Angelfire

♦ Thomas Beard ♦

“Open your eyes, Lucifer.”
His eyelids parted like curtains. Before him was a long and endless night, more stars than blackness. 

“Just call me Luci, father.” Yahweh looked down at him. Father and son exchanged a meaningful glance. Luci looked back towards the heavens. 

Through the highest window of Heaven, Luci and his father watched the stars. The astral sea of the night beyond glimmered with every shade of purple and blue and dark, bright shimmers of light like crystal decanters pouring color through the space between Heaven and Earth. Luci drank it all in, his eyes fading in and out of focus. A stone settled in his chest, excitement and contentment all in one breath. Yahweh came forward, with a hand on his shoulder. 

“Do you see them, Lucifer?”
“See what?”

In a breath Yahweh threw out his hand, and bright light encapsulated all. Then it was gone. Squinting, Luci looked back through the window the size of planets. Beyond the glass, the night was twice as big, as if they had gotten closer to it.

And Lucifer saw, with perfect clarity, the screaming souls as they fell through the night. Bright, humanoid shapes that looked as if they were bleeding fire. They became flames, hurtling down through the darkness.

Angels. Fallen angels. Luci watched as their wings curled like rotten apple skins, uncurled, faded into violent ash that swam through the night, becoming stars.

And in a blink, each one was gone, a speck of white on the surface of the night below.

“Aren’t they beautiful, Lucifer?” Yahweh said. 

He was stone.

“They’re dying.” He said. 

“No. Their wings burn, yes, but they survive.”
“Where do they go?”
Yahweh said nothing.

“Can’t you save them?” the son of the Father asked.

Yahweh sighed.

“They… are not meant to be saved.”
“Don’t you decide that? Can’t you change their fate?” He turned around, shrugging his father’s hand off his shoulder.

“Lucifer… you would not believe the decisions I have to make.”
“Why do they have to burn?”
“They have decided their own fates. They have chosen the sins of mankind.”
“Mankind does not fall.”

“No. But mankind is born fallen.”
“Because you made it so.”

“...In a way, Lucifer, they are the freest beings in the universe.”
“Mankind?”
“...yes… but I mean the fallen angels. They, and they alone with mankind, decide their own fates. They choose their own follies.” He turned his son back to stare through the window, to watch the screaming souls as they burned through the night.

“Let this be a lesson, Lucifer,” he said. “This is the price of freedom.”

Luci said nothing. 

“Aren’t they beautiful?” Yahweh said, undeterred. “As they fall, they burn into stars. Their wings become galaxies. For a moment, they are the most gorgeous things in creation.” 

“It doesn’t mean anything to them.” Luci said.

Yahweh looked down at him.

“One day,” he said, as both the son and the Father spread their wings,  “Lucifer, you are going to be beautiful, just like them.”