these stories matter if they did speak about Carasel’s ethereal beauty? They would each muse about what the other would be doing at a certain time, even if it was a given that they would see each other later and give recounts of their day, no matter how menial or seemingly insignificant. Sometimes they would write meaningless things on scrolls instead of relaying messages, oftentimes the others’ name, and most of the time their attention would stray from the scrolls altogether to the garden outside. Which tree would they sit under, which fruit would they eat, which star would they pick out for themselves next? It all seemed so important then.
Of course, these were inconvenient, occasionally awkward and ill-timed, but not really dangerous. Not yet.
*
“Something… there is something I want to do, to try…” Carasel told Saraquel when they were alone, out of duty, and out of sight. She had seemed hesitant when she had first come, an uncertainty either of them had never known.
“What is it?” Saraquel asked her, feeling the warmth of her skin, the tremors of it under that.
“I spoke to Uriel, earlier, and I saw something from the scrolls.” Uriel was famed for being the one angel who, instead of picking just one of the two of the human forms the Father had designed, had chosen both, much to the Father’s amusement. Uriel then became assigned to the study of the body, of its pleasures and its pains.
Saraquel waited only for her to continue, feeling an interruption unnecessary. “And, well, what I saw…”
Carasel’s cheeks dotted with small cherries, her eyelashes fluttering downwards, bashfully. Then she looked at Saraquel with a kind of unassuming resoluteness that only angels not on a mission can manage, stalked closer, and kissed her. It was chaste, and still, and neither of them knew what to do in it, so they drew back.
“How… how did that feel?” Carasel inquired, as if she wanted to scratch out a hole in the ground of precious metals, with her very fingers if it came down to it, if only to have somewhere to sufficiently hide her face in. Saraquel thought it was the most precious thing she had ever seen.
“It feels like something I would like to do again,” she said, after a cautious array of words, and instigated the next one herself.
They kissed for as long as they wished, each intake of breath sweeter than the last. Carasel cupped her palms around the sides of Saraquel’s face as if she were lifting a holy grail, drinking in the wine of her lips and not wasting any drop. Saraquel sifted her fingers through the burnished wheat of Carasel’s curls, in time strengthening her grip, pulling them back with an intensity that made Carasel gasp. Saraquel took the chance to slip her tongue past Carasel’s lips, into her mouth, tentative and wet and deliciously warm. She invited Carasel’s tongue for a dance, to the music of moans and a series of steps that ended up with Carasel beneath her, wanton and wanting.
“Is there more?” Saraquel breathed just to feel her chest press against Carasel’s, tiny rise and falls that signified that they did not just exist, but were alive. Carasel nodded, her hair a mess around her head, and when she inclined her neck to look she noticed something they had not the past moments. The linen of light which clothed them had disappeared, leaving only ivory on ivory, but they had no records of shame to know that they were naked.
Neither of them asked the other about it, presuming they each had about just as much knowledge on the subject as anyone else. Carasel only nodded again, her hands tracing Saraquel’s jaw, and going lower.
“Yes,” she said, with a touch so cold and so hot along the curves of Saraquel’s back that it made her arch like a bent sycamore. “There is more.”
They laid next to each other, on their sides, on the silver concrete, learning a new kind of cartography. They used no map or compass to make their discoveries, only their hands, sometimes their mouth; they found each other so, so soft, and in some places, a little moist. Sometimes they had each other keening, groaning, screaming, but they never went far without singing the same song.
When they were halfway through done (for that day), Saraquel ran a fingertip over Carasel’s stomach and drew a ring where her bellybutton should be, and another one and another one. A trinity of promises she had meant to keep, at that time.
“It feels… you, you feel like nothing I have ever known.”
*
Then nothing was ever the same.
Saraquel and Carasel looked at everything in a new light, with less than innocent minds. For Carasel it had been difficult; what had once been her field was something she was already so distant from. But how could she ever dwell on tiny hands and tiny feet ever again, when all she could see was Saraquel, laid out and spread out, every bit of her the woman neither of them really were. They were fearfully and wonderfully made and they both knew it, but neither of them really did until they saw each other like that, bare to touch, easy to break. And break they did, in the most magnificent ways, rocking against one another like a sullied ocean, grasping at each other with arms and anchors, and able to do nothing but hold on when the ship wrecked, Saraquel having only Carasel and Carasel only having Saraquel as they laid on their shores, wet and shivering. They were marooned until the morning, their lips and the happy salt that leaked from their eyes still tasting of climax.
For Saraquel, it had almost been too easy, and perhaps that was where the problem was. The more she looked around her, the more she grew unsatisfied. And the more she looked at Carasel, the more she pined for her. Acting, a city to call their own… nothing was enough. She longed for things to be real now, for things to bigger than life so that it may swallow her whole, this new, exciting, not-yet dangerous thing she and Carasel shared.
“I recited your name a thousand times to myself today,” Saraquel had said to Carasel once. “It makes you stupid, being in love.”
And she would prove to be right, in the days that followed. It was the love of power that would steal away a third of the heavenly host from their home; it would be love itself that would tear them all apart.
