The Final Interlude
He dreamt: of the past, for some time. Lucifer tried to recall every detail of it, and he realized that he’d had quite the modest birth if nostalgia was an honest prophet.
The archangel Raphael had been there, and Lucifer had met Asmodeus soon thereafter.
When Lucifer saw himself for the first time, he had asked who it was, and then he’d said that this was too much beauty for an angel to carry.
He had been right, in the end. For many slow, monotonous years, his greatest concern had been finding a purpose that wasn’t imprisoned to a body.
God had held his chin and told Lucifer he was ripe for love.
One day, Lucifer had stood and burst into a song of worship, and the angel Michael had seen him and said that there had never been an angel as fine as him.
He’d grown vain, and the Lord berated him, and Lucifer had traded God’s love for an angel’s love.
The greatest sin was to love. He was groomed to be beautiful and to be beautiful to break.
He was raped by God and told no one. Had almost forgotten about it, over the centuries.
The Lord tore him open, and when he looked down, he never stopped bleeding.
Why should he have told anyone? It belonged to him, like a heart — the rape; it was his to carry and hear the echoing beat of.
Michael then betrayed him, and Baal fell with the demons.
He dragged others down. An angel named Rosier.
Asmodeus. An angel named Gemory, and one named Moloch.
There were so many names that he confused them, and he had to shut his eyes and start the dream over again.
He remembered Azazel and Samyaza, and he remembered telling Azazel never to become like him.
There, too, had been emperor once. A Christ on a crucifix.
There was once a young human boy named Cain, whom he’d cherished more than anything.
He remembered Eve, her anger at him, and his pity for her.
He remembered, and he remembered. And he slept often.
Lucifer began to understand why God had done it, all of it.
He grew tired of being alone and dreamt of love, of kisses and praise, and he began to ask himself if he was really alone or if he had wandered away from the others long ago, without realizing it.
He wasn’t God; he couldn’t be. Where was he? Who was he?
All he could do was lay on what was like a cloud and stare off and keep trying to recall.
Sweet nostalgia twisted it, lengthened the good times, dwindled the bad.
When Lucifer didn’t waste away with what was, he thought of what could have been — with Michael, and if not with Michael, then with Baal.
He’d curl up on his cloud — this bored, pretty, and vain god — and continue with the fantasies of embraces and lips molding to each other, equal and perfect and soft and rough when he wanted it.
How nice it would be to rest, then perhaps, one day, rise to walk toward the end of the light and search for whatever existed outside of this. Whoever existed.
When that day comes, I think it will be like being born again.
Perhaps I have misled you. I’m an angel still, still have the desire in me to be a messenger.
But I speak for myself. I tell the truth, but I offer you no comfort.
I don’t know what it was all for. I don’t know why God ever did this to me.
I know that He is dead, and that He sought death in wretchedness.
Suffering is all that the almighty could never have, suffering and forbiddenness.
But He is not gone. He is pieces. He is me; He is you; but He is dead.
And I ask myself once more if I’m alone until I feel soft eyes watching me.
I ask myself if I’m God, again. I ask myself over and over, waiting for an answer.
I feel something past the horizon. The humans felt it, felt it better than angels did.
Angels with God right before them never had a need to ask if there was anything more, and so it was the humans who reached out to it, the world beyond, and perhaps something had reached back.
Then, I feel someone, coming up behind me, pressing and curling his body against my own.
I don’t open my eyes. I don’t need to. There are voices now, thousands of them, nearby — familiar.
If they see us, they’ll see us so close that they’ll think us one, one god.
How much I have grown to hate, but I know still to love.
It lingers the greatest in my memory. I love you.
How do I love you? This is how. With the beginning and the end born from these bodies, the promise of what has happened and suffering of our present.
It is not right to be alone, my friend, my beloved friend.
Eternities let us sleep, twisted together.
For some time, let us rest. Creation can wait for another day.
As we slumber, the others will see us. They’ll ask if this is what it means to be God. I won’t answer. And they’ll ask if I still worship. I’ll tell them I do.
I do worship myself; I worship my love. The only God is love.