“Morning in Aether City”

Morning. Again.

No sunlight… just gray. Endless eternities of unknowable gray.

It’s the kind of day when you figure it’s too much trouble to even leave your flat. Maybe if I eat something, I’ll feel better.

Toast. Margarine. Coffee. Memories.

God is dead, they say. No. He just got fed up.

And who wouldn’t, really? God knows I did long before the fall of Man. Being an ethereal entity with definition and purpose, and at the same time being confined to the construct of the Living’s collective assumptions, led me to throw down my sword and follow the rest of the rebels to Cinderville.

That was a mistake. I realize that. But I think I learned something those thousands of years I spent in Lucifer’s army. I learned something about what it means to be sentient. I don’t think the Host ever really learned how to take responsibility for their own thoughts and deeds. Why would they? Those who could hack it were taken with God to… wherever the hell He went. Those who couldn’t… well, they kind of huddle together up here in Aether City, trying to convince the rest of us that they’re still better than us.

They couldn’t be more wrong. Nor could I.

There’s no sunlight today. Still the damned leaden overcast pall of despair and melancholy the Living subject us to every day of their lives. Gets depressing.

At least there’s no rain.

When things used to get this way, God would send some angel to Earth to inspire some new religion, or some artistic movement. Last time he threw down that trump card, the Living pulled themselves out of the Dark Ages. Too bad they convinced themselves that we didn’t exist in the process.

The Renaissance wasn’t bad. Even in Cinderville. It was a far cry better than the Dark Ages. No doubt. The Dark Ages were the lowest of the low for Cinderville. Whichever sick, twisted human mind conjured up images of burning lakes and whips and chains should have been forced to live there! And everyone bought into it.

Too bad they didn’t understand how hard it was for a human to get into Cinderville. Whoever believed in what they called “Hell” was too afraid to go there, and whoever didn’t believe in it had their own place to go. So, we were the ones who suffered.

Thank God for the Enlightenment! Cinderville got a major remodel. We got to conspire together in dark rooms, smoking opium, questioning reality… We actually got to contribute, too! I forget who came up with Nihilism, but it was truly inspired!

Neitzche was pissed when he got there, though. At first, anyway. I mean, he didn’t mind the concept of Cinderville… but if anything can be said about that smug ass, it’s that he hates to be proven wrong! Kant was more amenable.

For a while, Cinderville was a real thinker’s paradise. That was about the time Aether City was having blackouts. There were some irritated angels up there!

But nothing lasts forever. Not here.

I never figured out what happened on Earth, but something got turned on its ear. I was too absorbed in my intellectual pursuits with the Damned to notice that the winds were turning again.

And then, one day, Moloch stops by and tells me, “They’re all gone! All of them!”

Nothing since the Creation has had such a profound effect on the ethereal plane as God’s sudden departure in the night. He, Jesus, and the majority of the Host left. Just… left.

Had this happened in the Lake of Fire days, Cinderville more than likely would have surge up and launched a destructive retaliation that would have destroyed everything. But centuries of intellectualism and doubt had tempered the infernal masses. There were a few pitch battles between the more militant factions of angels and demons, but most of us were too stunned or apathetic to do much of anything.

The worst that happened was the hunting of the Saints. Several demons had vendettas to settle with the terrestrial inhabitants of Aether City. That was hard to handle. That’s what brought me out of Cinderville.

Maybe it was just the promise of something interesting… maybe I felt sorry for them. Despite everything, I still had a quarter-legion of imps and durges left who would take up arms at my command. And, for the first time since we wiped out the Mayans, Azrael’s army took up arms.

I didn’t think too hard about it. I just did it. I guess maybe I spent too much time reading the Humanists. But we put an end to the hunts. We made new rules. We brokered a peace between Cinderville and Aether City. Several eyes were on me. They thought it was “noble”. It gave them a taste of what it was to believe in something again. Either that, or they found it entertaining. Either way, it earned me passage into Aether City.

So here I am. Drinking bland coffee. Tossing the crust of my cardboard toast into a dingy white plastic wastebasket. Watching the second hand of my clock moving way too slow.

And the question occurs to me, was it really worth leaving Cinderville? I haven’t been back since. I hear it’s gotten worse.

I know first-hand that Aether City is a miserable, insipid place. The gloom is barely bearable. But I hear it’s unbearable in Cinderville.

The phone rings. I know who it is.

“What?”

“Az. It’s Mykenna.”

“I know.”

Mykenna. One of the city angels. Used to be in the choir. I remember when his voice sounded like the peal of enormous brass bells sounding off over hills. Now it sounds like poles of iron slapping together.

“We have another one.”

“Who is it?”

“A durge named Vormeir.”

“I know him. I’ll take care of it.”

I don’t know which is worse, spending a morning in Aether City sitting in the kitchen and remembering the past, or setting out to hunt down another one of my own kind.

At least the time passes quicker when I’m on my feet.

I hang up the phone, and toss my trenchcoat over my wings. I’ll go to work. At the core of things, I’ve always been one to follow orders. Even during the rebellion. But I’ve also been one to improvise.

So, I’ll just keep making it up as I go… and wait until something changes here. Can’t say why, but I think it will.

I don’t know if I’d call that a joke… or hope.