*
Few were unaware of the plan (at the very least they knew there was something brewing, just not what it is), and Carasel managed to be one of those few. So when Saraquel whispered it to her while they lost themselves beneath a willow tree, it came with the utmost, not surprise, not even shock, but horror.
“Surely he is doing this in jest?” Carasel asked of Lucifer, whom Saraquel said orchestrated everything. “He is the Morning Star…”
“Precisely. He is the greatest of us all; surely he knows best?” Saraquel chided, her eyes somewhat darker than they had ever been. “Even he is not content with… with this. With a perfection we do not really posses. Otherwise would we be feeling this way?”
“Feeling what way? I do not understand…”
“This utter lack, Carasel!” Saraquel turned from haughty to pleading in the split half of an instant. “He showed us a guise that made it appear like we had it all, but you know, and I know, that we do not. We do not have meaning. We do not have choice. We do not have freedom. Not like the humans would. Do you not see it? These designs He told us to make for the humans… are things we will never have for ourselves. We are not the chosen ones after all, they are. And oh, does it make my blood boil…”
Carasel trembled at the vehemence she heard, one she had never heard before, not from Saraquel or anyone inside their gates. “Saraquel, please, please stop… you are scaring me…”
“Perhaps you ought to be scared.” Saraquel faced her solemnly, a smile like ice and gooseflesh and frostbite. “This is no longer child’s play. These are grown up matters now. Is this not what you want?”
“You have failed to tell me what it is you seem to think I want…”
“Everything. Like all of us, all those steadfast enough to take it for themselves. Deep inside you, you want it all too. Do not deny it, or you would be the first amongst us to lie.” Saraquel shifted back to something that resembled gentle, a lurking cat scratch beneath. “You want a world where children would not have to suffer to grow. You want to make it go your way. You want me, do you not? No more secrets, Carasel, no more secrets, Lucifer told us. We can be free.”
“But at what cost, Saraquel? Have you not thought at all about the Father?” Carasel nearly whimpered, though she would have been ashamed to admit it. She did not even notice when or how Saraquel had become her weakness, and was almost awestruck that she found it in herself to refuse her, even now. “He is the reason we are here, have you forgotten?”
“He is the reason we are like this. He made us this way. Have you forgotten that?” Saraquel shot back, relentless, now, and merciless; stay too close to the Morning Star and one either burns into nothing or catches on fire themselves.
Carasel did not speak, gazing back at her as if she already knew that she had lost, and was just hoping for Saraquel to give up the trophy and rejoin her where the defeated stood.
“Then I will follow him to the dark,” Saraquel said flatly as she turned her back, away from the only love she will ever know. “Without you.”
*
Every day I wonder what would have happened if I simply took your hand when you offered it, and closed my eyes against all outcomes, all consequences, all feeling except for your palm enclosed in mine. Perhaps it would have been better to have you in some desperate way that to not have you at all. I will never forget how dark your eyes looked against your face, darker even than your hair; a hole so deep I would have fallen in so quickly if I did not caution myself. I will never forget the stiff line of your back as you walked away, so far from the smooth curve whose path I once traced with my fingertips. I will never forget the sound of your voice, angry and hurt like I betrayed you, if only so I would not have to betray the Him like you did. You turned against Him, the Alpha and the Omega, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, our Father, Saraquel; how else did you think you would be repaid?
He punished you all in the most insufferable way; our own brothers and sisters rotting in a pit of a grand and malicious design. He stripped you of your wings, of the city, of His presence; He knew you would long for it even if you did not want to. I cannot imagine what you must have gone through, what you are going through, even as eternity lives on. It will never end, the fire the surrounds you, and the pain that surrounds me because I have been forced to be without you all this time. I will never stop picturing you on the other side of a stage, behind curtains and ropes and ladders. And I hope you know that there will always be a part of me that wishes I took the fall with you.
*
Low we aim, then low we miss. The higher we fly, the higher the fall. And we plummeted to the earth and past from the tallest place imaginable; no star nor mountain nor tower can compare to what used to be our home. It has been millennia, but I will never forget the sight of a silver sky against streets of gold. And I choose to always see you there, a child’s sparkle in your eyes and a grape caught between your lips, instead of the way I left you, weeping and desolate and alone. I had tried to make you understand but I also laid blame on you, and now there is enough blame to share. We partake of it sometimes here, passing it around and taking a bite, washing it down with regret wine. It tastes bitter. You tasted so sweet the last time we kissed, as if things would always stay that way, oblivious to what tribulations the future held, and sometimes I pretend there are leftovers of you on my tongue, keeping me company before I must swallow again and let go. I will never have you back, and that it my own fault, for wanting too much when you were all I needed to have.
I think of you every time I tell a lie, because it is something you never did and will never do. You are such a far cry from the scoundrels and bastards the rest of us had been reduced to; you are probably still the most innocent being that existence has ever had the pleasure of meeting, and I can never replace you. You must radiate such purity, such brilliance, that if we ever meet again I fear I may be too unworthy to even cower in your shadow, to press my mouth where your footsteps had been. We no longer have to worship Him, you understand; you are the closest thing to Him that I still have. If I look into my heart, past the cobwebs and the soot and the rust, I still see you in there. You need not return the sentiment. The most I can hope for is that you no longer resent me as much as you undoubtedly did that day. I know I betrayed you for the Morning Star, and I deserve no such thing, but please, please. Forgive me, Carasel.
