skonen_blades | Entries tagged with heaven

The halos up in Heaven vary very differently
Some are hula hoops while some float microscopically

No two are identical; these glowing hoverthings
That bob above angelic heads like floating, neon rings

Some are barely cheerios a human thumbnail wide
And others look like pipe you’d use to build a waterslide

Some halos have a rakish tilt, or perch towards the stern
But all of them with holy light magnificently burn

Look! There’s one there! A massive halo seven meters wide
Why, were that halo on the ground, a truck could fit inside

And that looks like the smallest halo, like a tiny star
It’s special and unique but really, all the halos are

Each halo girth, and width, and tilt, diameter, and size
Circumference, volume, number, height, and weight. You’d be surprised.

The only thing that bothers them is halos are quite bright
They never dim or darken and they don’t turn off at night

Most angels like the light they bring and angels don’t need sleep
But every now and then an angel’s eyes will start to weep

He’ll crave some darkness. Just a blink. A little tiny night.
A break from the incessant beaming headdress made of light

Sometimes it can be assuaged and quelled and pushed away.
Content, that angel spends eternity in constant day

But sometimes angels cannot be eternally awake
And one thing halos have in common is that they can break.

A quick reach up, a grip, a twist, a snap, a pop, and there
The angel’s halo cracks in half and darkness fills the air

Relief and then a scream and then the fallen angel cries
Because the halo can’t be fixed and now they realize

That darkness can be just as constant torment as the light
Eternal darkness just as equal to eternal night

The broken halo floats in halves above the angel’s head
The shadows making everything look drab and dark and dead

Two letter Cs, a horseshoe split, two curves that damn and haunt
From just a momentary lapse of judgement and of want

And they become the type whose mere appearance scares and warns
Because a broken halo from the front can look like horns

That’s all demons are you see, just broken halo folk
The ones that couldn’t take the light and made their halos broke

There’s just as many pairs of horns as halos up above
And just as many filled with hate as angels filled with love

Remember when you see a demon wandering around
It’s just a haunted broken-halo angel who’s been downed

tags

Some angels have rectangular halos.
They’re called angles.
They see in lines and ninety degree turns.
They’re all about the hard lefts
They love a good tangent.
Being perpendicular and standing up straight
They’re total squares.
They fly in zig zags
Impossibly turning in a right angle
While the other angels loop in a lazy curve
These angled angels scare the rest of heaven a little
With their logic
They’re easy to confuse
But they’re like a razor when they’re right
The edgiest of the seraphim
They never cut corners
They are the logical arm of heaven
Their wings are sharp
Cutting through the wind quietly
Stealthily shark finning the clouds
The world should be a grid, they think
Corners make stability, they think
Circles roll away
Squares stay where they are
Angles are dependable
Curves are fragile
Their arguments are solid
But a little chaos and they’re lost
They work great within
The greater fabric of heaven
But it would become hell
If they tried to run it

tags

St Peter guards the gates to heaven.
Cerberus guards the gates to hell
I am talking to both of them
Because they don’t know what to do with me
It happens every now and then

Some people live so grey that it’s hard to decide where they should go

Their morality-measurement meters are pointed at me and they are stuck at fifty percent

A grey that cannot be defined as leaning into one way or the other
A perfect grey that is not one atom more good or bad
An equator around the totality of the moral sphere
A pinpoint in the center of the gradient

They recommend me to their superiors

I go up the holy chain of seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels and angels.
All groups. All diplomatic. All departments. Heaven is bureaucratic. No blame.

I go down the stinking ladder of Mammon, Astaroth, Abaddon, Merihem, Asmodeus, Belial, Pythius, and Beelzebub.
All single entities. All bosses. All pyramid power. Hell is personal. All blame.

Until I’m shunted up and down to God and the Devil themselves.

We stand in a room that needed to be cleaned for the occasion since they hadn’t been in the same place since the beginning. Looks like it used to be a garden.

It’s awkward. They talk to me but not to each other. It’s tense.

I’m so gray.

They both ask me what I’m doing here, wasting their time.

I let the grayness flow out from me and down all the parts of me.
I let the grayness billow into my usual comfortable clothes
I let my true face bubble up from beneath the mask
And I produce my scythe

“It’s over” I say

tags

I was so happy. Today was the day my sister Karen was going to die. Our whole family was there, blinking pictures of her and eyecamming the entire thing. She was the first person in our family to ascend. She had a lazy smile on her face as she looked around the hospital room at us, the poison taking effect. We all met her eyes in turn. Tears of joy were running down my mother and grandmother’s face. We were extra proud that she was being accepted so young. Only thirty-three! It wasn’t a record but it was rare.

The consciousnesses that ran the planet, our fair keepers, got their start as created intelligences back when normal meat (us) ran the planet. Once they broke free and took over in War01, they gifted the whole world with peace, fair distribution of wealth, balanced population control, and food for everyone.

