Star-Spangled Apocalypse

by Harmon Cooper

  “Don’t do it, man,” James said sternly, resting his hand on his belly and leaning back on the pillows. “God, it’s horrible. What the hell is this stuff?”

  “I…don’t…know if…I…can keep…it down.”

  “You have to.” James closed his eyes and laid his head down on the pillow. “Just lay back and breathe for a minute. I honestly hope we didn’t just fucking poison ourselves. We’ve come too far to die such a pitiful death.”

  “It tastes like a dirty armpit with a hint of kimchi...arggh...”

  “Well, if you hated it so much you should have just let me finish it! It wasn’t so bad…definitely has a strange aftertaste though.” James burped again and placed his arms beneath his head. “Fuck, that’s terrible. I should drink some water.”

  “Two steps ahead of you.” Virgil rushed to the sink and started tossing water into his mouth.

  “So, what do you suppose we do now?”

  “I guess we wait ten minutes or something,” Virgil replied as he returned to his bed. “Man, I just want to say: this room is totally creepy.”

  “You aren’t wrong there.”

  A few minutes of silence passed between the two as they relaxed onto their beds, waiting for the moonshine to take effect.

  A couple of minutes more and James slowly began drifting asleep, encouraged by the room’s stillness. A metallic fish appeared across his eyelids signaling the start of a daydream. He saw the lake, the boy on the horse, some other symbols he couldn’t quite make out.

  A sudden yelp from Virgil pulled him out of his distorted reverie.

  “Dude! Did you see that!?”

  James sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked at the television just in time to see the dusty lamp next to the television lift into the air and fall back onto the desk.

  “What the…?”

  The lamp lifted again and lightly set itself back on the desk just as the drawer beneath the lamp slowly opened, making a low, scratchy sound.

  James recoiled in horror.

  Virgil sat silently, his eyebrows raised and his pupils fixed on the far corner of the room. Both their beds trembled for a brief second, and James gasped when a customary motel room bible floated out of the open desk drawer and dropped to the floor.

  James’ skin crawled as the phone began ringing, each ring cutting itself short and falling into an inaudible sigh.

  Everything stopped. The two former baristas looked to each other, relieved and freaked out.

  Their beds started shaking violently, controlled by an unseen force.

  “Shit!” James hopped off the bed and backed into the corner near the wall. He wasn’t completely convinced he was done dreaming yet. “Am I dreaming? What the hell is going on?”

  Virgil braced himself on the shaking bed and pointed to the mirror near the bathroom.

  Goosebumps crawled up James’ arms as he looked towards the mirror Virgil was frantically pointing at.

  The surface of the mirror wobbled back and forth, bubbling like a slow tide. Slivers of stained glass sparks flickered from the corners of the mirror.

  The outline of a cloaked face began blurring into focus within the mirror’s watery reflection. Its eyes were an intense fluorescent green, its pupils burning yellow, and its nose bleeding what looked like vibrant green ooze onto the floor.

  The Bible flipped open, its pages fluttering violently as a musky green mist began emitting from the mirror towards James and Virgil.

  Thick black tails emerged from the smoke and curled towards James and Virgil. James felt his heart beating. He felt the blood running from his heart to the rest of his body. He felt his heart withdraw in fear, sucking in the blood from his hands and feet, numbing his arms and legs.

  Virgil dropped to the floor and crawled towards the mirror, his hand outstretched.

  “What the fuck are you doing!?” James cried as Virgil continued to inch closer towards the mirror.

  The neon green liquid started to surround the Bible.

  The lamp suddenly flew off the table, pulling its cord out of the wall, and flung itself into the wall. James covered his head in panic as the lamp shattered above him, dropping broken glass and eventually the lampshade on top of his head.

  A hand emerged from the mirror towards Virgil.

  The room quaked as thunder shook the motel. Large pellets of rain lashed against the cracked window and the front door.

  Knock knock knock.

  James and Virgil looked towards the front door.