*
Life goes on. It does not stop even when the lungs collapse, when the heart beats its last, when the brain shuts down. And for angels who have seen aeons pass by, there is no ending. There can, however, be other beginnings, and one of them can go like this:
It was a perfect day. Or, at least, that was how Sara remembered it. In all honesty, the sun was probably too high in the sky, too hot on the ground, and there may not have been enough clouds, and a total lack of wind. The carnival may have been overcrowded, and some kid may have spat a bubblegum in her ponytail (leaving her to snip at it in frustration with the dull scissors she borrowed from the ticket booth, which reduced it to an uneven brown bob she tried to hide under her employee’s cap without too many tufts sticking out), and she may have been tired and annoyed and sweaty and all too ready to go home by noon, but in her memory, it was a perfect day.
Because at 12:01 p.m., a minute after the big rides opened, when most of the kids hovering by her booth left to take their dibs on the swanky, colorful horses of their choice – she appeared, and somehow it made Sara’s time worthwhile. The ‘she’ in reference was a blonde girl in overalls, the park t-shirt right under it, her curly hair tied back into a messy bun, and she seemed to be none other than the new carousel operator. Maybe she was not particularly pretty, not by the usual standards, but neither was Sara; all she had was a smile when she took the kids for a ride, but she looked like she meant it, and that was rare in a place like this and enough to make her stand out.
‘I’m going to talk to her,’ Sara told herself, and did so, roughly four hours and five minutes and several Coke cans and lipstick applications later. She had already planned her hello, had it all worked out in her head, but the new girl beat her to it the moment she walked close enough to be seen.
“Yes, I’m new,” she grinned, and the sheer magnitude of it was impressive. “I’m guessing you aren’t?”
“No, not really,” Sara shook her head, motioning to the direction she had come from. “I handle the puppet show.”
“Oh, cool,” the new girl said, popping her bubblegum. Sara grew wary of it immediately, traumatized from the earlier experience, but the smell of it was familiar, sweet, and she couldn’t help but lean closer. Grape-flavored. “You like puppets?”
“No, not really. And I mean it,” Sara said with a passing snigger. “They’re creepy. How about you? You like horses?”
“They’re okay. I like helping kids get on them, though,” she said fondly, and for a moment they just stood there, smiling almost dopily at each other.
“My name’s Cara,” Cara said, extending her hand. Sara took it gingerly, as if she could feel the ridges in the palm next to hers, tell her future. “Mine’s Sara.”
“Sara and Cara.” Cara beamed, in the middle of blowing a bubble out of the side of her mouth. “That’s funny. Weird.”
“Yeah.” Sara smirked too, amused, taking an extra second longer before letting go of the handshake. “It is.”
Some stories are never told because they never rise to the full expectations of time, of interest, or of audience. Maybe some of us would like to hear it, but we never do, so we never knew what we were missing. In the midst of Gabriel’s letters, sometimes we find the anecdotes of other angels who did not have words of their own, and so relied on the discerning eyes of others who could, maybe, tell it for them. It is never the full tale, perhaps not often unbiased, and thus truth may be compromised; but all in all it is better than nothing.
*
Her name was Saraquel, and she was assigned the design of soliloquies and other related spiels. In the scrolls, one would find her name filed under those who worked to form the creativity of the Creation, under Art, head of the Stage. She was the angel of the theater, bearing the quills of Drama and Comedy. She would be there in dinghy bars with collapsing stages made of cardboard; she would be there in every full house among red-covered seats and every private box whose purposes were sometimes compromised. She would be muse to all the great playwrights, guardian of all the known actors, and mentor to legendary producers; though if you ask them they will take credit for all their work, sometimes giving an insincere acknowledgment to Up Above at awards shows filled with emeralds and jealousy. But she did not seek to be named, as none of the angels really did. The most they can ask for is a worthy interpretation of their work, and the humans rarely disappointed.
She did not mean to be, but she would become a participant in the very first lies; when Adam and Eve clothed themselves in fig and when Cain called out “Am I not my brother’s keeper?”, they had acted, and she was there to make sure they were, at the very least, convincing, though the Father could see through any guise. No one could really blame her, and no one did; she was merely in accordance with her duty.
Until the very end angels would wonder if He did all of this on purpose, if He made each of them the same, but different, fashioned each of them for their calling and had already predicted every move, and each next move that would hinder it. If some of them had already been destined to oppose Him from the very start, and, to an extent, if that was as fair as He made it seem. Each wondering would be proven for naught, for none of them would ever be answered.
*
Early in the first days of eternity, Carasel would rise before the light could fill the horizon with the color men would come to associate with daylight, without knowing why. Strange enough that she would even sleep, because their kind did not need it, but hers would be interrupted every few moments or so. Maybe we can call them hours. This would leave her as tired as she could be, and trace faint gray circles under equally gray eyes, but it would leave no merit on her disposition. She did not quite know it yet, and she would not until she held one in her arms, but Carasel was the angel of children, and she was mimicking the habits of a woman with an infant, waking in the night to tend to the cry in the cradle. She was not a guardian, for there were far too many of them even for one such as her to handle, but she watched over them anyway. She was kind and gently stern, mild-mannered in play with quick to come with a soft rebuke.
