The Fallen
I wonder how long it will be before Jake is granted asylum in Ilarium. I wonder how long I will have to wait before I am able to see him again. I wonder how long I have to wait before I can embrace him in his new form and tell him all the things I have longed to tell him. Revalia and Lozhure have their special connection, and I will have mine. Soon. I have done all that has been asked of me. I have accepted my punishment. I have made my repentance. I have fulfilled my angelic destiny, and now, I wish to live for all of eternity with the soul I am so deeply connected with.
The room suddenly goes dark. The Window had revealed to me the last moments of Jake’s life flickers to a black screen. I reach my hand to touch its velvety surface, and there’s no longer a sense of pulsating life therein—just an empty canvas. A shiver runs through my body and when I turn my head to look at the light source in the middle of the room, I see that it, too, has been diminished. The room gets very cold, very fast.
“Hello?” I say. How stupid of me? I know there’s only me here. I’m alone and have been for the most part, for a very long time, but this sudden eerie change of scenery is enough to spook me.
My voice echoes off the tower, sounding alien to my own ears. Has it been that long since I’ve actually used my voice to speak? I start for the door, hoping maybe there is someone else in another section of the temple who could explain to me what’s going on, but my feet won’t budge. I can’t move. I’m frozen in place. I attempt to use my angelic instincts and try floating to the door, but that’s of no use, either. I’m stuck.
No. I’m not stuck. I am floating, but it’s beyond my control. I’m being lifted into the air by an unseen force, being pulled upward by an invisible rope strapped around my waist. The walls of the room are melting, dripping away like water on a painting. This must be it! This must be how I will be reunited with Jake. I am going to meet him for his ascension.
The Lord has heard my prayer.
The temple melts away completely and I am left suspended in midair. Darkness and silence engulf me. There’s an odd sensation of absence. Nothingness. Emptiness.
I’m suddenly afraid.
“Be not afraid, Aestra,” a voice booms in my mind. It speaks to me not with the human languages I have been so accustomed to, but with the language of my kin, the angelic words that I have not used for many and many a year. The voice is loud and all-encompassing. I don’t just hear it in my head and in my ears, I hear it in my arms and feet and wings. It courses throughout the entire shape of my body, touches every hair and fiber, resonates in every quill of my feathers.
The Creator.
The thought of being in the presence of the Almighty fills me with great happiness. My eyes struggle in the darkness to see Him, to catch a glimpse of His divine essence. But I am met with nothing. Empty. Dark. “Where are you, Lord?” I speak aloud.
“I am here, child,” He says.
He’s not, though. There’s no sign of Him except His powerful, booming voice. I start to panic and struggle harder to see Him in through the darkness. “I can’t see you, Father!” I cry.
“Close your eyes.”
I follow His instructions and shut my eyes. Within seconds a glorious glowing light fills the space in which I am suspended. The wonderful heat from it warms the very essence of my soul, and pure love encapsulates me. The warmth seeps into the fibers of my feathers, and with my mind’s eye, I can actually feel and see the color of them—pink to purple to blue to green to yellow to orange to gold! Golden feathers infused with pure love. “Oh, my Lord!” I gasp as I am lifted higher so. My body slowly spins, dances, moves upwards still into a cone of light and love. I am Dorothy in the tornado, except I’m not in the presence of a wicked old witch. I am in the ultimate presence of God.
The rotation stops, and I am completely weightless. I dare not open my eyes, but I suspect that I am returned to my former self—stripped of my human shape, before the eyes of the Creator in my original design.
“What do you feel?” He asks.
“Love. Light. Life,” I answer.
“Why do you feel this way?”
The feeling is overwhelming. The light punctures me at my very core, and I can’t help but smile and swoon at the pinnacle of his presence. “Because You are before me, my Lord. You are the source of everything that is good and sacred in this universe. You have blessed me.”
“Yes, Aestra, you are blessed. But there is more to you than what you feel, but you have done nothing but feel for quite some time.”
“I… I don’t understand.”
