Fallen

“Have I not followed your path? Have I not done all that you’ve asked of me?” His screams did little more than to stir the doves from their rest among the branches of a nearby, lonely tree. “Why do you punish me so?”

He fell to his knees and wept, noticing not the dampness of the earth as it wetted the cloth of his linen trousers and the tips of his wings that had fallen sullenly to his sides. The blackness of the soil that now dirtied them, juxtaposed against the stark whiteness of the feathers, gave his wingtips the ominous appearance of bloodied knives. They were the blades with which he’d unintentionally, and unwittingly, used to cut away, that which allowed him to soar. Now, heavy with the rain and weighed with soil, his wings would not lift him.

His tears blended with the raindrops that streaked his face until he could no longer distinguish the source. “Why?” he yelled to the heavens. No answer would come. Forlornly, he rose and began his journey back to the palace from whence he’d come. What little strength he had left moved his feet only; the once mighty wings that carried him through the skies dragged listlessly behind him. When he returned and cast open the large, oaken doors he found the palace as he’d left it; silent and empty.

Gone were the revelers. Gone were the choirs whose angelic voices had climbed to the rafters on high each morning. The great hall now great in name only echoed no sound save his own steps. The stone of the massive fireplaces that flanked the chambers sat cold, the flames held within them long since extinguished. When he reached his throne, he collapsed into it exhausted, anguished and alone. For a brief moment his wings stretched outward as if they might carry him, though they, like the rest of his form, gave way to burden and crashed to the ground. Even the dust refused to stir as the feathers came to rest heavily over the arms of the throne and brushed the floor.

Finally overcome, his chin fell to his chest and he slept. For how long, he knew not, but the sun’s fading rays that had dimly illuminated the hall had given way to the pure light of the moon that now shone down through the oculus high above his head. There was something soothing, yet chilling about the way the moon’s glow fell upon him. It stirred him.

Stepping from his throne he drew his wings back up to his body and held them there closely. Suddenly a fear washed over him as he became acutely aware that he was not alone. “Show yourself!” he demanded. From the shadows a figure stepped forth; another angel, like him, but so very different. “Who are you?”

“Do you not recognize me?”

Though familiar, he could not place the voice. The speaker moved through the darkness deliberately, revealing his form but not his face. It terrified him. This was no angel in his midst. No, though it may have been once, this creature’s wings were as black as night and their feathers rustled as if blown by some unseen breeze. There was something sinister, yet comforting about the creature.

“Who are you?” he asked again. “Why have come here?”

“Come here?” it replied with a scoff. “I’ve been here all along!”

“Why do you not reveal yourself to me? Why do you lurk in the shadows?”

“Because this is where you keep me. I’ve always resided in the darkness. You won’t let me exist anywhere else.”

His wings twitched as he found himself uncontrollably walking down the steps from his throne towards the figure in the center of the expansive hall. Something drew him it; something beyond himself. “You speak as if I know you, stranger. As if I’ve some hold or control over you. Yet you do not identify yourself.”

The figure laughed. As if by design the clouds of the sky parted and allowed the moon’s full brightness to cascade down over the figure. As it did he stretched his raven-like wings outward and grinned. “Do you not recognize me now?”

The angel stumbled backwards in horror. “How is this possible?”

Before he could summon the strength to speak again the figure leaped forward, batted its wings twice, and was upon him. He fell backwards, having stumbled all the way back to the steps behind him. The marble’s sharpness pinched against his wings and held him there, unable to fly, unable to escape. The figure loomed over him and leaned forward until they were nearly nose to nose. Willing his eyelids to remain shut, he could nothing other than stare into his own eyes. This figure, this fallen, darkened angel that filled his heart with fear, was himself.

“Do you now see? I am you. I am the darkness you hold inside. I’m here because you have nothing left. You’ve driven away the light to the point that I am all that remains. And now you’ve no choice but to face me.”

He turned away and fought the tears that sought escape. “You are not me. I’ve no reason to face you.” Suddenly he felt himself lifted from the ground as his wings seemed to remember their purpose. His actions were not his own, however, and though he hovered high above the tables that adorned the great hall, so too did his darker self.

“You’ve every reason to face me. You’ve emptied this place by your own doing. These wings that hold me aloft are yours. This pain, this torment that fills me is yours and yours alone. This shell in which I’m trapped is forged by your hand. This blackness that covers me grows from within you.”

He flapped his wings in a vain attempt to flee, though the action did little more than to cause the chandeliers to sway on their moorings. “What is it you want from me?” he pleaded.

“I want nothing.”

“What then?”

“Ask me what it is I need.”

“What do you need, then?”

“I need you to open your eyes and see me.”

“My eyes are open, and I do see you.”

The dark angel laughed. “And therein lies your problem. Your eyes may be open but they do not see. They do not see me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. If you did I wouldn’t be here.”

“Now you’re speaking in riddles.”

With a sigh the dark angel drew his wings in and floated to the ground. “Walk with me.”

Before he knew what was happening he too was on the ground and following his blackened self through the hall to the massive doors through which he’d entered. “Do you know what lies through these doors? Out there, beyond these walls you’ve built of boulder and stone?”

“My kingdom.”

“Are you quite certain of that?”

“Of course I am!”

“Describe it to me.” He thought for a moment, terrified and perplexed, as he could find no words. “You can’t, can you? That’s because there is nothing. No rolling hills, nor golden fields lie outside this lonely fortress you’ve created. You’ve built these walls so mightily and so securely that nothing can penetrate them.”

“I was just beyond these walls before you revealed yourself to me. I knelt in the dirt and it darkened the tips of my wings. See for yourself.” As he held his wings outstretched, gone was any evidence of his existence beyond the palace walls; the knees of his pants were dry and clean, and his wings as white as snow. “How? I was, I thought I…” his voice trailed off into nothingness.

“There it is,” the dark angel said with smirk.

“What?”

“The hint of revelation.”

He closed his eyes and tried to will away the visage of his darkly ethereal self. It remained. “Please go away,” he pleaded.

“I can never go away. I am you. Only when you realize that, and can accept it, will the light you’ve turned away shine on you once more.”

“Again, you speak in riddles. Be plain!”

“Look to me,” it commanded, and he did. “Know me. Feel me. See me in these eyes, in your eyes, and understand that I am you, in everything you do. You cannot always exist in the light. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll learn that even in the shadows there is light. And then, only then, will that which you’ve lost return to you.”

 

Any further attempts to speak were thwarted in his throat. The dark angel’s words reverberated in his mind, divine and ominous. “Even in the shadows there is light,” he repeated aloud when his voice returned. He had some much more to ask, but the dark angel, his darkness, had slipped away into the night.  

To his knees he fell again, the moon casting his shadow across the chamber’s floor. His whole body ached and he extended his wings to their full length to stretch. As he did, tiny slivers of moonlight found their way to the floor from between the outstretched feathers. “Even in the shadows there is light,” he said again. “Even in the shadows there is light.”

 

© 2015 J.J. Goodman. All rights reserved.