She would be there when Eve bore Adam his two sons, when Cain and Abel laid down their sacrifices to Him, and she would have turned away when a brother turned against another and made blood spill on the ground. It is not a swift connection, but children are all too often associated with murder; in each abortion clinic where candles are put out even before they are set aflame, and by the hands of psychopaths who made them victims because they practically ran around with bull’s eyes on their backs. Put a child to testify on the stands if they witness an injustice, and worry not, depending on whose side you’re one, because nothing will be revealed but the truth.
These are some of the things she would have to deal with, amidst playgrounds and stuffed toys and music boxes.
*
Between the two of them, their first meeting was nothing but coincidence. Of course they would all eventually earn that there is no such thing, but sometime there came the matter of injustice about whether a child should be allowed to act, much less lie. Angels whose jobs were to do that sort of thing informed both of them to see each other and discuss what should or should not be done. Now, neither of them had ever associated with others outside of their division, because it had never been a necessity. Saraquel was told to meet Carasel near the patch where peonies grew, and that was where she found her, stringing flower crowns that would adorn no one else but herself, for the time being.
They did not need introductions; upon sight they knew what the other was there for. Saraquel sat beside Carasel and went right to the point.
“Why do you oppose this? Why deny them that right?”
“Because they are only children.”
“And only human.”
“Humans who know not the different between right and wrong. Not yet.”
“Well, we are not allowing them the capacity to lie, at that age. Children or not, they are still bound to free will, something even we do not have. It would be their choice to take upon anything they wish. Besides, it would go against everything we are here for. I only ask that they are able to participate on the stage, not that they would sin every time they do so.”
Carasel fingered the surface of a petal contemplatively, her touch so light it did even push it down, not a fraction, not an inch. “You believe in what you are doing, Saraquel?”
“It would be quite contradictory if I did not. You understand, Carasel.” It was the first time they had spoken each other’s names, but it did not feel that way. A more fanciful text would imply misplaced fireworks, aggravated butterflies, or non-lethal jolts of electricity buzzing inside such a moment, but there had been none of that. It felt natural, like they had said it before; perhaps thought it before, even before they knew it.
But it was quite bewildering, the strangeness of it. “Have we met?” Carasel asked, the tone of her voice somewhat lost, although she knew the answer quite well.
“I am quite certain I would have remembered if we did,” Saraquel replied, not really smiling, but not doing the opposite either. Carasel nodded, pulling herself back from her thoughts.
“Ah, yes, of course. And yes, I do understand.”
“So we have come to an agreement?” Saraquel looked over her shoulder to extend her wings.
“I believe we have,” she heard Carasel say, but when she looked back it seemed she had been beaten to leaving. Carasel had already gone, a ringlet of peonies in her stead.
*
Rest assured, that first meeting did not promise grandeur at the very beginning. Neither of them really crossed paths because there had been no need to, and in those days most things were dictated by necessity, unless one had some kind of divine blessing looking down upon them. Such a smile mostly donned the shoulders of the Archangels, the five highest chosen to carry out the most sacred of His will; the rest were content to bathe in the light of its aftermath and go about what they were made to do without complaint or demand. He had better things to do than make sure each of them felt validated in their own right, and anyway, they should know they were loved just because they were there. At least, that had been the consensus then.
When they did see each other, they were usually too occupied to even acknowledge it. They all had the rest of eternity (or so they thought) to mingle among themselves, after all, so in the meantime they busied themselves with making sure Creation would go right the first time. Certainly a do-over is completely out of the question, and what they were not certain of is if they would even be forgiven if they were to err. There had been a saying that their Father is merciful, but only to those He chooses to bestow it upon. None of them ever had enough courage to think of the consequences if they did not happen to grace that list. It was seen as the wise thing to do.
So if ever Carasel passed Saraquel in the halls, the scrolls they held in their arms would have been enough to deduce that the proper conduct would be to bow her head low to avoid meeting her gaze, even if Saraquel did try so hard to, at the very least, a glimpse of her eyes. And if they happened to be placed in the same choir whose turn it was to sing perpetual praise to the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, neither of them would mention it. Not even if they were both humming the same song the next day they passed each other in the halls.
*
In all honesty, Saraquel saw Carasel more often than she would have liked to admit. Or perhaps saw was not the right word. She noticed Carasel even if she did mean to, and she would have openly preferred not to do so. Carasel occupied her mind more than anyone or anything ever had, except for exalt of the Father in thought or deed. More than any angel had a right to occupy another angel’s mind, and it was unnerving. Many times she would see Carasel in a group, tinkling on string instruments or playing with those flowers she was so fond of, and it reminded her how very unalike they were, for beings of the same breed.
