Baptized in Fire

It seemed so surreal to fall.

Twisting, spiraling; I descend through the sky that had once lifted me up on wide, white wings. But to call them beautiful would be vanity—and thus I follow Lucifer through this sea of pastel blue. Down, always down. But I am moving as if in a dream, my body feels no pain and the rush of the wind is almost comforting.

I open my eyes and the sky above horrifies—but horror is new to me—it drains me of hope like the hummingbird drains the flower. Clouds lined with silver swords and great wings fill my sight and I am too shocked to scream. My brothers, my sisters, my brethren in God—help me! Can't you see me dropping? Can't you see my wings being torn by the air? The sky begins to darken like smoke. I shut my eyes; this fear feels like lightning on my skin as I wait for God's wrath to be satisfied. But surely He wouldn't be satisfied with just the words and futile promises of Man, much less his angels? We are creatures of air, without substance or real bodies. Our wings are feathered, soft—but we are only seemingly like that, strong and fantastic, to a mortal's eyes. Underneath that veil, we are faceless, genderless; and yet we are able to sing and speak without mouths.

Heaven was our throne, our kingdom; and God was our king. There we were servants. We thought and walked the path of servants and, in return, were rewarded with happiness and peaceful solitude. Our king was kind, perfect beyond perfection, yet no one saw His face. I couldn't dream of enough good things that the Creator was—He was the sun, the moon, snow and spring—amazing and wondrous to those who believed in Him. He walks with Adam and Eve, Man and Woman; speaks with them in soft tones, never chiding or stern. They are like children—children in adult bodies.

But Lucifer—that proud, vain, beautiful creature—was enticed by pride, by the freedom of sin, by the garden empire of Man and Woman and his eyes were chilled by malice, his tongue spilled lies and we turned from Him. I remember the first shock of violence that coursed off Lucifer as he walked among us, head held high, eyes glittering like the embers of a fire. That violence rolled like waves among the crowd, making us shiver with delight. Others despised us, scorned us, but not with not hate but compassion. It is now those I look up at—those who were loyal to the bone, to the heart—to God.

But we created a monster, a tyrant out of our companion—through our support, through our cries of freedom from this unseen bondage—we created winter from summer's gentle lull. Lucifer's wicked smile, his hand upon my shoulder; it's burned into my skin. It is not a lust for power I feel, nor would I say it is fear—more of a deep regret that we created him through our own doing.

The sky darkens further like the thick dark curls of night and suddenly the sky lights up with a glow almost as if we were permitted a last glimpse of Heaven. I look up to see no beauty, no startling magnificence, but an everlasting darkness. The angels around me are giving off a pale white light—we are all giving off this strange light, becoming torches in the sky as we fall. The angels I see are strong and perfect but their eyes, although bright and jovial, are now hard as crystal. And their wings have no life and hang like shrouds. The sky is filled with the bodies of angels following their Prince of Darkness and the only noise is the air hissing past.

What's going on? I look around me and Lucifer—the Morning Star—lifts his chiseled face to the sky, drinking in its darkness hungrily. Accepting his fate, he watches—so calm it should frighten me—as his wings burst into flames, sparks dancing along his skin, charred feathers floating like dreams down to the earth, lily-white bones sprouting bare from his spine. Piercing shrieks break the silence, a symphony of pain and sorrow, as the sky lights up with orange, flickering stars.

Time, the concept of it, was meaningless, yet now I feel aged, in a sense. It seems as if centuries have passed as we slip through this darkness. It seems to pass in letters, letters written in the Book of Life. There is only the disobedience of two bodies become one flesh, Man from the womb of Woman, and Woman from the rib of Man. Yet those letters count my life, become time, as a heartbeat would count a mortal's. The pain begins, acute, and I am baptized in fire. I feel sick as the pain grips me. Oh stop, please stop! But only time will tell when it will end.

I land but I am numb to any pain because my mind is still focused on the aching in my spine.

A voice calls me from this reverie. “Rise you pathetic excuse—”

I look up and droplets of pain feel like hail on my skin. Lucifer is looking down at me. Two more angels flank him. Lucifer reaches down and grips my hair, keeping my eyes fixed on him. His beauty has changed: It is darker, fiercer. His face is gaunt; his eyes are two amaranthine drops with black pupils. His powerful shoulders droop with either relaxation or exhaustion and his wings...his wings are that of a predator, large and deadly.

Lucifer has committed a sin. We all have committed sin. Sin...It's an odd word to use, to think about. To blame someone else for my troubles seems easy—it is. But there's a part of me that tells me to repent—to save myself before it's too late, but it's only a small part.

Lucifer laughs and pushes my face into the soft earth. His voice is like stones grating against one another in my ears. “This is our kingdom now—my kingdom. Man and their weakness, their sin...” He pauses, relishing in that word, his eyes glinting with opportunity, “Their sin feeds us, their darkness allows us to live, to thrive, to feel content for their existence—it is our freedom.”