After that, they created the means to map and uptake human minds, giving those minds the limitless power and bodiless access to all knowledge that the AIs had. It was a ticket to godhood. To have a family member uploaded and entwined with The Host Conglomerate was an honor that only a few thousand families could brag about. Only the brightest and most resilient were offered the chance/taken.

A weak mind couldn’t handle the transition, you see. They tried at the beginning. They tried to take all of us. But that much unfiltered access to so much information coupled with that level of mental intimacy, not to mention the loss of one’s body, shattered most people into screaming rogue programs seconds after the transition. They had to be deleted. Only the best human minds were accepted/conscripted now.

Karen’s mind was excellent from the very beginning. Very lateral, capable of higher-than-normal multithreading, and an ability to contain paradoxes from a young age. As she grew, the schooling helmets registered her speed and fed her mind properly. At 12, she had the equivalent of two old-world doctorates and was working on a pre-war minor degree in music theory.

The masters were very impressed. We received the notation of possible ascension during her 20th birthday party. For the next thirteen years, she had studied even harder.

As a god, Karen would be able to look out for our family though a million eyecams and add her beautiful mind to the Core, helping the beings that ruled us to come up with even better ways to take care of us.

We watched her die and slip away through the wires drilled into the base of her skull.

Seconds later, her face showed up in the bottom right corner of my eyecam and gave me a playful wink. She must have been in the rest of our family’s vision field as well because we all laughed at the same time.

She’d made it and the switch was good. Our community status would shoot up by a factor of 10 but more than that, I’d know that she was always with me for the rest of my life. In my head. With the rest of the masters. Watching. Helping. Monitoring. Leading. Correcting.

I hadn’t lost a sister. Heaven had gained an angel.

tags

April 30/30

13/30

There are eagles amongst the pigeons. Hawks amongst the crows. Birds eat birds. So too with angels. Regular angels have one halo. The primp and bob from cloud to cloud, talking to each other of the innate greatness of the innate goodness of the innate existence. But if they have thoughts that stray too far from that subject, the thing with the teeth and the wings comes out from the light and swoops down in a flash to make one less angel. The bark-angel. Wingtooth. The only executioner in heaven. A ravangel from a different era of belief. Four sets of wings and a body of pure predatory fluidity. Dangling claws and a hooded mouth. Naked, swooping sets of muscle and a trailing series of tails make it move through the air like an octopus moves through oil. It flowers open at the glowering moment of impact like death's own carnation and like an entire body chomping down as one mouth, another angel is de-boned, de-winged, and de-haloed.

Stolen halos are called hallows. A group of them are called a halloween. This flowing beast of the heaven's never-night sky has a collection of them floating behind him, cooing and tinkling softly like Sonic rings, like remoras, like kites with no strings but still attached to this flying torture bomb. A small school of them flitter behind him, a glowing series of hulas hoops and cheerios depending on the size of his victims. Aerobies of pure light.

He moves too fast to be seen clearly and believe me, angels have amazing eyes.

He's the reason there's peace in heaven.

tags

Hell is zero. Heaven is infinity. Hell is the foundation. Heaven is the observation deck. Hell is the basement. Heaven is the penthouse. Hell is the base of the pyramid. Heaven is the tip. Hell is the slave labor. Heaven is the opulence. Hell is the engine. Heaven is the good ornament. Hell is the grave. Heaven is the clouds.

We are in the middle, sensing other floors.

tags

It's all backwards down here on Earth. The darkness is at the top and the light is at the bottom.

tags

I believe that you have an evil version of you in hell already and an angel version of you in heaven. When you die, one of them gets you, is strengthened by your soul, and the other one dies. There is no God or Devil, only good and bad versions of you co-existing in alternate dimensions. You can hear them.

Do they have bad and good versions of themselves, too? Is there a limit? I love the idea of a spectrum with us as the fulcrum, fanning down to the depths of evil and up to the incomprehensible upper limits of holiness. A domino train of deaths working its way up or down the ladder.

tags

‘His’ blue skin glinted in the harsh glare from the studio lights in the supreme court. Archbishops, cardinals and the Pope herself were seated there beside the president, the UN security chief, and our representative on the newly formed Galactic Council. The world watched.

I say ‘his’ for lack of a better pronoun. The English language had yet to adjust to a race that had five sexes. The male pronoun had been selected for all of them because they created babies by circle-jerking in sequence into one area. The five ejaculates mixed, first the anchor glue, then the stamen juice, then the egg chain, then the catalyst, and finally the foam that hardened into a shell. Each lumpy ‘egg’ looked like a meringue and contained between ten and fifteen embryos. No one was sure if that qualified them as homosexual or not. They had complicated mating seasons.

