I turn and leave the boys to their begging. The apple I offered to them, I give to a pilgrim from New York still wearing his subway pass clipped to his hat. I stop suddenly in my tracks, stunned by the irony. I feel through my pockets checking the apples for size. I smile, secure in the fact that that was indeed the big apple. Behind me I hear the crisp bite of teeth in the flesh of the fruit. There is a chewing noise, and then something else. I hear the mob cry out. Like Lot, I don’t look back as the marketplace is consumed.
I avoid making eye contact with the shoddy, unwashed priests gathered at the bridge, victims of the war and of the occupation. The clergy have fallen on hard times. Who needs those to interpret the Word when those who speak the Word walk among us? I shove apples into their greedy, hungry hands. They thank me. They bless me. They wish me peace and redemption. One grabs me by the shoulder and traces his other hand over my face. He asks me if I wish to confess, and I push him away. He pleads as I hurry over the bridge.
I pass over the bay, careful not to look down. In the shadows of the bridge, on both shores, members of the Penitente religious order hang, nailed to crosses—their flesh torn and rotting. Great clouds of flies swarm around them, impregnating the open wounds with countless eggs. The eggs hatch and billions of maggots slowly eat through the living flesh of those undying imitators of Christ. Some still offer up screaming prayers and pleading apologies.
“I am here, Father! I am Your Son made in Your image! Forgive me, Father! End my suffering! Release me from my earthly bond!”
Most, however, are beyond screaming or prayers. The pain, the hunger, and the thirst I suppose must be unbearable. It must drive them insane. Eventually, they end up slumped sideways with their eyes and mouth locked open in a sickening catatonia of drool and tears. The moist membranes are attractive morsels for the flies and their spawn, and the insects are quick to take advantage. The tongue and eyes are usually eaten first. The throat and the stomach are next to swell with the foul, crawling worms. The rest of the body is slowly devoured, leaving only the scarecrows of bone, cartilage, and ligament. The oldest of the Penitente are strewn as semi-mobile skeletons begging silently, without tongues, for death.
On the far side of the bridge, the line at the gate is like a slug, moving slowly and sweating vile fluids in the morning sun. Two Angels with flaming swords, Grigori, those who watch the gates, are collecting tolls. The cost is a gram of gold, a pittance really, but gold has become scarce in this post-apocalyptic age. The line is full of people waiting to trade earrings, wedding bands, or the occasional tooth for passage.
When I reach the gate, I move through without paying. There is a sudden sound like a train or rocket. I find my way blocked by a sword of flame. The Angels train their eyes on me. As with most Angels, these are clad in traditional white, flowing robes that casually reveal the flesh beneath.
There are things you don’t notice about Angels until you see them up close. They have no eyelids or body hair. They lack navels and have no pores. They are immense, titanic, and statuesque. Their swords smell of victory. There is a single, tense moment during which neither of us moves. Then quietly, the second Angel leans down and stares at me. He blows gently to part the hair from my face. His breath smells of lilacs and roses. He studies me carefully. Then, as quietly as he came down, both he and his comrade withdraw, and I pass without further incident.
Beyond the Grigori, I walk into Elysia, the great open plaza where the feet of the Divine Colossus are planted. Looking upward, I can see human construction crews laboring to weld the massive steel framework into place. Below them, Angels plaster the metal skeleton with a skin of molten gold. Nearby, the monolith’s head rests with eyes of cold steel and hair of liquid fire, fashioned from the few memories the Angels still have of the image of God. I cannot help but recall the face of the beast Gog-Magog as he rose out of his Middle Eastern desert prison. In the face of God I see the Beast’s reflected back, or is it the other way around? The eyes are the same, and the mouth. Yes, all God’s creations share His eyes and mouth.