Perhaps it was their calling that decided it, but Saraquel, though she had her own division to worry over and discuss matters with, had always wanted to be alone. She realized it long after she turned down offers of working together for too long even if it would lighten her load, or when she flew by in her own lane while others danced on air in flocks, like glorified birds. An angelic profession that tiptoed the line between deceptions and not was taxing for someone who tried only to see the good in things, but could not overlook the bad, even if bad did not necessarily exist yet. Such concentration she exchanged for the price of loneliness, and maybe her unselfishness wished not to inflict that same fate upon anyone else.
But Carasel was the complete opposite. She was there to understand and to know innocence to its very core, even in its heart of hearts where some not-so-innocent things may have been planted and would push through the ground later, weeds choking the most precious blossom. While Saraquel tried to imitate tears and laughter, she sought to make them come alive to the earth without pretense or falseness. Carasel knew only genuine things, because she found them in other people.
*
Golden streets had never paled in comparison to golden hair, not until the day it was Carasel who took a step forward, a detour and a half away from her usual route in the sky to settle next to Saraquel, who had been tracing the indents on the priceless ground with her toes.
“I am trying to think of a color,” she said to Carasel as if she did not seem the least bit surprised about her presence, like she knew she would come, and that this would happen, sooner or later. Their meetings just screamed, quietly and politely, of a natural occurrence, something unavoidable, unstoppable, and unnamable. Truth be told, that is the impression one would give off if they were trying to qualm a gladness inside them that would have frightened even the merriest of men.
“Pray tell, for what?” Carasel asked dutifully, something humoring in her tone, as if she knew exactly what Saraquel was trying to hide, only because she was familiar with the unfamiliar emotion herself.
Saraquel gracefully made an awkward shape with her hands, and with it a motion that obscured her cheeks, nose, and forehead, leaving only her eyes visible. “Something for the theater. Something humans can use to hide their faces if they so wish. I do not know what to call it yet.”
“But what would it be for? Would not hiding behind their ‘acting’ be enough?” Carasel’s long, soft curls seemed so striking against the alabaster of her collarbone, and the contrast, which Saraquel had seen before on billions of other angels, seemed enough to strike her down with awe, for a moment. She had found her color, though she did not say so. She answered the question.
“Sometimes I think the truth must be hidden to make it really worthwhile.”
Carasel smiled, the rays of a blinding sun. “You are so very strange, Saraquel. Quite odd, if I do say so myself.”
Saraquel did not look bothered, but actually pleased. “But it is to my merit, yes? I interest you. What other reason can there be for you being here?”
That prompted a laugh out of Carasel, pliant as a baby bird’s wing; some truths, to Saraquel’s delight, are not so easily concealed.
*
Heralds sang of moments like these spent in the Father’s presence, but neither Saraquel nor Carasel thought it was possible to experience with anyone else. But such things, such paltry gifts of time, were not wasted on them. Heaven had found another pair to walk the riverside sometimes with dangling hands; two other pairs of wings that raced each other across an eveningless sky. Every person, at least once in their life, had heard of this before.
Saraquel named things with Carasel’s insight; Carasel invented games because of something she might have heard Saraquel say. They bounced off each other and were no longer opposites, but parallels, two halves of the same whole. They marveled at their differences (Saraquel’s locks, like onyx framing her face; the summer breeze of Carasel’s scent) and at the things they happened to share, like the exact sheen their feathers took on at a certain angle in the sun – like every color from God’s mouth put into existence.
Everything seemed so much more beautiful seen through another’s eyes. There was nothing selfish or self-seeking about their companionship, except perhaps how it sometimes became a need to be with each other. They sought only understanding, and promised only love, nothing out of order as if someone had misplaced the seasons. Carasel no longer found lies in Saraquel’s acting if she did not insist on it (which she did not, because it made Saraquel happy), and Saraquel learned too, to be happy, without having to put a mask on it to make sure it was perfect (she knew what to call it now). But they knew not what to call this, and for the meantime they did not care.
“I am glad you are here,” Carasel said, picking grapes off a clutch of them, careful and methodical, even as greener, fresher globes sprung to life as soon as their predecessor was severed from its stem.
Saraquel stole a grape from Carasel’s fingertips, right before they touched her lips. “I am glad you are here,” she echoed, then, even more sincerely added, “with me.”
*
Then in one of those careless, carefree days, it was Carasel who suddenly raced into Saraquel’s arms, looking like a frightened little animal that had seen its mother fall into a hunter’s trap.
“Saraquel, Saraquel,” she said, with a rare urgency in her voice. “There is something I do not understand. I did not know where—I could not find—“
Saraquel mirrored a worry when she tried to calm Carasel down, hands sliding down her shoulders. “Please speak gently, my dearest. Even I would not be able to understand you with such a petrified speech.”
Carasel looked her in the eye, in that imploring kind of way that did not command, or even ask, but suggested, that someone please search for her when she is lost. “That, that. What you just said. You called me your dearest. Am I what you most hold dear?”
“I fail to see why that should be of any importance to—“
“But it is! It is! Do you not see? Do you know of any of our brethren who feel the same way? It is… certainly we are not a portrait of normalcy, are we?”