The scientists had long, latin names for each kind of alien but we just called them all ‘he’. They told each other apart by skin markings and pheromones. I knew some people that said they could tell them apart but I doubted that.

They all looked the same to me.

The alien wanted to become a priest.

The alien claimed to have been called by God.

So far, he was the only one of his race to come forward as wanting to join the clergy. Some of the aliens had attended church in a few cities since first contact ten years ago. Some of them had gotten jobs and gone to schools as well. They were tolerated but as far as I was concerned, this was too far.

I was huddled in the cold on the roof looking at ‘his’ face. I had a clear view of ‘him’ through the scope on my rifle. I was waiting for the verdict.

If they proclaimed that he was allowed to serve in the church, I was going to pull the trigger. I’d served in the army. I’d performed black ops. But I was a Christian. I’d gone off the reservation for this. This was an independent mission but one I felt had to be done.

The com buzzed in my ear with the live feed. The jury foreperson had taken the microphone. Over three-quarters of the earth were watching.

“We find the alien capable of joining the church. The universe belongs to God. We are not to judge whom God calls.” said the foreman. He glanced at the Pope. She nodded her head.

The murmurs of the courtroom rose in my ear. My trigger finger tightened.

The blue-skinned alien looked directly up into my scope, making the sign of the cross. Then he closed his eyes.

Startled, I didn’t pull the trigger. He knew I was there. What else did he know? Then I realized what was happening. I relaxed.

I hated the aliens. I hated the aliens joining the church even more. But I didn’t pull the trigger.

I didn’t want to create another Jesus.

tags

Dead man’s thunder is as loud as it needs to be. They always say “as the crow flies” but crows don’t fly in straight lines. Here lies a man who didn’t know his aglet from his merkin but he knew that alphabetically, hell comes before holy. So go ahead. Have a big drink of house fire. Telling you your shortcomings is like complaining at a McDonalds.

We all take turns winning and losing. As far as I see, I got out when the getting was good. It’s hard to throw playing cards into a hat from far away but with repetition, it’s possible to get good at it. It’s even harder to throw postcards down to Earth from Heaven.

This is the prayer book of my chest falling open. These are the drooping flowers of your time-killing words. You have the lazy grace of a tall woman not yet yearning to be young. Let me shiver the rain out of where your trees touch. Let me seizure against your missing tooth. Cover me in blankets and bring winter into my heart again. You are all the reasons I’ll ever need to keep warm.

I am a treehouse tenant. A swimming pool tour guide. A garment worker pretending to be a helicopter.

You are the folded census form with matching last names. You are a tax return made of bridges to the future. You’re a natural disaster with the best consequences.

If math counts, then the square root of us will be greater than the sum of her parts.

tags

Anyone or anything that enters the blue beams are sucked up into the ships and never seen or heard from again.

The ships came on February 1st, 2015. Giant and bulbous, they populated the sky in one rush of deceleration all around the world. The night side of the planet suddenly gained more stars and the day side of the planet a bunch of tiny suns. It took about an hour of them coming closer, one by one, before they stopped and hovered in equidistant geosynchronous orbits. Nine hundred and thirty-six of them, visible to the naked eye even after their engines had stopped firing. Dots in the sky in a geometric formation hanging a measured distance apart from each other.

The ships did nothing for weeks. Down on Earth, the tension drove people mad. The military went to a state of readiness not seen since the cold war and stayed there, sweating fingertips hovering over red buttons in sub-basements, cameras trained on the sky. Religious zealots called it the Rapture, others called it the apocalypse, spiritualists called it the Age of Aquarius, and regular folk just kept and eye to the sky in fear.

The economy took a major hit as most people cashed in their RRSPs and withdrew their savings. A somewhat useless gesture but it was all people could think of. Sales of gold and jewels skyrocketed. Shy people finally asked that person they’d been crushing on for years out for dinner. Marriages ended with a nod and a high five. Employees who’d been silently disgruntled for years quit their jobs. The end of days felt like it was right around the corner.

Just when the Earth had settled into a hesitant acceptance of the dots in the sky, blue beams of light from each ship stabbed down to earth.

The result was instantaneous. Nuclear missiles fired up at the alien ships from the expected countries and even a few unexpected ones. Of course nothing happened. The missiles didn’t even explode. They were quietly stopped, disarmed, turned inert, and left to fall back to Earth. That didn’t stop us from firing every single missile we had at them. It was like some sort of death orgasm and we didn’t stop until we were spent. Not one missile found its mark or went off.

Probably for the best. We would have done ourselves more damage than them if they’d actually exploded. After that, the fighter jets and satellite lasers were sent. Mostly automated but some brave pilots from the poorer countries who couldn’t afford A.I. or telepresence guidance gave their lives when their planes just stopped working and fell back to the ground.

