Angels Before Man

by Rafael Nicolás

Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you

I usually rear an angel up in the stars and dip them into the light of an eclipse, and that’s where I let them wake. But I couldn’t hold you tight, no matter what I did. I didn’t want you to fall. So, I tucked you in here and dispossessed you of a spectacular genesis.”

Lucifer missed the darkness, longed for what had come before. This was his first wanting. The stories he’ll tell of this time will be about wanting.

The first fruit Lucifer picked was a pomegranate.

“Why will it hurt?” “To be incarnate, they say, is to bleed and to hurt.”

Michael. That was a nice name.

50 bucks says this innocuous little line comes back to make me feel SICK

But we’re always looking for narratives, looking for meaning, looking for God. Even the angels.

“Archangel,” Lucifer repeated before, in his head, whispering it again, again. ‘Archangel Michael, Archangel Michael, Archangel Michael.’

“I know I’m being ridiculous.” It was frustrating — knowing your emotions were erratic but that knowledge not making them leave you.

‘Beautiful,’ he thought miserably, ‘they’re beautiful.’

Lucifer tried not to stare, again he tried, but his mind was a wooden room where a candle had just been knocked over.

‘You’re making yourself suffer,’ Lucifer scolded himself, ‘and why?’

“I like the white lilies in your hair.” “Thank you! I like them too. White lilies symbolize purity, they say.” “What is purity?” “Not sure! I suppose that symbolizes something too.”

this one indeed comes back to bite you

“I wish we could ask why things are the way they are.” He said these words carefully, prepared to be told to simply live and stop asking so many things, to close his mouth, to beat the timbrel God had placed on him as just another decoration. An adornment for the adornment.

“If you would have me, Father.” Lucifer chased after God’s hand, feeling terribly alone without His touch, as if he were starved of water and tasted it in His fingertips.

Lucifer always watched him, cheered for him, had begun rattling his timbrel to cry and catch his attention. And yet — Michael hadn’t taken note of Lucifer. It was as if God Himself were there, always twisting the prince’s gaze just a finger-width away from the angel of beauty.

To grab Lucifer and save him — what is there to save him from, in Heaven? — from himself. But perhaps it was too late, even now, to save Lucifer; too early, before creation, it was too late.

“We won’t see Michael,” Lucifer murmured, “for a hundred million years?” “Michael,” Phanuel reassured, “can fly a lot faster than that, so it could be sooner that he returns. Don’t look sad, Lucifer. I spoke to him before he left. He told me he’d seek you out once he returned.”

BBROOO

The bodies of the universe presented themselves, but to see the stars is to see the past, and thus the Lord and the angel watched the birth of creation together.

Lucifer asked if the Lord was pleased with him; within, pain was swelling the same as a distant sun that was beginning to burst. Was he good enough?

such a way with words. I need a gun.

He thought this tenderness should never end, this conditional love; if he knew death, he’d ask to be killed here.

Yuuuuuhhhhh what the FUCK.

He tried not to think of Michael, who was still up in the stars somewhere. There had been weeks, not long after the chief prince grew absent, that Lucifer traveled through meadows and orchards, climbed onto the highest branches of the tallest trees, staring upward, waiting for the moment Michael would descend magnificently into Heaven, holding an entire universe on his back.

Occasionally, Lucifer wondered why their Father couldn’t just be literal about the nature of things. Always, it was metaphors, allusions, words designed for interpretation. The first falsehoods.

What else could an angel be but happy?

Dont even joke lad

The end. This is where he often begins the story, though he’s never told it. He’s heard them say that his life really began here, because Lucifer surely couldn’t live unless he was adored. And it was sweet to believe that there’s ever such a person who starts our life, that everything before them was unnecessary — the belief that life begins with love. Our first love.

Fuck. Here we go :/

“I am Michael, archangel of God, angel of strength.”

Lucifer thought of the time that had passed — years he’d spent waiting to meet Michael, in inexplicable and desperate longing. There was something so inevitable about this, as if he’d seen it coming, as if angels could really taste, just a little, omniscience.

