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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Paka" data-source="post: 3055504" data-attributes="member: 100">The First Baby Step Towards the World’s EndPart IIn which there is a plumbing problem.(picture of man near pipes)I am what they call an arch-angel and with fiery sword in hand, I traverse creation, setting it right.From the Gates of Heaven, everything below looked perfect.  It was almost like you could look below and see His plan and every little piece, no matter how mundane seemed like a divine cog, turning precisely as it should.  But then my flight took lower, not earth-side but a place just behind, just sideways, just alongside earth-side, the back-stage, where great pipes containing dreams, love, spite, faith, hope and all manner of humanity’s glories and failings were contained and distributed.If I wanted to sound official, glorious, and holy I could tell you that the flow of growth and responsibility had become problematic, causing unforeseen complications in the earthly realms.  But that would be hubris, wouldn’t it?  The truth is, some pipes were backed up; it was a plumbing problem, no matter how epic the plumbing.He was a wingless cherub in working gear, not looking up at me so he wouldn’t be blinded by Heaven’s Gates, always directly above me, right between my snow white wings.  He stood over the tremendous pipes with his gear strapped to his limbs.Limbs, such an affectation.  I wonder why this one enjoyed the look of an earth handyman and not a jellyfish or a floating ball of light?“Lines are gummed up good,” he said, apparently enjoying the speech patterns of his kind as well.  Sometimes the work these blue collar angels took on rubbed them in strange directions, humanity took root in them.  His form and speech reminded me all the more that this was no epic struggle between good and evil nor a conflict among the fundamental forces of humanity but a clogged pipe.I tried to imagine what the cherub/handyman saw looking up at me, standing on this broken pipe that ran from one side of reality to another, from the moment He created light to the last sputter of a dead sun with me, a floating angel, wings of white, flaming sword in hand, presence still exuberant from having bathed in His Glory during the first seven days.“Open the pipe, cherub.”He shook his head.  “This is raw adulthood, running right into creation’s veins.  This here is bad id-““Open the pipe.”He sighed and turned valves so the pressure on the nearest hatch could be opened.“Close it after me; I want nothing following.”“But how will you get out?”Taking one last look at the Gates, I said, “I’m sure there is a plan for my exit if my exit is to be.”He snorted and I descended feet first into the pipes, still damp with the elemental forces within that had stopped flowing.The cherub clamped shut the hatch and thought I couldn’t hear him as he muttered, “Stupid snob angel…white winged…flaming sword…fop.”The smell of adulthood was overpowering.  Duty, responsibility, focus, and choice sobered me to my purpose, to correct the wrong.  And there was only ever one thing wrong with creation; I wondered how the wrong would manifest this time while flying towards the clog in the pipes.Part II In which there is a two employees from different corporations talk shop.(picture of adults playing)I am an earth-side angel, nudging the mundane world towards holiness, recording and reporting.On earth-side, you can’t exactly see Heaven.  You can feel its pull, like magnetic north but you can’t see the gates.  That can be unnerving but I have been serving earth-side, seeing that the Pact is kept and watching over those who need an angel’s breath here and there.The accounting firm of Carson and Webster had a meeting on the first Monday of the month to discuss projects, talk hard numbers and look upon the various computer aided slide show presentations with bar graphs and the occasional inspirational quote.  The angel watching them had noted that none of the quotes had ever come from a holy book of any kind.  Dilbert doesn’t count, he reckoned.Perhaps that lack of holy guidance had some hand in the events he was watching unfold.  They had decided in their meeting that their jobs sucked and it was time to cut the meeting short, go outside and play.  He was floating just above the ground with his record keeping apparatus, a simple note pad and feather pen, watching the Vice President of Human Resources and the newest partner holding a blanket between them, flinging a dolly in the air.“If we fling it high enough, the dolly will go to heaven!” the V.P. exclaimed, giggling shamelessly.“Hardly,” slithered a reply from behind the angel’s shoulder.  The humans couldn’t hear it but I could.  One needs a special sort of hearing to directly hear the sarcastic wit of the fallen angels.“Bub, seems like I haven’t seen you since the Fall.  How long has it been?”  I’d show him that devils and demons aren’t the only ones with sarcasm and wit.“Please, you watched me deficate on the boardroom table when the firm helped that man declare bankruptcy to avoid paying child support to his ex-wife.” he responded, taking a kerchief to his long blank horns.A curt sniff was my only reply.