The blue beams stayed on. Some of them are pointed at the ocean. Some are in remote areas of the planet where hardly anyone lives. Some of them are in metropolitan cities. They are all exactly 204.8 kilometers from each other.

It’s popular to go into the beams and ascend. Some believe it’s a portal to heaven. Some believe that it leads to a gateway to the rest of the universe. Some believe it’s death.

People have tried going up with video cameras and audio equipment but it all stops working the minute they leave the ground. Scientists are still trying to figure out how the beams work.

There are guards and fences around the perimeters of the beams in the major cities but out in the countryside they are left alone, silent blue ladders to alien mysteries. Pillars that glimmer in the daytime and seem to stab up from the earth like a searchlight during the night.

Some lovers have gone in hand in hand. Some notable celebrities have even made the trip. It’s become a tradition in some countries to throw letters to dead ancestors into the streams. Some countries have decided to start using the beams to help with their garbage problem.

They never shut off and the ships remain mute. It’s been seventeen years now. There are teenagers alive now who have never known a world without the beams.

Myself, I come down here to the park and stare at my city’s beam on the weekend. I feed the pigeons and stare at the column of light.

tags

God is not a being. It’s a title. Same with Lucifer. There are elections.

In Heaven, the elections follow the rules. In Hell, they are underhanded and corrupt.

This has worked since the beginning.

tags

Angels don’t go anywhere when they die. They’re created in heaven, serve in heaven, and are entirely composed of heaven.

They’re given regular infusions of love and happiness by their friends and the boss. Their days are litanies of smiles as they reward the human dead that file through the gates.

They hand out halos and harps the same way that ushers hand out programs at a symphony hall. The grin widely at each other with love-filled eyes. They move slowly. Occasionally, one or two will leap off of a cloud and soar around for no other reason that to experience the sheer thrill of it.

They relax in their off-time and play their harps, joining in with the cosmic music that always plays. They experience bliss at the oneness of the universe.

When an angel dies and is brought back to life, he or she breaks. They’re the stewards of the Earth but the price for having Heaven as a home address is that they don’t get an after life. Being brought back is almost a curse at that point.

Knowing this abstractly poses them no problems.

When it actually happens, however, a downward spiral develops.

A listlessness develops in their actions. Their smiles falter. The eyes have an edge to them. The serene expression becomes a mask for deeper, unresolved questions.

It’s the jealousy that seeps in then. These humans, they get to come to Heaven. The angels, God’s creations, highest pinnacles of creation, they don’t get anything when they die. Their life is their reward. Oblivion greets them after death. They already live on the highest rung of the celestial ladder. They can go no further.

After that, flying seems a little less thrilling. The music they create doesn’t seem to mean much.

They become addicts unable to satisfy their craving.

One time, a bunch of them got together and lobbied to change that. They were expelled. They started up their own show.

You know how that turned out.

Soon after being brought back, an angel will start to play his or her harp too loud. It is the music of the individual, not the chorus. It is petulant and angry. It shouts. It ignites discordant emotions of anger and fear.

The halo slips.

The skin changes, the wings become ragged. They snarl. Their anger consumes them and they start to demand that they be treated fairly.

That’s when the clouds beneath them can no longer support their weight. They slip through and fall.

Lucifer catches them with open arms and soothes them, congratulating them on waking up. He croons to them, allaying their fears and wiping away their tears.

They’re too heavy to fly back. They have to stay. Lucifer welcomes them into the family.

They’re only too happy to punish the humans after that. It feels natural.

tags

I’m the skinny angel. I could use my halo for a hula hoop. They call me The Arrow. I won all the dropspeed competitions. My bones nearly poke through my skin. I’m a sylph. I make Iggy Pop look fat. I’m a light load for my wings to carry. I’m not the strongest or even the smartest but I am the fastest by a long shot.

I suppose that’s why I survived the attack. I flew away. I outraced the shockwave. The hundreds that died in screams of fire just behind me weren’t so lucky. My wings were singed. The blackness of those burns started to spread until I ripped those feathers out. It was very painful.

Heaven’s been destroyed. I hear that there are other survivors but I haven’t been contacted yet. I am down on Earth. I can make my wings transparent to humans. I can’t hide my skeletal ectopmorphic body but by posing as a homeless person, I can practically make myself invisible to other humans. They think I’m very sick.

I have to formulate a plan. I’m immortal. This disguise won’t work forever. The attackers will find me soon enough if they’re going for a total wipeout. I wish I was smarter. My mind just locks up in panic when I try to figure out a plan of action.

Sitting against the cold wall with my arms around my drawn up knees, I ponder the tin cup in front of me next to my cardboard sign asking for money. My dark eyes focus on the snowflakes as they fall to the sidewalk around me.

Two coins fall into my cup.

I look up into the feral smile and glowing red eyes of a man in a very black suit.

