Stanzas: Monthly Chapbooks May 2015: Equality | Page 23

when it was my time, and was guided quietly to a cell in the heavenly city, like an
errant child who’s stayed at play for too long and is late for supper. And the first sliver
of doubt reached my mind – I was the Angel of The Beginning. What else had I to
contribute?
More time passed. I watched from my cell. Watched orbits of planets as they
soared through the eternal, cold vacuum of nothingness we had fathomed, watched
the possibilities and chances collide as temperatures swung back and forth, fluctuating
wildly, each change inclining us gently toward fulfilling our single purpose – the
creation of a Universe which the potential for life, and the careful safeguarding of
that life. An empty Universe provided little distraction from the bleak hive I lived
in – I envied other angels, constantly working, enjoying the satisfaction I had felt
when I had worked, for those infinitesimally brief moments, aeons ago. I watched
Lucifer, tarnished by centuries away from the purifying light of the City, realising
that innocence, once lost, isn’t something that can be regained. I watched cursed
pride creep into the Citadel, as angels wrought beyond their purpose and revelled in
the attention their audacity brought them. I watched Gabriel who carried an air of
superiority, as though he were first among the angels, now that Lucifer had fallen, and
Michael had taken to his hive, grieving the loss of his brother. I was in turn watched
– I caught eyes on me once, and wondered what I mattered to the Angel of Silence –
but in truth, time moved on, and soon enough, I was forgotten once more, confined
to my home, the Angel without purpose. I languished. Alone.
It was around then that I started to panic. I knew who I was, and what my
purpose was. But often, after hours of prayer and silent contemplation, the hollowness
hit me. Was that all? Was I finished? Would I never be more than what I had already
achieved? I felt paralysed. I was a one off tool. My father had no more use for me, I
would rot in this cell, alone and unmourned, rusting until the end of creation. I would
go back into the cold loneliness, and never know that satisfacti