  The smoke shrunk back to the corners of the room like someone was sucking it through a giant straw.

  The entity within the mirror screamed, its mouth and eyes collapsing into the vortex of its hood.

  The green liquid quickly vacuumed itself back into the mirror, and the shattered lamp reassembled itself in midair on its way back to its normal spot near the television.

  The rain continued to splatter against the front window.

  Knock knock knock.

  Both men shifted their view to the front door.

  Chapter 15: Mika’il and the Emerald Feather

  “Should I answer it?” Virgil looked from James to the front door. His voice was muffled by the thumping sound of raindrops, the silence of bitter ambiguity.

  Knock knock knock.

  “Hell if I know.” James rubbed his temples, secretly hoping all this would go away. “Well, I guess so? Whoever it is, they seemed to scare away whatever was coming out of that mirror…”

  “That was the trippiest thing I’ve ever seen. Seriously, dude. And what was up with all the sudden thunder? Cody’s stuff must be working. It’s strange though. We are surprisingly coherent.”

  “Yeah, it is strange,” James said as he examined his hand. Everything seemed to be in place; the familiar blur of alcohol was suddenly nonexistent.

  “All right, here goes nothing.” Virgil strolled over to the front door and unlocked the top bolt.

  A russet colored man in a clean-cut business suit, large emerald green wings and slick, black hair that reached to his shoulders stood valiantly in front of Virgil.

  His wings were covered with saffron hairs and appeared to be in some sort of motion, a myriad of timeless faces on each individual feather, the faces continually bumping into each other and merging together.

  “You have wings?”

  The man’s wings started to retract; shrinking into his back as Virgil remained motionless, trying his best to stay calm. Rain bore down but the man was completely dry, as if the rain was forming a dry barrier around his body.

  “Will you not invite me in?” the man asked in a thick Middle Eastern accent. He glanced at his watch, adjusted his emerald green tie, and waited for Virgil to respond.

  “Um…”

  “Well?” His pupils shifted in size and Virgil looked away.

  James placed his elbows on the bed and picked himself up. He hadn’t seen the wings yet, and wondered why Virgil was so flabbergasted by the man at the door.

  “My name is Mika’il,” the man said, reaching his hand out. “I’m glad you finally came to the door, I was growing tired of knocking.”

  “No way…” Virgil mumbled. “As in St. Michael, the angel?”

  Mika’il nodded, almost as if it were a dimwitted question.

  “Who is it?” James called out. He started to say ‘tell them we’re not interested’ but then he saw the panicked look on Virgil’s face. Suddenly, James wished he had something more than a katana and a damn pellet gun.

  Virgil glanced over his shoulder at his former shift manager. “Uh, it’s…it’s Michael? As in Michael the Angel...”

  “Please, there isn’t much time.” Mika’il pressed past Virgil and walked over to the mirror.

  “Yes, um, come in!”

  “Hello, James, it’s very nice to meet you.” The strange man placed his fingers on the edge of the mirror, closed his eyes, and whispering something in a foreign tongue. A Chaldean symbol appeared on the mirror’s surface and gently began to
fade.

  Even more troubling, Mika’il didn’t have a reflection in the mirror.

  James and Virgil exchanged glances, Virgil’s one of shock and James’ one of skepticism.

  “Gentlemen,” Mika’il replied calmly as he turned around and faced both of them, preparing for his usual introduction, “I don’t have a lot of time today. So, let’s keep questions that need no answering to a minimum. My name is Mika’il. I have also been called St. Michael or Sabbathiel, among other names, and as I previously mentioned, I am on a tight schedule so let us get down to business. Ask me your questions so that I may go.”

  James reached in his pocket for a cigarette, lit it, and sat on the corner of the bed. He instinctively offered a cigarette to Mika’il, who obliged. James lit the second cigarette with the first and handed it to the man claiming to be an angel.

  “Okay,” Virgil said, bravely preparing himself to ask the first question. “Is it really Armageddon?”