“In a keeper’s garden, there was once a dove, so pure its feathers held neither spot nor pattern. And so beautiful was the bird that no one would dare touch it. For it was known that the handsomest creation is that uncorrupted by hands, by affections — consider how paint chips when caressed.”

Fuck off you controlling bastard

The two — grunting and rocking. Michael’s hands had taken Lucifer’s wrists and held them over his head, his weight coming down on the younger's legs.

oh?

“The dove,” said Father, “would fly into the mud one day with another bird, which it had deceived to think like him. And they became dirtied together, amid searching for the other garden beneath the mud. And they found so much pleasure in rebelling that they couldn’t see how their feathers had grown filthy, nor realize they would never dry. And they dug, but there was no other garden, there was no other paradise, and the doves would never be pure again.”

You cant have a dick in yojr ass and be in heaven too -- romanian proverb :'(

As he walked back, his Father said, “There is nothing more important than remaining clean. An angel that becomes impure becomes unworthy to live in paradise.”

you rancid bastard why can’t you just be an ally

He thought, ‘It is good to bleed, right?’

already, Lucifer wondered if God always had so many faces, if God considered Himself one thing, or if He, too, was rummaging for identity, for purpose. God, looking for God.

“But what if we tried healing it?” “You cannot heal a dead thing, Lucifer.”

zont..

the pain you give me is indescribable. But I also thought, ‘How terribly lonely that must be, to be so beautiful that others think of you a thorn.’”

Something in Lucifer’s chest was shattering, but slow — a carnivorous, pulsing ache. “So,” Michael continued, a grin taking his mouth, “I’ve decided to help you. From now on, I’ll carry some of your burden. Give half your beauty to me, Lucifer, and stare at me all that you wish.”

feels like ive just done a line of the finest coke ever made

“Go ahead. I’ll do a twirl, if you like.”

well yes!

“They don’t kill?” “Only if they must.” “Then are they really beasts?”

“So I suppose we’ll be sleeping on the cold ground here?” “Didn’t I tell you to bring a blanket?”

yes

“That was my mistake. Well, mine is quite large, as you can see.”

YESSS

“We’ll share it.”

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS

‘Touching each other,’ Lucifer thought, half-dozing already, ‘like we’ve never known another angel.’

they waited a millenia for this i am ROOTING FOR U.

One day, Lucifer will fantasize about having spent an eternity on Earth with Michael, having built a house and settled somewhere between the mountains. But today, he stood and readied to leave.

i mean i really think u shouldnt. Like maybe lets stop and think and live in this moment forever! :D

This is unimaginable: consciousness without a weaver; this is a horror. So if Lucifer had ever the choice, he might’ve decided to inspire the Lord’s hate, rather than His quiet displeasure. A hand that strikes from the dark is at least proof of a hand. It’s kinder to be beaten than to be left untouched.

Mmhmmm

“Tell me what has gotten into you — why did you run from me?” “I wondered if you’d chase me.” “Are you happy now that I did?” “Delighted.”

‘I feel aged. I feel as if you’ve aged me with your own hands, Michael. Ripened me. Like a red fruit, at the edge of a branch, hanging at its peak. Beautiful — and just about to fall.’

the pomegranate. Not the pomegranate about to fall 😔

“But it’d be difficult to hate you,” Michael replied, his voice rumbling, shaking the Earth, with amusement. “If someone asked me to dislike you, I don’t think I could.”

“You like rose tea, with a loose-leaf black base. It’s your favorite. Let me prepare it for you.” Lucifer felt there were stars beneath his eyes, scorching, asking to drip down from his tear ducts. “You remember?” “Of course I do.”

Had to close my eyes for a moment there :,)

Michael was approaching a mirror, the one facing the window; Lucifer had forgotten about it. Why did it face the window?

The oddyssey of recollection frfrr

Lucifer smiled, despite himself, and said the hunger would hurt. “For you, I wouldn’t mind a little pain.” He wouldn’t mind to be pricked.

His thorny rose oh it hurts s o bad