Timing of God II

The angry voice faded away from the corpse littered ground. Blood pushed like spikes into skin, forcing the earth to take more of the ghastly nectar. Dotted amongst the disfigured forms were spectacles of white – orchids amongst the red clay – with ghostly wings spreading in all directions. Some were broken, scattered plastic-like slivers slowly being submerged in the sludge that existed below.

A beautiful creature sat amongst this, the area around him clear of debris, blood, and carnage. His weeping was audible across the clearing. Great sobs wracked his form, causing his wings to shake erratic as if in some stop-motion photography exhibition gone horribly wrong.

“Saul. Why do you weep so?” The voice was from another, less beautiful, but still grand. The red crisscross of blood fashioned him active in the events of earlier. The gore at his feet, twisted forms of humans before him, speared the notion to be the truth.

The sobs continued. So frail, so genuine, they drowned out the sound of breath and the pulse of ones own heart; so wicked of this place to be the home of such a precious sound.

“They came for us Saul, we did not begin this. We did not want such a protest.” The dull eyes of the creature were sad, but concentrated and his concern was evident in his soft lyrical voice. He was standing behind his friend, watching his body convulse in sobs that were foreign to his kind.

“Lenity is what I would have asked for. For them I asked it a thousand times.” The words came between the jagged sobs, in between the heaving wings that fluttered above.

“And what He did show them was not a perception of the faintest glimpse. But snatched with impropriety his implicit blessing and own selfish gift of freewill.” The sobs abated. His hands cradled a bundled in front of him. A wrapping of white, laced from within by a dark red stain.

“Now where are we to linger Renal? What to admire and imagine? The already created, never to be done again – is over. In mere moments this experiment will be over. Thousands of years of purpose crushed like a child’s hope of flight.” Saul’s breath turned hot and his cheeks burned with a new found anger.

“Calm yourself.” Stern now, Renal’s voice lost all of its sympathy as he walked slowly to face Saul. “You are still an Angel of Heaven. You cannot wish to be otherwise at such a time. There is nothing else.”

Saul looked around. His eyes lingering on torn bodies, jumping quickly once a body part was identified in his mind. Then, slowly, back down at the small bundle in his hands. The anger began to boil inside him as he once again realized what it was. His hands clenched uncontrollably while a new thought tumbled through his mind. “We both know that isn’t true Saul. We both know there is an alternative.”

The voice of Renal cleansed itself of emotion and the reply was carefully worded.

“If you choose that path and announce it to me, I will act. Your entire history will be swept from the Heavenly Book and my eyes will be washed of your sight. Your words will be swept from the air. Every good you’ve ever accomplished, miracle worked, hand holding done – gone, in moments. Do not think further on this, the end is already written.”

“Oh great Tempter, claim me!” The yell pierced the calm of the new graveyard. And another orchid fell to the sludge. The spasm of thought expanded the wings, hoping for an escape. A sharpened stake, crafted for defense, found itself embedded in Renal’s chest, his hands grasping it almost lovingly. Fingers, gently caressing the wood began to jerk and convulse.

“It is written, Saul.” Renal’s eyes closed and his hands fell limp.

Saul, realized that his hands were empty. The small bundle forgotten in his rage, had been dropped, discarded like a sack and lay at his feet. A tiny hand stuck out, a small cut on the palm that Saul knew ran the length of its body. This had been a massacre, not a war.