Saraquel grew quiet, either listening to Carasel, or to her own bemused thoughts. She did not respond with her lips, only with her hands, which coiled loosely around Carasel’s wrists, barely enough to feel the mimicry of a pulse that should be there; a gesture so loving it would never be considered platonic, in this world or the one before it.
Carasel regarded Saraquel’s silence, and perhaps it is what made her ask again, more tender, “am I what you most hold dear?”
It did not take so long for Saraquel to answer. “Yes. Yes, you are, my dearest.”
Carasel’s apple cheeks blossomed sweetly, tucking her smile into the skin just below Saraquel’s ear. “May I borrow that name, so I may call you my dearest too?”
Saraquel gave out a joyful cry, arms squeezing around the smooth planes of Carasel’s back. Carasel’s grin only inched wider, and they stood in that embrace, content for a while.
“Do you think we should tell someone? I… I do not want to keep it to myself, I cannot explain…” Carasel mused, after they sat together on the goldgreen grass.
“No, no. I do not think we should. This is the only thing we have for ourselves, you see?” Saraquel was quick to tell her, trying to make a peony necklace and giving up on that all too soon.
Carasel frowned, only slightly, only for a moment. “You… you reckon the Father would not approve—?”
“No, of course it is not that!” Saraquel said, even though it is exactly that, and they both knew it. “But would it not be better just between you and me?”
“You are asking me into some sort of trickery…”
“Do not be silly. I am only asking if you can keep a secret too.”
Carasel relented, finally, though perhaps she should not have. “Of course I can, my dearest.” And then she sighed, which Saraquel blissfully ignored.
*
Every day after that realization did not bode very well for their appointed duties. When before only required a slight occupation of each other’s thoughts, a meager space in the mind reserved only for the other, now there was a burgeoning desire to fill the rest of that empty space with Saraquel, or Carasel, respectively. It consumed them both, like a pillar of fire that spans across the desert looking for an oasis, and it left only ashes to take their place at work.
Carasel’s gaze wandered away during meetings about how many steps a child would be allowed every year, though she is not excused from wondering why animals seemed to be permitted to grow faster than the supposed Stewards of the Earth. Whenever she would see a solitary angel littering the outside of a structure, she would think of Saraquel, pondering colors and poetry under the vines. Saraquel, too, would sometimes switch over endings and beginnings, muddling the stories she would will humans to write thousands of years from her time. For what did these stories matter if they did speak about Carasel’s ethereal beauty? They would each muse about what the other would be doing at a certain time, even if it was a given that they would see each other later and give recounts of their day, no matter how menial or seemingly insignificant. Sometimes they would write meaningless things on scrolls instead of relaying messages, oftentimes the others’ name, and most of the time their attention would stray from the scrolls altogether to the garden outside. Which tree would they sit under, which fruit would they eat, which star would they pick out for themselves next? It all seemed so important then.
Of course, these were inconvenient, occasionally awkward and ill-timed, but not really dangerous. Not yet.
*
“Something… there is something I want to do, to try…” Carasel told Saraquel when they were alone, out of duty, and out of sight. She had seemed hesitant when she had first come, an uncertainty either of them had never known.
“What is it?” Saraquel asked her, feeling the warmth of her skin, the tremors of it under that.
“I spoke to Uriel, earlier, and I saw something from the scrolls.” Uriel was famed for being the one angel who, instead of picking just one of the two of the human forms the Father had designed, had chosen both, much to the Father’s amusement. Uriel then became assigned to the study of the body, of its pleasures and its pains.
Saraquel waited only for her to continue, feeling an interruption unnecessary. “And, well, what I saw…”
Carasel’s cheeks dotted with small cherries, her eyelashes fluttering downwards, bashfully. Then she looked at Saraquel with a kind of unassuming resoluteness that only angels not on a mission can manage, stalked closer, and kissed her. It was chaste, and still, and neither of them knew what to do in it, so they drew back.
“How… how did that feel?” Carasel inquired, as if she wanted to scratch out a hole in the ground of precious metals, with her very fingers if it came down to it, if only to have somewhere to sufficiently hide her face in. Saraquel thought it was the most precious thing she had ever seen.
“It feels like something I would like to do again,” she said, after a cautious array of words, and instigated the next one herself.
They kissed for as long as they wished, each intake of breath sweeter than the last. Carasel cupped her palms around the sides of Saraquel’s face as if she were lifting a holy grail, drinking in the wine of her lips and not wasting any drop. Saraquel sifted her fingers through the burnished wheat of Carasel’s curls, in time strengthening her grip, pulling them back with an intensity that made Carasel gasp. Saraquel took the chance to slip her tongue past Carasel’s lips, into her mouth, tentative and wet and deliciously warm. She invited Carasel’s tongue for a dance, to the music of moans and a series of steps that ended up with Carasel beneath her, wanton and wanting.
“Is there more?” Saraquel breathed just to feel her chest press against Carasel’s, tiny rise and falls that signified that they did not just exist, but were alive. Carasel nodded, her hair a mess around her head, and when she inclined her neck to look she noticed something they had not the past moments. The linen of light which clothed them had disappeared, leaving only ivory on ivory, but they had no records of shame to know that they were naked.
