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 have to apologize. 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.”

The comfort of the bed called to him, said return, do not leave and begin a life. Come back.

The angel was so beautiful it ached him in the chest.

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.

“You shouldn’t stay in your head so much, brother. Your life is out here.”

Lucifer remembered how the crowds had cheered after him: angel of beauty, angel of beauty. The Lord has given us an angel of beauty.

“To be incarnate, they say, is to bleed and to hurt.”

“Have faith in God, and you will always be well, Lucifer.”

Maybe this Heaven was all just a dream, he was saying. A loving God’s pretty, pleasant dream.

the wise know to be nostalgic for the good times even while they’re happening.

But consciousness is often born from production, by our relation to production; to live is to create.

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

He was tall, mountainous again, and broad everywhere; this mountain of an angel.

“Archangel,” Lucifer repeated before, in his head, whispering it again, again. ‘Archangel Michael, Archangel Michael, Archangel Michael.’ He sought to gather himself, but he was lost, slipping through his own fingers. “He looks like the greatest of them all, the strongest and proudest angel in Heaven!”

Bloodthirsty — Lucifer had never heard a word like this; he picked it apart literally, thinking of filling a wine glass with blood and sipping. Would it drunken him, too?

“I wish we could ask why things are the way they are.”

“You are a star, brother,” Gabriel teased, then took Lucifer’s face in a palm, swiped away a tear with his other hand. “Father told me. He said, ‘Look at my morning star. My Lucifer.’”

“I fed you the fruit of Life, then the one of Knowledge. I’m happy to see you again. The way God spoke of you, I always knew you were going to be special. You’re wise, Lucifer, and blameless in all your ways. And you are so beautiful, I can’t find the words.”

Lucifer belonged, here, in Heaven.

“I could spend all of eternity here, asking questions.” “Eternity always begins somewhere — ask me what you meant to a moment ago.”

So far away in the crowd was Michael, with that proud grin of his and one hand in the air, but he called out to the youngest angel still. “Lucifer! Lucifer!” Even with all their distance, their gazes met and locked. An intake of breath, then the exuberant shout: “Lucifer — the Lord has never made as fine an angel as you!”

The Lord said Lucifer was best suited to sit beside His Throne.

“You are loved the way you are, and you are all that you need to be. You are even more than I wanted of you.”

“You are loved, my morning star. See how I love you. The angels and you are what matter most to me.” ‘Do not ever let me go,’ the angel pleaded. ‘Hold me tight, Father. Do not ever let me go.’

To touch God — it was sweeter to Lucifer than sleeping and even sweeter than waking.

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.

It was an angel, smiling at Lucifer, as if they knew each other. It was an angel who looked tattered: face streaked with some speckled ash, curls of hair loose and disorderly, maroon robes torn at the hems beneath a heavy charcoal cloak beaten as thoroughly. His arms were crossed, and his head lightly tilted — beckoning Lucifer to come closer, to come know him. It was the eyes — earthy like Eden — that struck in Lucifer who he was.

Michael seemed to hesitate, before he turned to Lucifer, and they were facing each other, seeing one another, for the first time since that day years ago when Lucifer had led all of Heaven in worship. Up close, finally — Lucifer felt all of himself melt like precious metal into a cast.

“I am Michael, archangel of God, angel of strength.” ‘Angel of God,’ Lucifer thought.

“My name is Lucifer.” The angel fell into a deep bow, bending nearly at the waist. “I’m the angel of worship and the angel of beauty.” His voice was soft, like it was running itself out of him, leaving him alone, vulnerable.

Michael laughed and looked away from him again, but Lucifer caught foliage in his irises, saw millions of trees, rustling, anxiously. And Lucifer relaxed because he knew that the two of them were nervous, only one was better at hiding it.

Michael raised his head a little, slanting it to him, and their gazes were soft, but somehow that was as overwhelming to Lucifer as a pierce into his heart.

“Something has to be done about your insecurity,” Michael teased, and Lucifer laughed, quieter, but feeling all the tension in his muscles become water tumbling down. “Yes! Yes, I want you to be my friend. Yes, I want you to teach me all that you know.”

“Be proud, Lucifer. Take pride in what you do and your body.” Michael smiled, and all the worries inside Lucifer, again, fogged into the amber sky. “Be kind to it, because you’re being kind to the Lord’s creation.”

And if I’m told to take to the stars again, I’ll just take you with me.”

It was nice not to concern themselves with the rest of Heaven. It was nice to exist as only two angels in a universe, however momentarily.

Michael had said he enjoyed hearing the younger one ramble; Lucifer didn’t know why he had so much to say whenever he was with him.

Michael had replied, before moving off him, then taking his hand, pulling him back up onto his feet. Their palms had fit nicely together.

“There is nothing more important than remaining clean. An angel that becomes impure becomes unworthy to live in paradise.”

“All that I say comes from a place of love.” ‘Is love meant to pierce?’

“You’re a great angel, Lucifer. Don’t say things like that. You act like you don’t deserve kindness.” Lucifer wanted to tell Michael he’d always thought this, had always had this little, unintelligible feeling in his head. “Well, you deserve a lot more than that. I feel like I have to invent new ways to be nice to you.”

Lucifer didn’t notice the eyes on him for a while — when he did, it was because he’d moved to splash his face. He noticed Michael, gaze caressing the shape of his figure, as if his eyes were a mouth, and he was tasting Lucifer like champagne.

“I learned that their words were true. When we wrestle, when we spend time together — 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.’”

When they stood to dress, Lucifer felt Michael’s hand drag up along his back in such a mild, natural way that it could have been accidental, or something they always did.

At the closeness, Lucifer’s heart immediately stumbled and tripped, but Michael’s serene face inches before his own, and the brushes of the archangel’s legs against his own with each shift — it ushered in this unfamiliar feeling. Something quiet but needy for more.

It became that Lucifer felt strange without the other; he recognized it as a kind of dull pain within himself instantly, and it made him restless for the prince, for his voice, laugh, those dark, curly wood shavings of hair that Lucifer could run his fingers through eternally.

Michael’s own fingers brushed Lucifer’s wrist, which so often felt shamefully dainty beneath the archangel’s strong grip, before he conquered, took, held his hand. Lucifer made a noise of irritation, as if Michael’s fondness were a chore to put up with, but he held his hand back, tighter.

‘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.’

Lucifer, who had now met death, it seemed paradise was not, thus, absence of pain, but promise of mending.