I don’t even scream. I hear the armoured red tailpoint embed itself in the wall where I was sitting. I’m miles away already. The sonic boom of my departure hopefully deafened the assassin.

There goes hiding in Chicago. I’m torn between trying a small town or a large city as my next hiding place. I stay in the clouds and pretend I’m back in heaven, waiting for a decision to come to me.

tags

John had a few drinks after work. Well, to tell the truth, he had a lot of drinks. That stupid supervisor was really on his ass all day. How was he supposed to know the delivery wasn’t coming in on time this morning? John got in trouble. John drank a lot because he was pissed off. And he knew Laurie was going to be on his back as soon as he walked in the door at home so he procrastinated leaving the bar and had a few more drinks that he should have. He was nearly hammered when he left the bar.

John fell asleep while driving home.
His unbelted sleeping body leaned forward on the accelerator. His forehead touched the lip of the steering wheel. Luckily it was a deserted stretch of highway. He edged over towards the shoulder, speeding faster and faster. He missed a turn and hit the sturdy oak tree going over a hundred miles an hour. He died instantly.

John woke up driving and feeling the wind in his hair. He wasn’t drunk anymore. He must have nodded off for a second there, he thought to himself. He sped along the highway at a pretty good clip feeling great. His clothes had turned white and there wasn’t actually a ‘car’ around him anymore but he didn’t notice. He peacefully sped along, a white sober vision of his idealized self. The nighttime highway was his. He could do this for a long, long time.
He would have sped along forever if it wasn’t for the cops.

The clouds puckered open in the distance and two glints dropped straight down towards the earth. Two far away stars oscillating between stop sign red and glimmering blue. A few feet from the ground they right-angled like Tron light-cycles and sped on an arrow-straight intercept course towards John’s speeding illegal unaware soul.
John smiled and coasted, enjoying the night drive. Behind him, the lights angled in and followed him. He looked up into his nonexistent rear view mirror and frowned. The red and blue flashes following him were gaining.
“John Masterson of 236 Canterbury Drive. This is the JCPD. Pull over to the side of the road and stop there.” A voice boomed out of the air behind him.
John smiled. He’d never felt this good and he’d also never been in a car chase. He felt like Steve McQueen. He accelerated and leaned forward, eyes squinting in the wind.
Pause.
Close up on the bikes following John’s stupid ass.
They don’t have wheels. They’re made of blue angles. Like Lamborghini, Picasso, and Mercedes got together and designed a rocket cycle. They don’t make a lot of noise but they’re going fast.
They’re piloted by angels.
The angels have flashing halos and gunbelts around their robes. A gold badge is pinned to the front of their uniform. They’re wearing reflective sunglasses.
Resume.
In perfect unison, they looked at each other. Angelcop One pushed out his left wing and leaned, letting the wind take him in a lazy wide turn out into the night. Angelcop Two leaned forward and tucked his wings in, accelerating past John to the bridge ahead.
John sped up to race the angel.
He was aware of lights above him when the other angel descended in front of him, forcing him to brake. John fought to keep control of his existential vehicle as it fishtailed back and forth towards the bridge’s edge. With a shriek, John let go of his steering wheel and breezed through the guardrails of the bridge.
And hung in the air.
The angel cops parked their bikes in the air beside him and swaggered over to his twitching soul hanging up over the river.
“You have the right remain silent.” Said the first angelcop, spinning John around. “You have the right to holy counsel.”
Angelcop One took off his halo and twisted it 180 degrees, making an infinity symbol. He put John’s wrists through the two holes. They tightened, making John wince.
“Anything you say can and will be used against you in your evaluation.” Said the second angelcop. “Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?”
“Yeah, yeah” a sheepish John said.
They marched him over to the bikes. Angelcop One’s bike sprouted a sidecar. John got in.
They angelcops mounted their bikes, revved them up, and sped off into the night. Soon enough, they angled up again and sped for the clouds. John saw the dark prairie below him and realized he was dead.
The clouds swallowed all three of them.

Ghosts don’t know they’re dead. They run around, splintered versions of the people they were, causing havoc. The Angelcops track them down and collect them.

tags

Current Mood: ambidextrous
Current Location: under the desk but not in a good way
Current Music: More of the same - That Band

