CHAPTER 18
"Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing." Those were the last words that I spoke before leaving heaven for the final time. They have resonated in my head for thousands upon thousands of years, haunting my existence and reminding me of the gravest misjudgment ever made.
Even with hindsight as keen as my own, I look back to the time before and can see no inkling of a clue as to how things would come to pass. Or perhaps I was just blind to what was right before my eyes. Maybe I didn't want to know. Is that why I left? The answer is neither here nor there. I suppose I am as guilty as the rest. I, along with all my brothers, birthed sin into the world of man, and doomed those that we loved the most.
When I speak of my earliest memories, you must keep in mind that this was a span before I knew of night and day, or earth and man. I was not exposed to these things until much later. I am certain that I am older than civilization, but I have no idea exactly how old you would consider me to be. Perhaps the earth had already been formed when I was created, perhaps not. Time was an unknown on high. Only after my descent did I learn of such things. But I digress . . . let me speak of the beginning.
I see the faces of angels when I remember. There were many, many angels . . . and such faces. My brothers all. Two hundred we were. I could tell you all their names, describe their beauty, talk of the many different personalities, but my memory pains me so for now I will tell you of the first estate.
In all my years on earth I have seen all that your world has to offer, and I have seen it at its most beautiful-when it was raw and undisturbed, before man walked its lands or bathed in its waters. It was savage then, and wondrous, and ever since it has never failed to delight. Even though it has been my prison for over ten thousand years, I hold no ill will towards this planet. In fact, I embrace it and all that it has to offer. But I will never think of it as my home.
A Part of heaven? Yes. What part? Above? Below? I do not know. I only know that the first estate was my home-where Father birthed me, and the only immaculate place I have ever been. A precursor to, and a more perfect Eden than Adam ever knew. I yearn for it continually. Inside my bosom I hold the pain of an entire populace, and millenniums worth of regret. But how can you get back to a place that strangely you know nothing of? Yes, I can tell you of its' wonders, for my memory of all things is unscathed by time. But the most important questions-Where? How? Why?-I cannot answer, nor can I ask those that would know.
I have imagined that my home is no more. It pains me less to think that Father ended it, or that it simply ceased to exist after we descended, than to know it awaits my return. For that is a return that cannot be.
Again I am rambling. I ask your forgiveness. As I continue my story, please keep in mind that I have been influenced by countless bards, scribes, priests, poets, and writers throughout my time here. I can speak all languages fluently, including those that have gone unheard for generations, yet sometimes I have trouble finding my own voice.
To say that I was literally birthed or born would be a misstatement. I simply was. Just as I am now, so have I always been. All of the memories and experiences that my life has left me with notwithstanding, I remain exactly the same as the day I descended from the first estate, and as I was before while in heaven, and as I was when I recall the first thing I ever remember doing: running from Azazel.
We were in what I can most simply describe as a meadow. Yet it was a meadow a thousand fold more beautiful than any fairy tale scene that you could envision. Most all of the area that we stayed in was pastoral in nature. If a picture could be painted from my memory of the first estate, it would not be considered realistic. Most would say that it was "too perfect." I say this because my home lacked much of the variety of today's world.
Every blade of grass was the same lush green, the exact same shape and length, slightly curved in the same direction, and always feeling the constant degree of coolness beneath our steps. Nothing else grew in our meadow except the grass. It was thick and soft, and it always beckoned us to sit or lay down into its embrace.
At what I always considered the center of our world was a shallow pool. When I stood in the middle of it and turned, everything appeared the same all the way around. The horizon seemed lost in every direction. The green of the land met the uninterrupted blue of the sky at the same point everywhere. Many times we left the pool and ventured out in various directions, but nothing ever changed. The lush grass stayed underfoot, the pure blue stayed above, and the horizon stayed afar. For this reason, and others to come later, we spent most of our time around the large, shallow pool that rested easily in the only depression the grass ever revealed to us.
The pool itself was circular and crystalline. Its bottom was covered with the same grass as the rest of our home. The ridiculous clarity of the water sometimes made it hard to ascertain that a pool was in fact there at all. But it was, no bigger than a large home and only slightly cooler than the world surrounding it.