I remember when Metatron, the Voice of God, decreed, perhaps in desperation, the construction of the golden idol. He spoke in a strange, human voice that was full of confusion, “The Fallen are defeated. We are victorious. Yet what price our triumph? The Celestial City lies in ruin. Millions of the Sons of Adam have been slain, millions more escorted beyond the infinite. The Three Who are One are lost to us. Our envoys have searched Eternity, and their efforts have been fruitless. We are lost, abandoned, forsaken. The Seraphim, the Seven Archangels, have taken consul, conferred, and decided. The Hierarchy must have an apex. The Sons of Adam must have a God.”
Behold now! We have a new god for this new age, a figurehead for the Angelic Order, something to believe in. This is why the Angels have need of gold. I leave the plaza, careful not to let the Attendant Angels, the Ishshim, see my tears.
I make my way into the squalor, what some residents call the Hanging Gardens. Here, I trudge through more madness. Like the Penitente, these people seek an end to their suffering. Unlike their more ecclesiastical cohorts, the Hung make no plea to the Father. Instead, quietly, calmly, even politely, they commit suicide. Over and over again they die. In the beginning, poisons were popular and it took some time for the supply of toxic substances to become exhausted. Stockpiles of ammunition were quickly depleted, as well. Stabbing has never been popular. Jumping was once a preferred method, but those who are prone to its use often find themselves unable to muster the physical coordination to try it a second or third time. Drowning simply does not work. As a result, hanging has become popular. Thus were created the Hanging Gardens.
The gardens are quite lovely, even in winter. It has become tradition for the Hung to dress in their finest wardrobe and outfit themselves with the brightest, most outlandish neckwear they can find. Some take the time to color coordinate their ensembles to ensure that the fine details of color in their faces and oxygen-starved skin are highlighted. The streetlights and telephone poles of this part of the city are wrapped with the twisting, swinging bodies like so many holiday decorations. Thankfully, the Cherubs have made a sport of cutting down the older of the Hung on a regular basis. They come by in small gangs, flashing switchblades back and forth, hungry for a bit of sadistic fun. Watching one of the Hung gasp for breath and change colors seems to always be good for a few laughs.
I pass a street vendor hawking wares for this obscene neighborhood. His voice is a singsong of hopelessness, “Ropes, thin ropes, fat ropes, white ropes, black ropes, fine ropes.” He stops me. “A rope for you, friend?” I have no need of ropes and I tell him so. “No harm in asking, friend, now is there? No harm at all. Besides, I knew from the start you weren’t no regular Hung. You ain’t got no scars around your neck. No, you ain’t here for no ordinary rope. No, sir, you are not. I can tell. I use to be somebody, you know. I used to be a psychiatrist. I know what people are thinking. I know what people need. I know when they are looking for something special.”
“I suppose then you have something special? Something I need?” I respond, doing my best to hide the sarcasm in my voice.
“Indeed I do, sir, indeed I do!” He reminds me of a fisherman who has just hooked a big one. “I have a poison guaranteed to kill. Guaranteed, I tell you. These three guys out in the Valley, they took it nine days ago. They ain’t moved since. They dead. They are gonna stay dead, too. I swear. They are dead forever. You could be too. For a price.”
I drag my eyes up and down his thin frame. “Will you take these in trade?” I offer him six juicy apples.
His eyes grow wide in greed and he snatches the fruit from my hand. “Done!” And the apples are gone. He shoves a greasy, glass vial into my hand and moves off without saying a word. After ten yards, his pace picks up, and he breaks into a run before I have a chance to look at the jar. The contents are blue and viscous. The liquid clings to the sides like oil or grease. Even without taking off the lid I can smell the stuff, laundry detergent, o
r some similar cleanser. Nothing more. No miracle poison; laundry detergent. I throw the vial into a sewer and move on.
My course takes me past the city library, or what is left of it. The windows and doors are all gone, shattered and broken; their frames are stained with soot and ash. Through gaping, toothless mouth-like doors, I see derelicts shuffling through the stacks carrying torches to guide the way. There are other fires burning as well, larger fires with smoke that smells of old paper, ink, and leather. The librarians are burning the books. Not all at once mind you, just those that have been deemed useless. Philosophy went first I suppose, followed by science and perhaps government. They must be at least up to history by now, or perhaps economics. I mount the steps and leave apples as a dark gift to these traitors to reason.
