Eventually. But at that time, I had no concept of when or where that would be.
The night had begun. The stars filled the firmament and were as distant from me as if I had never known Heaven at all. I closed my eyes, and I heard the souls of Sheol, wailing. I heard them pressing near me, asking me what I was, what had they witnessed, whence had I been thrown to the earth? Before I had gone unnoticed, my transformation having been quiet and secret, but when God had thrust me downwards, I had fallen spectacularly as an angel and immediately into the shape of a man.
All Sheol was crying in curiosity and foment.
'Lord, what do I say to them? Help me!' I prayed.
And then came the perfume of the woman near me. I turned and I saw her creeping towards me cautiously, and, when she saw my face, when she saw my tears and my distress, she came boldly towards me, slipping her warm breasts against my chest again, and clasping in her trembling hands my head.
She took my back to the encampment. She brought me inside the gates. Men and women rose from the campfire and children ran towards me. I knew that I possessed angelic beauty, and their admiring glances didn't surprise me. But I did wonder what in the name of Heaven they meant to do.
I was seated, and given food and drink, which I needed. For three days, I'd drunk nothing but water, and eaten only a few berries gathered here and there in the woods.
I sat down cross-legged with them and ate the cooked meat they gave me, and she, my woman, my Daughter of Men, crushed up against me, as if daring anyone to challenge the pair of us, and then she spoke.
She stood up, threw up her arms, and in a loud voice told them what she had seen. Her language was simple. But she had plenty enough words to describe it - how she had come upon me on the banks of the sea and seen that I was naked and she had given herself to me in sanctity and worship, knowing I could not be a man of the earth.
No sooner had my seed come into her than a magnificent light from above had filled the cave. She had rushed in fear from it, but I had walked out into it, fearless, knowing it, and before her eyes I changed so that she could see through me, yet still she saw me. And I was grown tall, with immense white feathered wings! This vision - this creature through whom she could see as if through water - she saw only for an instant. Then I vanished. I was gone as surely as I sit here now. She had hovered, shivering, watching, praying to the ancestors, to the Creator, to the Demons of the Desert, to all powers for protections, when suddenly she had seen me again - transparent, to summarize her simple words, but visible, falling - winged and enormous - smashing towards earth in a fall that would have killed a man, though that is what I became - a man, solid as everyone could see, sitting in the dust.
'God', I prayed, 'What do I do? What this woman has said is true. But I am no God. You are God. What do I do?'
No answer came from Heaven, not to my ears, not to my heart, not to my cumbersome and elaborate brain.
As for the crowd of listeners, whom I judged to be about 35, exclusive of all the children, no one spoke. Everyone was considering this. No one was quick to accept it. No one was going to jump forward and challenge it either. Something in my manner and posture held them aloof.
No surprise. I certainly didn't cower or shiver or evince what I was suffering. I had not learnt to express angelic suffering through flesh. I merely sat there, aware that by their measure I was young, comely, and a mystery; and they were not brave enough to try to hurt me as they so often hurt others, to stab, or pierce, or burn me as I had seen them do enough times to their enemies, and to their own despised.
Suddenly, the whole group burst into murmuring. A very old man rose to his feet. His words were even simpler than hers. I would say he had perhaps half her working vocabulary. But this was enough to express himself and he asked of me simply: 'What do you have to say for yourself?'
The others reacted as if this question were an expression of pure genius. Maybe it was. The woman pulled very close to me at the moment. She sat down beside me and with an imploring look, she embraced me.
I realized something - that her fate was connected to mine. She was slightly afraid of all these people, her kindred. And she wasn't afraid of me! Interesting. That is what tenderness and love can do, and marvels also, I thought. And God said these people were a part of Nature!
I hung my head, but not for long. Finally, I rose to my feet, bringing her up with me, my mate, as it were, and, using all the words known in her language, some even that the children had been adding already in this generation that the adults didn't yet know, I said:
'I mean you no harm. I came from Heaven. I came to learn about you and to love you. And I wish you only all good things under God!'
There was a great clamour, a happy clamour, with people clapping their hands and rising to their feet, and the little ones jumping up and down. It seemed a consensus emerged that Lilia, the woman I had been with, could now return to the group. She had been cast out to die when she had come upon me. But she was now surely upheld. And she had returned with a god, a deity, a sky being... they aimed for it with many syllables and combinations of syllables.
'No!' I declared. 'I am not a god. I did not make the world. I worship, just as you do, the God who did.'
This too was accepted in jubilation. Indeed, the frenzy began to alarm me. I felt the limits of my body keenly with all these others dancing and screaming and shouting and kicking at the wood in the fire, and the lovely Lilia clinging to me.
'I must sleep now!' I said suddenly. And this was no more or less than the perfect truth. I had scarce slept an hour or more at any one time in my 3 days in the flesh and was bone weary and bruised and cast out of Heaven. I wanted to turn to this woman, and bury my sorrow in her arms.
Everyone gave their approval. A hut was prepared for us. People ran hither and thither gathering the finest skins and furs for us, and the softest chewed leather, and we were ushered into this place in silence, and I lay back down on the fur beneath me, the skin of a mountain goat, long and soft.
'God, what do you want me to do!' I asked aloud. There came no answer. There was only the silence and the darkness in the hut, and then the arms of a Daughter of Men around me, luscious and loving and full of tenderness and passion, that mystery, that combination, that purely living miracle, tenderness and lust rolling and rolling into one.