The water never moved or rippled, as there was no wind. Only when one of my brothers or I entered into it did the surface shift at all, and then only slightly. The water seemed denser, almost syrupy, when compared to that here on earth. It rolled off the flesh, and we always exited the pool as dry as when we first entered.
These things that I describe never seemed odd to me then because it was all that I knew. Even later when I left my home and lived in your world with its irregular grass and different water, I never really thought of the first estate as odd, but I quickly concluded that it was indeed different. Although it seems a trivial thing when comparing heaven and earth, the small differences between the grass and the water here versus there always seemed to nag at my consciousness and perplexed me somewhat during my early years on Earth. It took me some time to realize that it was no great mystery. Our world was a forerunner of what was to become-a much simpler and less varied version of the Earth that was to be. Land and water—the basis of your world.
In many ways, we to were a vision of what would be. There were differences yes, but even while in heaven I believe that we could have passed for human if not viewed by an overly scrutinizing eye. After we descended the differences became even more subtle and we were accepted as human, albeit extraordinary ones.
All of my brothers and I stood over seven foot tall and some, such as mighty Semjaza, towered closer to nine. Limbs, digits, members, all slightly elongated and just overly proportioned with our trunks when compared to humans. I always appreciated the beauty and power of our anatomy, even before I knew of any other organisms to compare them to.
Our bodies were like that of an elite runner: all lean muscle stretched taut across an enormous frame. Our shoulder muscles were also disproportionately large. They held more mass than the other muscles of our bodies. Thick and tall, they reached somewhere near mid neck. I always imagined that they were so immense in order to support the wings that we were lacking . . . wings that we would surely receive . . . wings that never came.
The faces of my brothers were both alike and different. Each held small distinctions in features that enabled one to tell them apart. Slightly larger eyes, fuller lips, hair color-the same distinctions that make individual humans so easily identifiable. On the other hand, all of their faces were angular and slightly gaunt, with strong features and thick hair. The same diversity that exists today amongst humans was lacking to some degree amongst my brothers and I. We looked like . . . well we looked like brothers, and our faces were both handsome and fearsome at first glance.
We had no wings. Not in the beginning, nor the end, not ever. All the angels before us had wings. From the archangels such as Gabriel with his grand, white, splendid appendages, to the lesser known celestial beings who warred against heaven alongside the Accuser only to be cast down, they were winged to the last. The ancients, and hence mankind as a whole, always assumed that our wings were taken from us-burned away by an angry God-after we descended to earth. A jus
t punishment it would seem for such a profound sin against heaven, but that was not the case. Once again I believe that father was etching closer to his final design for humanity when he birthed us. Thus, we had no wings.
Strangely, we never longed to have them. We weren't the least bit envious of the other angels. In the beginning, petty jealousies didn't exist. Even my brother Azazel, who developed an exceptional ability to turn the most trivial of matters into open conflict, never expressed to me any longing to have feathers on his back. We always just assumed that we would get our wings once the Uncreated deemed us worthy enough to have them. It really didn't matter when. Time was meaningless, and we all felt certain that at some point we would be winged like the rest of the heavenly host. We could not have been more wrong.
We played mostly. Like children, our time was spent chasing each other, wrestling in the meadow, or swimming in the pool. We didn't eat or sleep, and we never tired or were injured. There was no night and day, and no one to tell us to stop. Thus, we enjoyed ourselves to the fullest continuously.
Our games were innocent when we first played. We all thought of ourselves as brothers and equals. There was no resentment or envy, no rival factions, and no rifts or contemptuous behavior of any sort. We ran for the sake of running and sang for the joy of hearing our own voices. It was a simple and joyous beginning . . . a consummate and timeless existence. It was heaven, our first estate, and my home.
Perhaps I would be there now laughing like a child and full of love for all things, had I not chosen a different path. Had we not all chosen a different path. If left alone I've no doubt that we would still reside in paradise, but not even heaven is immune to villainy. During my time there that villain, full of selfishness and subtlety, flew about on twelve radiant wings.