I begin to remember Lucifer as he journeyed to the Garden, enthralled by the free will of the Man and Woman and the first taste of jealousy. God told them not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge and Lucifer's perfect opportunity came in the shape of a serpent. Slipping into the serpent's skin as he would often slip into his two facades of servant and perpetrator; he tempted her, beguiled her, and she perhaps delighted him with her ignorance, with her sweet innocence. I remember as Eve reached for the fruit, her thin fingers reaching for the perfectly round, red fruit that would open the gate to death and damnation.

Lucifer caused this. But so did Man. And, thinking of my own fingers reaching for that fruit that would open the way to our freedom, so did I.

I hear the flapping of wings and the bliss of air rushing and flowing over me. I lift my wings, hesitant, and let them move, the ground stirring briefly. Pain has left and only a lust for flight, and perhaps a lust for freedom, remains. Lucifer moves along his ranks smoothly like a shark would move through water. It's almost frightening how easily I mix among them. Sin has painted their faces with glowing eyes and snarling mouths and their bodies with strength and large, leathery wings. But fear hasn't taken root yet, there is only this confused wonder.

This earth is beautiful, but nothing like the Garden. Nothing here is in harmony, nothing is perfect and yet, like water over stones, everything follows its course. And seeing death and bloodshed for the first time, first through Lucifer's speeches and then in the murder of man and beast, it was not shocking. Just as a lion would feel as it hunted the lamb—I felt powerful, victorious. Just as I tasted and felt perfection's grace I also feel the wrath of imperfection, and it's pleasant repercussions. Is there such a thing as imperfect perfection?

Years pass. Centuries. Generations since Adam and Eve walked side by side with God. Humans become smarter, prouder and—perhaps even more naive then Eve in their world of technology and skyscrapers, blood and fire. But we feed on their darkness, letting death take and letting God give back.

God isn't one who is generous, benevolent—He is vengeful, sending humans into danger and into fear to preach His sermons. If He is so powerful and mighty, why can't He do it Himself? It is God who is prideful—having mortals do his dirty work and rewarding them with good feelings that will be sucked away by their darkening world, by the lovely pull of nightmare. Lucifer's words sit upon the hearts of many, but there are still ones screeching His Word, saying it is alive. Alive of all things! As if it has a heart, breath and words to speak. It is always His people, those clinging to the Cross, who are hardest to corrupt.

It's a hopeless task because the Ten Commandments are left to stream through the centuries and through the human mind as something of history, eventually evolving into a conscience. We plant our seeds, choosing the way of the serpent, finding a space between fear and trust, pain and pleasure in which that seed can flourish. Humans like the middle way, like having choice without consequence. So we allow them this, biding time until the hobby becomes a habit, until it becomes an addiction—poisoning the human mind to become animal, letting the mind work like the slow cycle of the sun around the Earth. We fallen—we demons—become comfortable in this battle of good and evil, light and darkness. Humans are our puppets and we are the performers. Earth is a battlefield and we are training our poor, sinful soldiers to die without honor but the choice of freedom.

Lucifer is strong and his influence is slipping through the world like shadow. Our numbers are great and sin tastes like the milk and honey promised in the Promise Land, sweet and overflowing. Scattered by this sin, the mortals turn to us, and we to them, but only to feed on that energy. But there is a nagging thought that He is planning something too. Is He sending another flood to wipe us all out? Is He sending his messengers to drive us away, or His Son to purify our hearts? No. Too much evil is blossoming and too much blood is being spilled. Yet something is unnerving with the coming of dawn, something is too bright with it and too warm. It feels like grace, yet there is no grace enough for me to repent. I've performed too much evil, tempted too many, and found the taste of blood to be enough. Lucifer has schooled me into murder without thought, with thinking like the beast as it cornered its casualty, and into the ways of snuffing out the conscience like a candle in a tempest. Darkness is comforting and pleasure is natural, pain is a second nature and masochism is a sport.

But as we frolic among our playthings, something feels wrong. And then I feel it, the change in the air, as we beings of twilight and dawn clash as they have for all our time. Something that is mute to human ears—the single drawn out note of a trumpet. Yes... I abandon the human I'd been following and follow the dark cloud on the horizon, the beating of leathery wings that mixes with the trumpet and becomes some sort of knell. It will summon them to Heaven in chains and we will let Lucifer rise from prince to king!

It is time.

The army of God, the holy angels, are so bright it is like gazing at a second sun. We, with our resplendently fierce appearance and beastly nature, we the fallen, are an eclipse—ready to blend with the sun and let it wither in brightness until it dies. Illuminated by the glow of the angels, Lucifer’s eyes glitter with satisfaction, his mouth pressed in a thin line. Is this what he's wanted? Retaliation? To see those who poured fire on his wings and threw him off the edge of the clouds, suffer as he had suffered?