“Good times,” he said back, smiling a grin that fully showed his poor dental hygene since his descent.  A look of disdain came over his face.  “What is this rubbish about?” he said, pointing to the cavorting accountants, playing, skipping, crying and such all over the playground that was just a block away from their office building.“It looks like a group of people basking in God’s glory and enjoying his creation to the fullest.”The building custodian sprinted between them, not knowing the forces he was walking among and the company president followed him in fast pursuit, tie flapping in the wind.  “No fair, no tag-backs, that was established as the game began.  No tag-backs!”Bub smiled, showing his the contests of his foul mouth again.  “Please.   You earth-side angels are even more pathetic when you attempt to get a rise out of my kind.  Exiled from his holy presence and so you hope to gain a holy nod back into the gates by finding one of us breaking the Pact.“This doesn’t look like anything holy to me,” Bub waived his hand at the accountants, administrators and staff, “This is downright disturbing and you of all beings should understand what it takes to accomplish that.”Bub continued, “Something’s wrong.  The machinery is broken.  All of those things you were filing under mysterious ways were actually mistakes, errors, profound miscalculations, problems with the divine plan.”I was holding the pen too hard and the feather, one from my own wings, snapped.“Your blasphemy is pathetic,” I whispered.Bub nodded, “Only as pathetic as your faith.  Call it upstairs, earth-sider, see what they will report back down the chain.”“That isn’t the way it works.”Bub turned, looking over a few of the ladies in data entry who were making a cat’s cradle between them.  “I know.  Funny thing, I had lunch with the Morningstar just last week, basked in his presence, close your eyes and you could forget that it isn’t the Creator, himself.”“I am here to give you a last chance to come to us.  You are earth-side anyway, close enough.  It is one small step towards us.  Put your wings on the ground, leave your pen and paper here and never file a pathetic earth-side report again.”I managed to make a noise that meant no and when I opened my eyes, he was gone and the adults were standing in the playground, looking puzzled.  Something had happened, something tremendous and this playground was but a ripple.While the accountants filed back towards their offices, I looked up, foolishly hoping to see Heaven, feeling its pull a little less.Part IIIIn which the arch-angel speaks to the Devil, also known as the Morningstar.Of course it was the Devil standing in the pipe.  Adulthood, raw and unfiltered, was flowing into a clumsily made diversion in the works, sending it downwards, towards the realm carved from the impact of 666 angels falling from Heaven.“You have clogged the pipe,” I said to the Morningstar, feeling weak, not having seen Him…I mean seen him since his departure.He had a hard-hat on, little white horns sticking out underneath it.  His wings were glorious and fiery with raptor-like claws at the tips.“Who else could it be, old friend?  When there is a problem with the world, there is always someone to blame, such is the genius of my former boss’ plan.”I gripped my sword tight.  “He is still your boss, Morningstar, still your Creator.”The rush of adulthood going down this break in the pipes was a whisper beside our voices.  This juncture was like a cathedral ceiling, vaulted and complicated, beautiful really.  It would be a grand place to put my sword to the Morningstar.  This would be a fine place to cease to be.“I am not going to kill you,” Morningstar said.  “Don’t bother denying it, you sword angels are predictable.  But the problem with this pipe has roots in my realm.  There is liquid adulthood, making a mess of my home.”“You will not trick me into going to Hell, creature,” I spit.“I didn’t trick you into anything.  You were sent to rectify the problem; the problem is in Hell.  Now what?”I looked into the pipe for myself to see the problem.  The truth of it was the pipe was fixable but only from beneath it.  Sealing it would also seal me in the Morningstar’s infernal realm. I flew into the gaping hole and using my word, fixed the wound in the pipes.  The pipe’s contents began to flow correctly and all was right with creation again.Except Heaven’s Gates was no longer directly above me.  Or perhaps it was but if so, I could no longer feel its pull, hear its song, all I could hear was the flapping of my own wings, taking me deeper into hell as adulthood rushed through the pipes above me.Part IVIn which the flow of adulthood’s pressure is too strong before it levels out.(the picture of the blue slide)The lovely blue slide in the park as usually busy with children sliding down, children climbing up, children hanging off of the side.  But not today.Today, they decided the slide was foolish, useless and trite.Oddly, that day they went home and balanced their parent’s checkbooks, did their laundry, cleaned their rooms and made concrete plans with concrete goals.  Perhaps they were just feeling more responsible and adult or perhaps they just knew that there was one less angel in the world.</blockquote>

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