“And that is the problem, my child. Your power to reason has escaped you, overtaken by the power of emotion. You are losing yourself to yourself.”
His light blinks out for a fraction of a second, and for that split fraction, I am frightened.
“Father!” I cry. “Have I done something wrong?”
“You are entitled to choose whichever path you deem fit for yourself. That has always been the way.”
“But have I been wrong?” I ask again, unsure now of where this meeting is heading.
“No, Aestra. You haven’t been entirely wrong. But you haven’t been entirely right, either.”
Sadness sweeps over me. I have disappointed the Creator, something that I have never even imagined possible. I wish to weep, I wish to sob, but as I suspected, I am no longer in my human form. My angelic nature has never known of this sadness that burns inside of me, and has no natural mechanism for dealing with sadness such as this. Pure forms shed no tears.
Uncontrollable heat emits from my wingtips. “Easy, child,” He coaxes. “For all of your misdoings, you are still my perfect creation, and I am all forgiving if you truly have sorrow in your heart. I could never deny you a place in my realm if you are with repentance.”
A burst of energy passes through me, calming my growing sorrow. “Father,” I say, “I will do anything to make this right again. I will do anything to be worthy in Your eyes once more. Grant me the chance to prove myself to You and to the others that I have turned against.” With my eyes still closed, I can see the light around me dimming to a soft candle-like glow.
“Tell me,” He says softly, “what do you want?” This time, His voice is only in my ear, as if He’s standing right beside me, caressing my shoulder, nuzzling my face with his wondrous essence.
“I want to be forgiven,” I reply immediately.
“No,” He answers. “What do you really want? Right now. What is it that you desire?”
A wet, tingling sensation rushes through me, like water from a waterfall covering my body. For a moment, I dive into that waterfall, thinking about the true answer to his question. What do I want? What do I seek? What do I desire more than anything in this entire span of existence? He must already know the answer, because I feel Him probing my essence in a way that only the heavenly Creator could. Confidently, I answer, “Jake.”
His light flickers again before returning to its full brightness.
“I want for Jake to be granted entrance into Ilarium.”
“Tell me,” He says, His voice booming again throughout my body, “what have you learned from all of this?”
“Learned, Father?”
“Yes. You desire forgiveness, you desire an Ishim, but what have you learned from your experiences?”
I sigh. I hadn’t given much thought to what I have walked away with all these years. I’ve watched plenty of humans and interacted with many angels. I’ve given advice for them to use in their missions. I’ve come to understand the nature of the human soul and the power of love and friendship. I’ve learned to make and keep the very necessities in human life—relationships on levels of basic, acquaintance, sympathetic, empathetic. I’ve learned self-confidence and…
“Nothing,” He says, interrupting my thoughts. “You’ve learned absolutely nothing.”
“Father?” I ask. “But I…”
“Aestra, all your surface realizations have been human in nature. You have learned nothing on an angelic level. Your inability to make the next level connections has been what is holding you back. Child, you have squandered your time spent in The Observatory.”
My eyes close tighter, but they’re not really eyes, more like openings in a non-corporeal structure. A heat wave flashes against my wings, but they’re not really wings, more like slants and slats, cutouts in a paper doll. That’s when I realize, my angelic shape is shifting, changing, transforming… melting. I’m no longer in control “No! I didn’t!” I wail.
“What value did you serve for the others? What meaning did you give to their assignments? How did you help enhance their success? What did you learn from your observations of mankind?” He questions me in rapid-fire fashion and the light and darkness behind my closed eyes dances wildly. My form is deflating into nothingness. I’m sucked away into a lonely abyss. The love and presence of the Creator being pulled farther and farther away.
“I learned to love!” I scream, my hands trying to grasp at something tangible to hold on to before I am suctioned into a black vortex for all eternity.
“And now,” He continues, “as you stand before Me, in the presence of your heavenly Father, your audacity continues to blind you to the truth.”
Everything stops and becomes still. The feeling of damnation is lifted and my essence is molded back into my human shape. I’m Aestra again! I rotate my shoulders fluffing out my wings to full span. “What truth is that?” I ask.