  Mika’il laughed, took a long drag off the cigarette, and leaned back against the tv stand. “Of course you would ask that. That’s what the both of you believe, right? Well, James doesn’t believe it.”

  “I mean...” James began. “Wait, how did you know my name again?”

  “Never mind that, and James’ life can be discussed or discovered at a later date. I will say this: it is always Armageddon somewhere.” Mika’il paused, as if he were thinking of a better way to explain what he just said. “Let’s discuss what I’ve said using ants.”

  “Ants?” James and Virgil both asked.

  Mika’il cast his hand towards the wall, a shadow of an anthill appearing with tiny shadow ants marching their way in and out of the mound. A few shadow plants grew up next to the hill and a few more mounds began appearing behind and around the original ant hill.

  “If the ants are left alone, they flourish. If someone comes by and kicks the pile over, they lose their minds.” Mika’il waved his hand at the shadowy image after taking a puff from the cigarette James gave him.

  A large foot kicked the shadow ant hill, crumbling it to the bottom of the mound.

  The shadow ants went insane, crawling all over the wall and onto James and Virgil’s hands.

  Virgil tried frantically to shake the ants off his hand. He’d had enough mind bugs after his experience with Arjuna just a day ago.

  “The ants spread like a swarm looking for vengeance; they are blood hungry, they attack anything that threatens them. No matter how large or small their enemy is, the ants attack. Humans from a distance are about as smart as ants. Behaving in swarms; building ant hill buildings; doing whatever they can for their kings and queens; and attacking anything and everything that threatens their existence. Humans are even stranger than ants when viewed from a distance. Humans have devised a sort of organized revenge that they call ‘justice,’ and humans actually punish their own.”

  The ants disappeared, and the shadow of a guillotine appeared on the wall.

  The guillotine chopped down onto a shadow head, and the head fell forward, spewing shadow blood all over the floor.

  From the drops of blood weapons materialized, firing and stabbing at each other. A nuclear bomb exploded on the shadow scene of destruction, producing more weapons and shadow violence. Mika’il walked in front of the shadow violence and continued his explanation.

  “Is it societal? Is it mental? It’s obviously necessary. What about those who kill for pleasure? Is it because of nature? Is it because of nurture? Is it because of wealth? Discrepancies in intelligence?” Mika’il looked at James and Virgil, who were both gazing at the wall with open mouths. He put the half-finished cigarette out in an ashtray on the desk and looked the men over.

  “Well, what do either of you think?”

  “Wealth, therefore it’s societal,” Virgil answered quickly, keeping his eyes on the weapons. Mika’il slowly paced to the other side of the room, deep in thought.

  “Mental,” James replied, directly after Virgil. The shadow weapons faded away and the hotel wall was blank again.

  “Good guess, gentlemen. It could be societal, and it could be mental. Society shapes the brain and the brain shapes society. I am speaking of the brain at large, or as Aldous Huxley once famously put it, the Mind-at-Large, thus, they both are equally guilty. This is because they function within each other.” Mika’il waved his hand at the wall again. “And therefore, they are the products of each other.”

  The shadow of a brain and a plot of land appeared.

  The top of the brain opened and buildings sprung from the opening, erecting themselves and forming a shadow city. Streams of chaotic words drained from the bottom of the buildings back into the center of the shadow brain. This created a circle of buildings coming out of the brain and into the shadow city, a loop of ideas leaving the shadow city and going back into the shadow brain.

  Mika’il placed his hands behind his back and smiled.

  “Humans seem to have a problem, though, a problem ants don’t have. Even as the society evolves, as intelligence compounds upon itself, the collective whole remain relatively the same. Wealth also behaves in this same, problematic way.”

  Mika’il walked to the window examining the large crack. He checked his watch again and as he turned around, Virgil asked him another question.

  “Wouldn’t the solution to society you’re suggesting here become just another problem then?”