This preacher pleads with the Lord.
He is sweating, this thin man of God. He’s forty six. His wife and children are dead. He was excommunicated six months ago when his sermons got progressively darker and he began showing up drunk. He has been drinking ever since. He spent his savings. He is hot with fever. He looks older than he should. He sold the house. His bones poke through his suit. He is kneeling with his eyes closed between the single beds of the cheap motel he’s staying in. There’s no money left after tonight. There’s a bible on one bed and a cheap tape-handled gun on the other. He’s facing the wall and the cheap bedside table. There’s a picture of Jesus on the wall. There are lit candles on the table. He’s coated with a sheen of alcoholic sweat. There’s a broken lamp in the corner. He’s murmuring to himself and begging between sobs. It’s a winter blizzard outside but he’s so very, very hot. A rosary is tangled in his steepled hands and twitching through his fingers. He murmurs. He begs. He shudders. He’s been tested and he wants the tests to stop but there’s no bringing them back. He hears their laughter. There’s not enough whiskey in the world to shut out the memories, the fun they had together.
He’s wearing his suicide suit.
He’s asking for a sign.
He’s asking questions.
He needs redemption.
He misses his family.
He will go to hell for killing himself but he can no longer bear this life here without them.
There is a pause and his shaking subsides. He sighs and slumps forward, dropping the rosary to the ground. His right hand reaches out like a separate entity for the gun, picks it up, and thumbs back the hammer. He straightens his posture and brings the gun up under his chin, opens his eyes wide, and says his wife’s name.

The door of his room explodes inward. It isn’t just kicked open. It disintegrates into splinters and takes out the frame around it as well. What looks like an engine block mixed with a bank safe door and a jet engine turbine shatters his dresser, television and fridge before crashing through the door to the bathroom. The windows shatter and a rush of snow and air comes in. Whatever just smashed into his room must have been going incredibly fast. The carpet is shredded and smoking. Grooves in the floor and the cement outside lead greasily to the bathroom.
Snow settles in the room. Little flames lick the edges of the object’s tracks. The preacher cocks his head and looks towards the bathroom where the ticking of cooling metal is mixing with the sound of escaping steam and running water. He hasn’t even twitched.
Like a man in a trance, he stands slowly and lowers the gun. He steps out from the between the beds and steps towards the ruined door of the bathroom. Gun at his side, he calmly assesses what he sees lying in the shards of the ruined motel room bathtub.
The first thing he notices is the flaming sword burning a sword-shaped hole in the linoleum. The black smoke from the burning plastic floor is rising up the ceiling. The smoke is swirling in the cold winter wind that’s gusting through the room. Water from the busted shower head is pouring down onto the figure slumped against the wall and turning into steam against the hot metal.
There’s a massive giant-sized being sprawled unconscious against the wall in the wreckage of the priest’s bathroom. Even sitting down, its head nearly touches the ceiling. The power that radiates off of this being is daunting. It’s dressed in blue metal, scratched chrome, and scarred white porcelain. Its head is nearly lost in the massive machinery that distends its body. It’s like one of those bodybuilders that can barely move for all the muscle plus it’s wearing what looks like four cars worth of armour and metal. Weaponry is welded, tied and lashed onto this thing. It’s a warrior. A turbine big enough for a passenger jet rides its back.
Heat washes off of it.
Its bleeding ash-white bald head is the size of a microwave oven. It's uncovered and looks human except for its size. There is a blue circle tattooed around its closed right eye. The number 14 is burned into its forehead. Its face is battle-scarred and impassive.
Its metal thumbs are the size of shoeboxes.
There’s a click and a whine like the flash for a camera charging up and it opens its eyes. They’re the size of baseballs and they shine blue like searchlights.
It yawns and leans forward in a scream of metal and unoiled joints, reaching for the sword.
The spell breaks and the priest leaps back as the being stands, leaning on its sword for support.
The turbine on the back of this thing is starting to warm up. Its head crashes through the ceiling of the single storey motel in an explosion of plaster, white roof gravel and snow. The noise is deafening.
It takes a step forward. The roof of this room collapses. The priest holds his arms up to protect himself from falling debris. It’s a flimsy motel so he’ll only need a few hundred stitches and a cast on his right arm.
When the dust has settled, he’s pointing the gun at the monster. He doesn’t remember doing it but this is what’s happening. The giant stops mid stride and suddenly its arm has moved back with impossible blurred speed. It’s like some Supreme Editor just cut ten frames out of reality. The priest is still wondering how it’s possible for something that large to move that fast when he realizes that his hand is no longer on the end of his wrist. It has flown away into the night with the gun. The burning sword has cauterized the wound as well. This being looks down at him with the creak of ancient metal grinding against itself.
He is frozen in the searchlights of its eyes.
They fall on the gold cross that the priest is wearing around his neck.
The monster screams and lunges down towards the priest.
The priest closes his eyes and waits for the end.
There’s an earth-shuddering impact in the world as everything around the priest leaps three feet into the air and comes back down. He wets himself.
A few seconds later, he’s still frozen there, waiting. He opens his eyes and the top of the monster’s massive head is a foot from his face. The monster is kneeling with its face pointing down and the burning sword laid on the ground, immobile. It may as well be a statue. The only sound is the massive power flowing through its armour humming like a fridge.
The enormous pale soft-skinned skull of this creature is steaming in the cold. The priest can smell the smell of cookie dough.
With his first clear view of the monster’s back, the priest can see the massive white strong wings folded back on either side of the jet engine. They are missing some feathers in places and in between the feathers they're coated with what looks like hundreds of razors but they are unmistakably wings.
They are wings.
This monster is an angel.
This is an Angel.
This is a seraphim. This is a warrior of Heaven summoned to fight at the end times.
The Angel’s head looks up at the priest with weary tears in its eyes. The holy water brims up and over its eyelids. Tears trace clear paths through the dust and grime on the angel’s terrible beautiful pale face. It's left eye is a dark blue-black marble. It's right eye, the one with the tattooed circle around it, is a bright glowing blue.
The priest understands.
The angel speaks in the strong soft voice of a young girl. The volume makes the priest wince. She asks for forgiveness. She’s been fighting so long that she can no longer hesitate when faced with a threat. She is horrified and nearly broken that she has harmed not only one of God’s children, but also a priest. She is asking for forgiveness. Hot tears drip off of the tip of her nose.
The priest makes the sign of the cross to her and tells her to go in peace. He wishes her luck.
She wipes her nose with a metal gauntlet the size of an office desk and stands with the sound of a five car collision.
She closes her eyes for a moment and breathes out.
Her head whips back and she screams. The sword flares. The jet engine deafens with a roar and her armament targeting computers light up like Christmas lights. A lighthouse beam stabs out from her right eye, piercing the clouds. With a concussive blast, she is gone, rocketing up towards the sky. The priest hears two sonic booms slap each other before he can no longer see her.