“Jake is gone. He is dead. He passed. He no longer exists in that world. Or this one. Lights out.”
A stabbing pain cuts into my chest. I fight to catch my breath. Heavy tears well in my eyes, and I understand why the Creator shifted me back to this human shape… so I can cry. Pressure builds behind my closed eyelids, and a hard lump closes over in my throat as I try so desperately to keep the emotion inside. To weep before the Lord is a sign of weakness, and I’m not sure weakness is the emotion I am feeling right now. I’m mostly feeling confused, and I hate feeling confused.
“I don’t understand,” I say, my voice croaking with fear against the lump. “He was a good man. He helped so many people—he affected so many lives. He deserves to be…”
“The one life that he affected the most was yours. To have your calling in Ilarium would have serious ramifications for you and the others. Think of the precedent it would set.”
“Am I to be an example?”
“Of sorts. Aestra, you still cannot see the big picture here, and that is what is most distressing to me. My child, your consumption with your calling is beyond that of angelic or human comprehension. Your emotions run too deep to be figured out or explained. If he were to be granted Ishim, there would be only pain and suffering on the horizon. I cannot allow that in.”
“The infection,” I say matter-of-factly. “I’m infected, aren’t I?”
“No, my dear.”
“Then what becomes of me? Is this my punishment?”
“No,” He says. “You will remain in The Observatory, but your viewing of the human world will be restricted.”
Restricted? Why would I care now? Jake is gone. Dead. Lights out. Those words still don’t make sense to me. I waited so long to be reunited with Jake—the thought of his soul, his spirit, being out there only to return to the heavens was enough for me to get through the every day. But this? He doesn’t even exist? There’s no more breath of life that bears his imprint? Rage builds inside of me, slowly, methodically. It starts at the bottoms of my soles and works its way to the back of my eyelids; it is overtaking me in a way that I expect I will shortly explode, both literally and metaphorically. Jake gone? Dead? Ceasing to exist? This great man, who I set on the right path to benefit humankind, who deserves to be granted the privilege of a heavenly afterlife, who did everything he could with grace and pride and dignity, who suffered unbearable hardships when he walked the earth, is now gone? Lights out? That can’t be! Less deserving souls have been granted Ishim!
This isn’t fair. I see red. He was a great man. I see red. He did good for Your cherished people. I see red. He needs to be rewarded. I see red. I love him. I see…
As the rage consumes me, I am no longer in control. I open my closed eyes in a flash of anger and defiance. Before me, I see the face of the Creator and am horrified by the gruesome beauty therein. There are twisted dark shapes of gnarled bodies and sharp human teeth. It shines a light whose color is indescribable… it’s a color I have never witnessed in my existence before. The mouth of the light opens wide and swallows the heavens and the earth. There is no shape, just a vast expanse of images and memories and tales of the entire length of timelessness. The beauty overwhelms me into shock. The horror terrifies my eyes closed once again.
What have I done? Immediately, I fall to my knees, cowering in sorrow and fear, and I bow my head in reverence. Fully expecting the pain and agony of being struck down and cast out, I cry, “Please, Father! Please forgive me.”
“Rise, child.” His voice booms, echoes. The cold stone underneath my feet is like ice as I stand up. The light of the Lord is gone, replaced with a new one. My senses tell me I’m back in the temple, back in The Observatory.
I open my eyes, and yes, I am back. “Father?” I call out, hoping that I am still in His presence. I know I must dig deep within myself to regain my composure, or else the consequences will be severe. No angel acts the way that I have, and I am lucky that I have been granted another chance at salvation.
A rush of wind blows through my hair. “Yes, you may,” he answers, His voice trailing upward and out the Window.
He is gone.
He answered my question before I even had a chance to speak it out loud.
I asked to see Jake one last time.