By noon I reach the Celestial Administration Complex, a vast city of surreal architecture in what was once Anaheim. The happiest place on Earth is now a shining fortress of refuge for the Angels who now dwell among the mundane. Divine fire adorns the artificial mountains and luminous clouds float through the streets. Dog-faced angels that reek of sweat and blood guard the gates. Few humans are allowed inside. Again, I pass without incident. Metatron is waiting for me.
Angels do not pace. When they become impatient an odd reflex places them in a fugue state from which they cannot estimate the passage of time. Metatron awakens from this state when I enter the room.
His voice is oddly human. “This is your fault. You knew this would happen. We should kill you for this. We should cast you screaming into the pit. We will have vengeance.”
I stare at the displaced Angel, the former Voice of God. My gaze is cold, dark, and direct. “You will do nothing,” I tell him. “Your time is over. The chorus of God has been chosen, and your voice was found too discordant to belong. The age of God and His rule are over. It is my time. There shall be a new age and a new God. I assure you it will not be the sad monolith of gold you are so fervent in constructing.”
Metatron’s face betrays his fall into humanity as it reflects the all too mortal emotion of bewilderment. I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for all of them. The Angels, so nearly divine but still imperfect. Part of the plan, but not privy or aware of its details, goals, and consequences. I part my hair to reveal my Mark, the Mark of God.
“I am Cain, Son of Adam, Son of God. My parents tasted the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge. In doing so, God planted His seeds, tended His orchard, and harvested the best of fruits. Yet, as with all harvests, there is still fruit left on the tree. Most of the fruit is overripe, bruised, or diseased. With these meager remains the pickers may do what they want. Most will eventually fall and rot away, returning to the base from which they came. Some of the remains, however, are simply not ripe, not yet ready to harvest. Given time, some will yield the sweetest fruit of all.”
I pull the last apple from my pocket. “This is the fruit of the second tree, the Tree of Ignorance. From its seeds a new Eden shall grow. As with the original tree, man will be offered these fruits. These are not the fruits of knowledge or immortality. Rather, they are the fruits of ignorance and oblivion. Man must return to his origins. He must be without sin and without mind, as the beasts in the field. This is my mission, cursed to me by the Lord from the beginning. I will lead man from the light and into the darkness.”
I watch as realization, then rapture overcomes Metatron. With this new dawning, his need fulfilled, Metatron slowly dissolves away into the ether of creation. All around the world, faithful Angels dissolve into nothingness. In the midst of it all he speaks; Metatron actually speaks, “The Prophecy is fulfilled. The Alpha and the Omega. In the End . . .” and he is gone.
And then there is a second voice; a voice for the world, and it speaks to the world, “In the Beginning . . .”
“There was darkness,” I respond. I close my eyes and wait for the world to begin again.
The Stump and the Spire
Joseph Lallo
If you want to get to the root of something, you’re going to have to dig.
IT IS A USEFUL BIT of wisdom in any walk of life. Time has a way of covering things up, after all. To get to the essential truth of a thing, the place where it all started, you will have to brush away the layers left behind by the passing years. The words may mean different things to different people, but the wisdom behind them remains. When a healer says you must dig to the root, for instance, he means you must find the cause of an ailment. When a diplomat says you must dig to the root, she means you must learn why a war began. The words could mean a dozen different things; it only depends on who is doing the speaking, and who is doing the listening.
On this day it was William who was doing the listening. He was a young boy of ten who had grown up working the land with his parents and his sister. The one doing the speaking was William’s father, and he was not a diplomat or a healer. He was a farmer, and when a farmer says you must dig to the root, he is holding a shovel and pointing to a tree stump. Farmers don’t have time for metaphors.
“Father, I can’t dig out a whole tree by myself,” William objected.