Neither of them asked the other about it, presuming they each had about just as much knowledge on the subject as anyone else. Carasel only nodded again, her hands tracing Saraquel’s jaw, and going lower.
“Yes,” she said, with a touch so cold and so hot along the curves of Saraquel’s back that it made her arch like a bent sycamore. “There is more.”
They laid next to each other, on their sides, on the silver concrete, learning a new kind of cartography. They used no map or compass to make their discoveries, only their hands, sometimes their mouth; they found each other so, so soft, and in some places, a little moist. Sometimes they had each other keening, groaning, screaming, but they never went far without singing the same song.
When they were halfway through done (for that day), Saraquel ran a fingertip over Carasel’s stomach and drew a ring where her bellybutton should be, and another one and another one. A trinity of promises she had meant to keep, at that time.
“It feels… you, you feel like nothing I have ever known.”
*
Then nothing was ever the same.
Saraquel and Carasel looked at everything in a new light, with less than innocent minds. For Carasel it had been difficult; what had once been her field was something she was already so distant from. But how could she ever dwell on tiny hands and tiny feet ever again, when all she could see was Saraquel, laid out and spread out, every bit of her the woman neither of them really were. They were fearfully and wonderfully made and they both knew it, but neither of them really did until they saw each other like that, bare to touch, easy to break. And break they did, in the most magnificent ways, rocking against one another like a sullied ocean, grasping at each other with arms and anchors, and able to do nothing but hold on when the ship wrecked, Saraquel having only Carasel and Carasel only having Saraquel as they laid on their shores, wet and shivering. They were marooned until the morning, their lips and the happy salt that leaked from their eyes still tasting of climax.
For Saraquel, it had almost been too easy, and perhaps that was where the problem was. The more she looked around her, the more she grew unsatisfied. And the more she looked at Carasel, the more she pined for her. Acting, a city to call their own… nothing was enough. She longed for things to be real now, for things to bigger than life so that it may swallow her whole, this new, exciting, not-yet dangerous thing she and Carasel shared.
“I recited your name a thousand times to myself today,” Saraquel had said to Carasel once. “It makes you stupid, being in love.”
And she would prove to be right, in the days that followed. It was the love of power that would steal away a third of the heavenly host from their home; it would be love itself that would tear them all apart.
*
Few were unaware of the plan (at the very least they knew there was something brewing, just not what it is), and Carasel managed to be one of those few. So when Saraquel whispered it to her while they lost themselves beneath a willow tree, it came with the utmost, not surprise, not even shock, but horror.
“Surely he is doing this in jest?” Carasel asked of Lucifer, whom Saraquel said orchestrated everything. “He is the Morning Star…”
“Precisely. He is the greatest of us all; surely he knows best?” Saraquel chided, her eyes somewhat darker than they had ever been. “Even he is not content with… with this. With a perfection we do not really posses. Otherwise would we be feeling this way?”
“Feeling what way? I do not understand…”
“This utter lack, Carasel!” Saraquel turned from haughty to pleading in the split half of an instant. “He showed us a guise that made it appear like we had it all, but you know, and I know, that we do not. We do not have meaning. We do not have choice. We do not have freedom. Not like the humans would. Do you not see it? These designs He told us to make for the humans… are things we will never have for ourselves. We are not the chosen ones after all, they are. And oh, does it make my blood boil…”
Carasel trembled at the vehemence she heard, one she had never heard before, not from Saraquel or anyone inside their gates. “Saraquel, please, please stop… you are scaring me…”
“Perhaps you ought to be scared.” Saraquel faced her solemnly, a smile like ice and gooseflesh and frostbite. “This is no longer child’s play. These are grown up matters now. Is this not what you want?”
“You have failed to tell me what it is you seem to think I want…”
“Everything. Like all of us, all those steadfast enough to take it for themselves. Deep inside you, you want it all too. Do not deny it, or you would be the first amongst us to lie.” Saraquel shifted back to something that resembled gentle, a lurking cat scratch beneath. “You want a world where children would not have to suffer to grow. You want to make it go your way. You want me, do you not? No more secrets, Carasel, no more secrets, Lucifer told us. We can be free.”
“But at what cost, Saraquel? Have you not thought at all about the Father?” Carasel nearly whimpered, though she would have been ashamed to admit it. She did not even notice when or how Saraquel had become her weakness, and was almost awestruck that she found it in herself to refuse her, even now. “He is the reason we are here, have you forgotten?”
“He is the reason we are like this. He made us this way. Have you forgotten that?” Saraquel shot back, relentless, now, and merciless; stay too close to the Morning Star and one either burns into nothing or catches on fire themselves.
Carasel did not speak, gazing back at her as if she already knew that she had lost, and was just hoping for Saraquel to give up the trophy and rejoin her where the defeated stood.
“Then I will follow him to the dark,” Saraquel said flatly as she turned her back, away from the only love she will ever know. “Without you.”