The Window shows me what I wish to see. Jake’s funeral, his family honoring him, his friends and former students paying tribute to a man who changed all of their lives. There are many tears, and there are many laughs for the days of old. I’m there, too, as his great-granddaughter presents her eulogy. She recalls the stories her great-granddad told her about his strange angel. The other great-grandchildren, grandchildren, and son Daniel all laugh for they’ve all heard the tales. An overweight elderly man wheels up to Jake’s casket in his electric wheelchair and touches the body on the shoulder. It’s Vic, coming to pay respect to the man who was, at one time, his best friend. The room is filled with the energy of the souls of the living; however, Jake’s no longer exists. He is absent from the festivities, robbed of his eternal heavenly reward. I can’t help but cry as they lower his casket into the ground, to be absorbed by the earth. Lights out. I stifle the growing anger.
The scene in the Window shifts. Angela, Jake’s wife, sits at the kitchen table with a yellow legal pad in front of her. A dresser drawer is on the chair next to her, and she and her grandson, Peter, are going through some of Jake’s things. She’s writing down items and putting check marks next to them.
“Do you think Simon would want this watch?” Angela asks him.
“Yes,” he answers as she scribbles something on the paper. “What about his cufflinks? Are they real diamonds?”
Angela laughs weakly, “Oh no! Your grandpa would never wear real diamonds! Give them to Kaelyn, she’ll have fun dressing up her dolls.”
“You sure, Grandma?”
“Yes, yes. Take them.”
Peter continues to rummage through the drawer until he comes across the brown leather pouch. My brown pouch. He holds it up for Angela to see. “Grandma, what about this?”
“Give it here,” she says holding out her hand. He hands it to her and she pulls out the necklace. The silver glints in the fluorescent kitchen light.
“Who’s Aestrangel?” he asks with a puzzled look.
Angela’s face darkens and she shrugs her shoulders. “He had this for forever,” she says, putting it into her pocket. “I’m keeping it.” And she writes down something else on her checklist.
Later that evening, Peter goes back to his own apartment, leaving Angela alone. She sits at the kitchen table for some time tapping her foot against the ceramic tile floor. Then she gets up from her chair, a process that takes much time in her elder years, and hobbles over to the garbage can. She reaches into her pocket, removes the necklace, and drops it into the trash. The clank of medal against the stainless steel can echoes up to the heavens and my heart nearly stops.
She threw me away!
Now, neither Jake nor I exist in the human realm! My last shred of humanity was welded into that necklace, etched with the human letters of eternity, and now I’m nothing there! I, too, cease to exist!
The rage inside of me returns full force, and I am no longer in control. The red veil drips over my eyes, my aura, and rocks my very essence with a helplessness and hopelessness I never thought imaginable. I throw my head to the sky, and as the tears stream down my face, I scream the most bloodcurdling scream I could ever imagine. My insides burn, my wings thrash. I rush to the Window, pull at the corners of the gold ornate frame, and punch my fist as hard as I can into the center screen. I cry, scream, and hurl my body to the ground in a fit of unadulterated agony.
“This can’t be!” I wail, my voice bouncing off the stone walls, reverberating in my ears. I’m losing control, losing control, losing…
In a flash, I’m on my feet and I rotate my shoulders forward so my wings are within my side view. With blind fury I tear at my feathers, plucking them at the quills, letting the crunching cacophony thrill me and the sharp pains surge throughout my body.
“I hate you!” I scream at the top of my lungs. The words flow in the angelic and human voices that reside deep inside of me. They harmonize with an eerie song, “I hate you! I hate all of you!”
Because I do.
There is a blackness emanating from my tortured wings, and I know what I am saying. Most of all, I mean what I am saying.
They tortured me. They made me feel like a human. They made me think like a human. They made me do their stupid assignment only to punish the most perfect human to ever walk the earth. For what? To test me? To ruin me? To infect me? To erase me? Or rather, let me be erased by a human woman who knows not of my power and glory? With everything left inside of me, I feel it… the rage, the anger, the betrayal.
I hate them.
I hate them all.
I hate You.
The floor beneath me starts to tremble and shake. The thick stones crack open, and a hole forms in the center of the Observatory. Before I realize it, I’m falling.