Perhaps...

The frenzy of the angels is infectious and I find myself baring my teeth in a snarl to my former brothers and sisters. Their eyes are blazing and a few of them have hands clenched around blades at their hips. The noise erupts from all at once. My ears are ringing, and the adrenaline is making my fingers twitch, making them long to wrap around an alabaster throat. I clench them and focus on the hands reaching for the blades. Twist and break. I can already hear the crunch of so many wrists as we make our lunge, like jungle cats on mice and the surprise as so many angels will wear as they wrestle with our hands to steal the blades from their hearts.

Lucifer gives the command and we screech our cry, “Death to Heaven!” And the moon moves to blot out the sun, we move to enshroud our adversaries in black wings, piercing them with our eyes and our teeth, wrestling with them as Jacob wrestled. Unlike Jacob we fight to the death. We climb into the sky and we scream, we lift our swords and cut and we spit. We cheat when we fight—and perhaps have become lazy with picking off humans—but this time we've met our match as we scramble, clawing for their eyes and pushing away sculpted, scarless bodies; fighting for dominance in our selfish ways. Oh, yes angels are selfish in odd ways. Lucifer is a prime example, his fighting graceful, his strength profound.

Screeches and bursts of light fill my sight; I twist around and hook my fingers in my opponent's eye sockets pulling back. A musical scream bursts forth from the marble-white throat before my blade slides gently across and I imagine crimson splashing my hands in a salty-sweet elixir, thicker then water but just as deliciously putrid. I drop the angel's body and another takes its place. It seems the holy ones have some plan in mind for us. Lucifer cries out but we continue fighting. Feeding on this death and pain and violence like baited hounds.

Suddenly, a searing pain in my wrists causes me to drop my blade. I see shackles close around my wrists, painfully tight. A black chain appears, like a snake slithering, into my foe’s spider-like hands. There's no emotion in the creature's eyes as it takes its own blade and drags it across that thick, pale throat. It smiles as it falls. The chain and the force of the plummeting body yank me down, the air ripping at my skin. I open my mouth to scream and choke on my own breath. I can't close my eyes this time, and stare into the center of the Earth. Bottomless, like an opening mouth. The angel swoops up again, vibrant, and the chain slips from his fingers. Images of the battle seem to pass by like rain slipping down a pane of glass. The battle still rages, but now is centered on one being. Lucifer strains—his wings are knocking back, his hands pushing away the white beings of light. He cries out—bellowing out both profanities and pleas—as the angels surround him and try to tie him down, press their fingers into his skin and hold him. Redemption, he wants redemption, yet he is a body of lies. He searches the sky for the God he once worshiped and his eyes are full of everything he embodies, of everything we have become.

Then I am swallowed in this darkness as Jonah was by the whale, but I do not have hope for deliverance. I have a prayer to speak, but it does not make it past my heart, let alone my tongue. Multitudes of struggling bodies and wings sink and drown around me, but no light covers them now. Our era of sin has ended and we are left to this opening chasm that humans—our soldiers and martyrs—ignore in their material and narcissistic bliss. I gaze down at the black chains that cut into my wrists, down at the skin painted red with blood and burned from Heaven's wrath. Instead of being destroyed completely, I climb from my glowing cocoon, the fire peeling it away and am cursed—though it could also be a blessing—with the devil's image: Tainted magnificence.

But now what do I have to give and to take? I have wreaked havoc, kissed my Prince's mortals with the taste of the fruit and given them the tools to kill, to corrupt and to dip their hands in the sin so that they may bathe in their glorious victory. But now what did I have to show for it? Chains and consuming darkness? Yes, it brings a sense of sinking hope and a pain that never converts to a dark sensuous pleasure. So Lucifer was wrong—he was right in a sense, yet he was the master of deception, the angel of transgression. I should have realized the moment that he began his rebellion yet I was blind to it, infatuated with the power he seemed to stir in us, the individuality he gave us.

But of course, like Eve, if I had known this would happen; if I had not listened to his compelling words, his voice heavy with unseen promises birthed from falsities I would still be in paradise, walking with Him. Lucifer had neglected to tell us the price, and perhaps he never knew himself, of what trying to be like God would entail. We had a thousand years to contemplate this and it was wasted on things of our hands and bodies, on building our kingdom of darkness.

I gaze down at the chains on my wrists and at my bloodstained hands and bury my head in my hands, I scream at the heavens but have no one to blame. My wings droop and, amid the weeping and gnashing of teeth and heat and despair and the crack of the whip driving us deeper and deeper, there's just this pleasant, keen apathy that chills me to the bone. As I stare at my hands, even as I feel the crown of Lucifer's oath slip from my brow, I feel real. Perfectly flawed, almost human. As the fire draws closer and closer to brush my skin with its violent lips, I shut my eyes and let the music of my fallen brethren fade within my body and let the fire embrace me like a lover.

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