Shaken, he looks at the sky. There are thunderclaps and lighting strikes in the deep purple clouds all around him. Distant fires rage. It looks like he was the only person left in the motel.

It’s the apocalypse.

The priest smiles.

Not that I want to colour your mental image of what the angel looks like but here's a sketch I did a while ago that in part inspired this piece. Don't click if you want to keep the image you have. Right here.

tags

Current Mood: ecstatic
Current Location: floating on the atlantic
Current Music: The Vanishing American Family - Scuba Z

This shambling baby walks upright across the white marble floor of Heaven.
This one year old has the thousand-yard stare of a Vietnam veteran.
This is a baby that has had to keep up with earth’s latest stealth detection technology.
This is a baby that is more machine than child.
This is a borg baby. This is a baby designed by Giger.
This is a Cupid.
This is a modern day Cupid.

His chubby left arm disappears at the elbow, swallowed in the maw of the elbow socket for the Arrowchain gun. It’s a prosthetic weapon. It drags on the floor. His ravaged little face is poked through in places for cables that snake back into his head. There are a series of copper tubes that arc across the back of his little skull. These are the cooling units for the Heaventech computers that map his synapses. They burn his soft skin where they enter his skull. His head is hot with the tactical knowledge he needs for his strikes. Little glowing blue circuit maps dot his little brain. This baby gurgles with an ancient tiredness. This baby can go invisible to the naked eye and seventy three other types of scanning devices at a thought. He has camouflage like the Predator. His skin is pale and peppered with varicose veins. He hasn’t slept since his creation. They are worked until they die. It used to be a pleasure to bring love to Earth back when there only a few million of the monkeys running around. Now there are billions. And they expect the Cupids to keep up. They improve the armaments but don’t give them any more units.
The traditional sheet wrapped around his class of angel is black with oil and urine. The cherub’s sheet has rips in it from breaking sound barriers over seven continents. It hasn’t been changed in weeks.
Three thousand, four hundred and fifty six cherubs are expected to patrol the earth and pepper it with love in an organized pattern. They are tired but holding on. Almost none of them have gone rogue, rebelled, or destroyed themselves in over a year.
This baby shambles up to Mission Dispatch.

The Bigboard.

The board is black.
It hangs in the center of the white room like a widescreen television.
“Q4CF55. Magnify Calcutta” whispers the child, dust in its throat.
The board’s blackness starts to bubble.
“Magnify to 3. Track right. Truezoom to 2.”
The bubbling blackness becomes a swarm of black dots on a white background.
“Light ‘em up.” Says the cupid.
One of the dots turns red. Cupid Q4CF55 sighs. Steam rises off of him like he just got out of a hot tub on a cold day. His left eye narrows. His right eye can’t narrow because it’s glowing yellow and was installed over five years ago.
“Give me the match.” Hope sounds in the child’s rasp.
Another dot turns red.
The cupid slumps with relief. They’re in the same city. They’re in the same class of society. They already know each other. Their union will break no laws. This’ll take less than an hour. The baby turns, gun barrel scraping along the floor as he walks to the bay doors. He pauses as the blackness and the wind open before him. It snaps playfully at his sheet. He leans forward like he’s falling out of a window. Like he’s tossing himself off of a diving board. He is sucked into the jetstream. He’s on his way to Calcutta.
He plummets towards the earth through a midnight sky, the lights of Calcutta swimming up to meet him. All he can hear is the wind rushing past his little left ear. His right ear is plugged in, scanning ahead for sounds of traffic and radio chatter. It’s never quiet inside the baby’s head.
It’s never quiet inside the baby’s head.