“I did it when I was your age. It just takes time,” his father said, handing the boy the shovel and tousling his hair. “It will do you good to get some proper work done, and this stump is long overdue to come out.”
William looked to the stump again. It was an ancient gray thing, the remains of an oak that had been dead the day they found it. The tree had been on the land since long before they had taken it over the previous season, and it was at the center of a patch of barren and lifeless field. It had been simple enough to cut down the trunk, and after a bit of sawing and chopping it provided some much needed firewood. As for the stump, they had been in too much of a hurry to take care of it thus far. The growing season was short, and the planting season shorter. During those months, their time was better spent elsewhere. Now the harvest was over, and the air was already taking on the harder nip of the long winter ahead. There was no better time to dig out the stump and see what could be done to nurse the soil back to health. It wasn’t a terribly large job, all things considered. The stump was only half as tall as the boy and perhaps equally wide. The tangle of roots beneath it was daunting though, particularly considering how deep it likely ran.
“But it’ll take me forever!”
“Just do as much as you can do today, then come back tomorrow. It’ll be done before you know it,” William’s father assured him with a firm slap on the back. “And do your best while the weather is still warm, because once the ground starts to freeze it’ll be that much harder.”
“But—”
“William,” he said, his voice stern and his gaze hard. “Remember what happens to little boys who disobey their parents. A dragoyle will come along and eat your toes in your sleep.”
“Yes, Father.” William had been hearing stories about dragoyles for as long as he could remember. They were supposed to be evil creatures left behind by the D’Karon, dark wizards from long ago who had come from another world and nearly conquered this one. Dragoyles were said to be vicious monsters, and the D’Karon were the blackest of evils, but mostly they seemed to exist specifically to frighten little boys into doing what they were told. William had stopped believing in them years ago, but he knew that once his father started talking about them, the next words would be punishment.
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’ll dig up the stump, Father.”
“That’s my boy,” he said.
William sighed and put the shovel to work, hacking at the first of what would be many, many roots. The boy wasn’t shaping up to have what one might call a farmer’s physique. He was short for his age, and he'd never lost his baby fat, despite plenty of hard work on the land. His temperament left something to be desired as well. Whereas his father could think of no finer way to spend the day than getting his hands dirty tilling the soil, William had other interests. The boy would much prefer to while away the hours sketching shapes on the groun
d, daydreaming, and asking questions his parents wouldn’t have known how to answer even if they’d had the time and inclination to do so. It was a source of great concern for William’s father that the boy didn’t show much interest in the family work, but he was a simple man and confident that a few more summers with spade in hand would make the boy see the light. After all, it had worked for Layla, William’s sister.
Layla was four years older than William and taller by a head and shoulders. Though she still gave her parents plenty to worry about, she was at least happy enough working on the farm. She tended to the animals and was never shy to take up a rake or a hoe if an extra set of hands were needed. It had left her with a fit build and boundless energy, which was something of a mixed blessing. Though her parents were grateful for her help and enthusiasm on the fields, they would have preferred a bit less energy afterward. She already had a habit of getting into trouble when the day’s work was through, and it would only get worse as her thoughts began to drift toward more amorous pursuits.
As the sun was hitting its highest point, Layla paid her brother a visit. She was wearing her dirt-encrusted work clothes, and in her hand was a familiar cloth sack.
“Lunchtime, Willy!” she chirped.
The boy looked wearily at his sister as she offered him a smile and set the sack down beside the stump.
“So Dad finally decided to have you dig something up,” she said, untying the corners of the sack to flatten it into a tablecloth of sorts. Inside was a pile of golden-brown pockets of baked dough and a leather water flask.
“Yeah. All by myself,” he replied. He wiped his hands on his pants and eagerly tried to stuff an entire dough pocket into his mouth. They were a treat his mother had concocted when she grew tired of her family attempting to eat their midday meal while in the fields. After most of her bowls were lost or broken, she started baking meat, gravy, and vegetables into a pocket of dough so that they could eat with their hands.
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