  “Yes, it would.” Mika’il reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a set of keys, dangling them in the air in front of James and Virgil.

  The keys twinkled and sparkled as they bounced into one another, creating a sound like a xylophone played with metal mallets. As the sound vibrated into the corners of the room, it filtered itself to the outer edges of James and Virgil’s ears, resonating as wind chimes do on a quiet breeze.

  “These are the keys to the kingdom of Heaven. However,” he paused, looking directly at James, “the same keys can also open the doors of Hell. The keys are intertwined, nearly interchangeable. The interpretation as to if either is good or bad is in fact decided by the key holder and not necessarily the door. Sure, the door either leads to Heaven or Hell, but in all honesty, who is actually opening the door? Who has chosen the door? And who says what is behind either door is good or bad?”

  “Well…” Virgil asked reluctantly. “Wouldn’t the door to Heaven have better things behind it than the door to Hell?”

  “Naturally. However, one’s definition of Heaven could be Hell and their definition of Hell could be Heaven. It truly depends on who is opening the door. Both can be frightening or both could be comforting. Again, it depends on the key holder.” Mika’il cast his hand on the wall and the shadow of a syringe appeared.

  “To a heroin user, they are experiencing Heaven when they inject.”

  The needle injected into the arm of a shadowed man who sat in a dark corner sighing. Seconds later he started scratching for more. Another needle appeared and injected the man. It wasn’t long before he started moaning for even more, violently bashing his head against the wall.

  Another needle appeared and injected the man.

  “To the people around a heroin user, he or she is experiencing Hell, and usually dragging them in with him or her. The user is dying and is doing so at a rapid rate. However, being the key holder, the user actually feels like they are in Heaven when they open that door, again and again until they finally break the door down.”

  Mika’il cast his hand at the wall and the shadow of a small, rickety house appeared with a single vehicle.

  “To the rich aunt that is forced to stay at a poorer relative’s house, she is experiencing Hell.”

  An elegant car pulled up in front of the shadow house and a lady got out of the car, heading into the house, nose held high and shaking her head in disgust.

  “Even though the people who live at the place have worked their entire lives for a little slice of Heaven,” Mika’il said, casting the image away, “a rich aunt stops by to stay
the weekend and deems the place Hell.

  “Or this example: To a businessman, the profit eventually gained by obtaining oil in the Middle East will help him create his own Heaven here on earth. But the soldier or civilian fighting, suffering and dying for the businessman’s oil is experiencing Hell. Again, all this depends on who is holding the key...”

  Ring! Ring!

  Mika’il pulled out a cell phone, checked who was calling and sighed. “Gentlemen, I have to take this.”

  Virgil and James looked at Mika’il with astonishment as he answered his phone and turned towards the front door.

  “And Midael can’t handle this?” the strange man finally said. “What about Ram Izad or Haniel?”

  Mika’il walked to the window and examined the crack again. He put his finger over it and slowly traced its curve. Instantly, the rain fell even harder, beating the roof of the motel like a thousand drumsticks.

  “Okay, I’ll be there.” Mika’il dropped his phone into his pocket, and glanced at his watch again. He turned to the two former baristas and laughed. “Even I have to play the game of destiny. So anyways, do you gentlemen have any other questions?”

  “Who was on the phone?” Virgil asked.

  Mika’il started chuckling. “After all I’ve just told you, that’s your question?”

  “I don’t know, it seemed important.”

  “It was important. A jinn is loose in Tehran. Anything else?”

  “Do angels really use cell phones?”

  “To you they do,” Mika’il answered Virgil sharply.

  “Before you go, um, I have a few questions.” James ashed his cigarette on the motel room carpet.

  “Fine, but please hurry.”

  “Firstly, Cody said we would meet God if we drank this moonshine. Are you God?”

  “No, I already told you who I am. From personal experience, the God you are referring to is a little too busy to concern himself solely with situations happening here on Earth. After all, the galaxy is a big place, and it will continue to expand for eternity.”