*
Every day I wonder what would have happened if I simply took your hand when you offered it, and closed my eyes against all outcomes, all consequences, all feeling except for your palm enclosed in mine. Perhaps it would have been better to have you in some desperate way that to not have you at all. I will never forget how dark your eyes looked against your face, darker even than your hair; a hole so deep I would have fallen in so quickly if I did not caution myself. I will never forget the stiff line of your back as you walked away, so far from the smooth curve whose path I once traced with my fingertips. I will never forget the sound of your voice, angry and hurt like I betrayed you, if only so I would not have to betray the Him like you did. You turned against Him, the Alpha and the Omega, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, our Father, Saraquel; how else did you think you would be repaid?
He punished you all in the most insufferable way; our own brothers and sisters rotting in a pit of a grand and malicious design. He stripped you of your wings, of the city, of His presence; He knew you would long for it even if you did not want to. I cannot imagine what you must have gone through, what you are going through, even as eternity lives on. It will never end, the fire the surrounds you, and the pain that surrounds me because I have been forced to be without you all this time. I will never stop picturing you on the other side of a stage, behind curtains and ropes and ladders. And I hope you know that there will always be a part of me that wishes I took the fall with you.
*
Low we aim, then low we miss. The higher we fly, the higher the fall. And we plummeted to the earth and past from the tallest place imaginable; no star nor mountain nor tower can compare to what used to be our home. It has been millennia, but I will never forget the sight of a silver sky against streets of gold. And I choose to always see you there, a child’s sparkle in your eyes and a grape caught between your lips, instead of the way I left you, weeping and desolate and alone. I had tried to make you understand but I also laid blame on you, and now there is enough blame to share. We partake of it sometimes here, passing it around and taking a bite, washing it down with regret wine. It tastes bitter. You tasted so sweet the last time we kissed, as if things would always stay that way, oblivious to what tribulations the future held, and sometimes I pretend there are leftovers of you on my tongue, keeping me company before I must swallow again and let go. I will never have you back, and that it my own fault, for wanting too much when you were all I needed to have.
I think of you every time I tell a lie, because it is something you never did and will never do. You are such a far cry from the scoundrels and bastards the rest of us had been reduced to; you are probably still the most innocent being that existence has ever had the pleasure of meeting, and I can never replace you. You must radiate such purity, such brilliance, that if we ever meet again I fear I may be too unworthy to even cower in your shadow, to press my mouth where your footsteps had been. We no longer have to worship Him, you understand; you are the closest thing to Him that I still have. If I look into my heart, past the cobwebs and the soot and the rust, I still see you in there. You need not return the sentiment. The most I can hope for is that you no longer resent me as much as you undoubtedly did that day. I know I betrayed you for the Morning Star, and I deserve no such thing, but please, please. Forgive me, Carasel.
*
Life goes on. It does not stop even when the lungs collapse, when the heart beats its last, when the brain shuts down. And for angels who have seen aeons pass by, there is no ending. There can, however, be other beginnings, and one of them can go like this:
It was a perfect day. Or, at least, that was how Sara remembered it. In all honesty, the sun was probably too high in the sky, too hot on the ground, and there may not have been enough clouds, and a total lack of wind. The carnival may have been overcrowded, and some kid may have spat a bubblegum in her ponytail (leaving her to snip at it in frustration with the dull scissors she borrowed from the ticket booth, which reduced it to an uneven brown bob she tried to hide under her employee’s cap without too many tufts sticking out), and she may have been tired and annoyed and sweaty and all too ready to go home by noon, but in her memory, it was a perfect day.
Because at 12:01 p.m., a minute after the big rides opened, when most of the kids hovering by her booth left to take their dibs on the swanky, colorful horses of their choice – she appeared, and somehow it made Sara’s time worthwhile. The ‘she’ in reference was a blonde girl in overalls, the park t-shirt right under it, her curly hair tied back into a messy bun, and she seemed to be none other than the new carousel operator. Maybe she was not particularly pretty, not by the usual standards, but neither was Sara; all she had was a smile when she took the kids for a ride, but she looked like she meant it, and that was rare in a place like this and enough to make her stand out.
‘I’m going to talk to her,’ Sara told herself, and did so, roughly four hours and five minutes and several Coke cans and lipstick applications later. She had already planned her hello, had it all worked out in her head, but the new girl beat her to it the moment she walked close enough to be seen.
“Yes, I’m new,” she grinned, and the sheer magnitude of it was impressive. “I’m guessing you aren’t?”
“No, not really,” Sara shook her head, motioning to the direction she had come from. “I handle the puppet show.”
“Oh, cool,” the new girl said, popping her bubblegum. Sara grew wary of it immediately, traumatized from the earlier experience, but the smell of it was familiar, sweet, and she couldn’t help but lean closer. Grape-flavored. “You like puppets?”
“No, not really. And I mean it,” Sara said with a passing snigger. “They’re creepy. How about you? You like horses?”
“They’re okay. I like helping kids get on them, though,” she said fondly, and for a moment they just stood there, smiling almost dopily at each other.
“My name’s Cara,” Cara said, extending her hand. Sara took it gingerly, as if she could feel the ridges in the palm next to hers, tell her future. “Mine’s Sara.”
“Sara and Cara.” Cara beamed, in the middle of blowing a bubble out of the side of her mouth. “That’s funny. Weird.”
“Yeah.” Sara smirked too, amused, taking an extra second longer before letting go of the handshake. “It is.”