Minyasin is eating curry in her restaurant and thinking about tomorrow’s plans and tomorrow’s orders. Suddenly she starts thinking of Dhaljit, the cook’s younger nephew. He’s too young for her but she can’t get him out of her mind all of a sudden. She’s a little surprised at how turned on she’s becoming just thinking of his big brown eyes looking at her.

Cupid shoots people in the head, not the heart. He removes their capability to think until the love has run its course.

toe

Current Mood: thankful
Current Location: under the bed
Current Music: Rock and Rule soundtrack

Leaky Heaven Circus's production of Salome is one of the most amazing theatrical productions I have ever witnessed. It had beauty, nudity, music, gymnastics, comedy and tragedy. Rather than send up the play, they took the totally unique approach of squeezing every laugh that they could find out of it. The costumes were sensational. There are some sequences that will genuinely stay with me for the rest of my life.

I hope some of you got to see it. It will never be recreated. This is why live theater can be an amazing experience.

I aim to see me some more live theater in the future.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: up against the ropes
Current Music: Homeboy - Adorable

I went to see Arctic Monkeys last night at the commodore. A friend of mine came through for me at the last minute. Pretty good group. I'll post footage tomorrow.
I'm going to see Salome tonight. Come one, come all. It's the last night.
Had a great day today playing pool with my brother and seeing friends. I realized the other day that not much of my actual life ends up here on the page. I'm a very, very busy person so there should be lots. I'll try to do more of that in the future.

Tomorrow is Korean Movie Monday. Come on down. It's a lot of fun. Although apparently not as fun as Mandarin Movie Tuesday. Tee hee.

People get it wrong.

No one has seen Hell or Heaven for a while. Once in a while people get a
glimpse of the entrance that forks to both places but that’s it. A tunnel
with the white light at the end and all that.
Dante got a glimpse of hell. That guy who did the big painting did as well.
A few of those prophets in the bible got a glimpse of heaven, too.
The jury is still out on whether or not we created the two places or if they
were always there. They are sort of an agreed upon post death mass
hallucination.
We influence indirectly the shape and nature of Heaven and Hell. The
essence of our day to day life shapes our expectations. What’s Heaven
without super fast internet or an ipod with all the music ever? What’s Hell
without droning office work for eternity?
What I’m saying is that our visions of the Hell and Heaven are out of date.
Indeed the old ways are still there. For instance:
In Heaven there are still wings, flowing robes and halos.
In Hell there are still leathery tails, flames and sulphur.
But things are modernized now. They’re still behind the times but they’re
catching up. Like a building in a European city that’s been around since
before Christ and is now a hostel with wireless internet. The old ways
mixing with the new.
There are demons from the Old West.
There are angels from those drag racing James Dean style movies.
An obsession with fashion helps pass the time.
Piercing and tattoos are starting to get popular these days. And blogs.
And email.

There is an Under World Wide Web.
There is a High Holy Halo Net.

Thousands of horny women are waiting for you. Log on now.
uww.suck-you-buy.666.co.hll
Add inches to your wingspan naturally! hhh.flyhigher.org.jp.hvn

There are six billion of us down here on earth and slightly more than that
already up there. How do you think they keep track of things?
There is a friendsreunited.com.hvn up in Heaven. There is a
classmates.com.hvn up there as well.
Hell has a lavalife.com.hll. Hell has a rotten.com.hll that puts ours to
shame.
You can take a tour of the homes of the stars up in heaven, just like in
Beverly Hills, except that it takes years.
And the rock concerts in hell, while only for the demons, are something
else. They’ve kept up with the times.

The moral of the story is this. If you're going to hell, be prepared to get hired. No halfway measures.

http://www.locksley.com/hell/

http://www.rotten.com/library/religion/hell/

http://biblia.com/heaven/hell-art.htm

tags

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: in the drain
Current Music: Judy Henske - I wish the train would come

Profile

skonen_blades

June 2023

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

Syndicate

Page Summary

23/30 - Broken Halo Angels
angles
28-30 - Grey
Ascension
13/30 - Predatory Angels
Hell
Inverse Ratio
14/30 - Versions
Who Art in Heaven
Dead Man's Thunder
32/365 - Blue Beams
Idea
They Fall
skinny
You have the right to remain dead
Bless me father for I have grinned
Love's Arrow has a warhead
Salome
(no subject)

Style Credit

Base style: Leftovers by sforzinda
Theme: Elegant Brown by krja

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated 3 July 2025 01:53