[ azrael stops, as if exhausted suddenly. he rises again and walks to the bank of the sea. he stands in the soft sand and pebbles, and des can see the outline of his wings flash for a moment, perhaps exactly the way the woman had seen it, and then he is merely azrael again, with his shoulders hunched as he stands with his back to him, his face apparently buried in his hands. ]
no subject
The night had begun. The stars filled the firmament and were as distant from me as if I had never known Heaven at all. I closed my eyes, and I heard the souls of Sheol, wailing. I heard them pressing near me, asking me what I was, what had they witnessed, whence had I been thrown to the earth? Before I had gone unnoticed, my transformation having been quiet and secret, but when God had thrust me downwards, I had fallen spectacularly as an angel and immediately into the shape of a man.
All Sheol was crying in curiosity and foment.
'Lord, what do I say to them? Help me!' I prayed.
And then came the perfume of the woman near me. I turned and I saw her creeping towards me cautiously, and, when she saw my face, when she saw my tears and my distress, she came boldly towards me, slipping her warm breasts against my chest again, and clasping in her trembling hands my head.
She took my back to the encampment. She brought me inside the gates. Men and women rose from the campfire and children ran towards me. I knew that I possessed angelic beauty, and their admiring glances didn't surprise me. But I did wonder what in the name of Heaven they meant to do.
I was seated, and given food and drink, which I needed. For three days, I'd drunk nothing but water, and eaten only a few berries gathered here and there in the woods.
I sat down cross-legged with them and ate the cooked meat they gave me, and she, my woman, my Daughter of Men, crushed up against me, as if daring anyone to challenge the pair of us, and then she spoke.
She stood up, threw up her arms, and in a loud voice told them what she had seen. Her language was simple. But she had plenty enough words to describe it - how she had come upon me on the banks of the sea and seen that I was naked and she had given herself to me in sanctity and worship, knowing I could not be a man of the earth.
No sooner had my seed come into her than a magnificent light from above had filled the cave. She had rushed in fear from it, but I had walked out into it, fearless, knowing it, and before her eyes I changed so that she could see through me, yet still she saw me. And I was grown tall, with immense white feathered wings! This vision - this creature through whom she could see as if through water - she saw only for an instant. Then I vanished. I was gone as surely as I sit here now. She had hovered, shivering, watching, praying to the ancestors, to the Creator, to the Demons of the Desert, to all powers for protections, when suddenly she had seen me again - transparent, to summarize her simple words, but visible, falling - winged and enormous - smashing towards earth in a fall that would have killed a man, though that is what I became - a man, solid as everyone could see, sitting in the dust.
'God', I prayed, 'What do I do? What this woman has said is true. But I am no God. You are God. What do I do?'
No answer came from Heaven, not to my ears, not to my heart, not to my cumbersome and elaborate brain.
As for the crowd of listeners, whom I judged to be about 35, exclusive of all the children, no one spoke. Everyone was considering this. No one was quick to accept it. No one was going to jump forward and challenge it either. Something in my manner and posture held them aloof.
No surprise. I certainly didn't cower or shiver or evince what I was suffering. I had not learnt to express angelic suffering through flesh. I merely sat there, aware that by their measure I was young, comely, and a mystery; and they were not brave enough to try to hurt me as they so often hurt others, to stab, or pierce, or burn me as I had seen them do enough times to their enemies, and to their own despised.
Suddenly, the whole group burst into murmuring. A very old man rose to his feet. His words were even simpler than hers. I would say he had perhaps half her working vocabulary. But this was enough to express himself and he asked of me simply: 'What do you have to say for yourself?'
The others reacted as if this question were an expression of pure genius. Maybe it was. The woman pulled very close to me at the moment. She sat down beside me and with an imploring look, she embraced me.
I realized something - that her fate was connected to mine. She was slightly afraid of all these people, her kindred. And she wasn't afraid of me! Interesting. That is what tenderness and love can do, and marvels also, I thought. And God said these people were a part of Nature!
I hung my head, but not for long. Finally, I rose to my feet, bringing her up with me, my mate, as it were, and, using all the words known in her language, some even that the children had been adding already in this generation that the adults didn't yet know, I said:
'I mean you no harm. I came from Heaven. I came to learn about you and to love you. And I wish you only all good things under God!'
There was a great clamour, a happy clamour, with people clapping their hands and rising to their feet, and the little ones jumping up and down. It seemed a consensus emerged that Lilia, the woman I had been with, could now return to the group. She had been cast out to die when she had come upon me. But she was now surely upheld. And she had returned with a god, a deity, a sky being... they aimed for it with many syllables and combinations of syllables.
'No!' I declared. 'I am not a god. I did not make the world. I worship, just as you do, the God who did.'
This too was accepted in jubilation. Indeed, the frenzy began to alarm me. I felt the limits of my body keenly with all these others dancing and screaming and shouting and kicking at the wood in the fire, and the lovely Lilia clinging to me.
'I must sleep now!' I said suddenly. And this was no more or less than the perfect truth. I had scarce slept an hour or more at any one time in my 3 days in the flesh and was bone weary and bruised and cast out of Heaven. I wanted to turn to this woman, and bury my sorrow in her arms.
Everyone gave their approval. A hut was prepared for us. People ran hither and thither gathering the finest skins and furs for us, and the softest chewed leather, and we were ushered into this place in silence, and I lay back down on the fur beneath me, the skin of a mountain goat, long and soft.
'God, what do you want me to do!' I asked aloud. There came no answer. There was only the silence and the darkness in the hut, and then the arms of a Daughter of Men around me, luscious and loving and full of tenderness and passion, that mystery, that combination, that purely living miracle, tenderness and lust rolling and rolling into one.
[ azrael stops, as if exhausted suddenly. he rises again and walks to the bank of the sea. he stands in the soft sand and pebbles, and des can see the outline of his wings flash for a moment, perhaps exactly the way the woman had seen it, and then he is merely azrael again, with his shoulders hunched as he stands with his back to him, his face apparently buried in his hands. ]