Incorrect Eyes

by Andromeda Ruins

For those of us who have sought comfort in religion, only to be met with horrors beyond our comprehension.

Be Not Afraid.

There was something about the messengers that never sat right with me, though. A sinking pit in my stomach when They were brought up, something deeply and unsettlingly wrong.

I was a good God-fearing kid like I was supposed to be. Then I left the church.

she says that it’s nothing to worry about, that I am going through one of God’s tests. I don’t know how to tell her that if this is a test sent by God then I don’t want to believe anymore.

Just me and the sinking feeling of being watched while I stick my nose into ancient texts and search for an answer that’s different than the one I suspect to be true in my gut: The Angels are real, and They are watching.

A slimy Eye, one only I could see. I’ll never forget how my partner looked at me in fear after I woke them to my screaming. It was the first time they’d been afraid of me, and I pray I’ll never see that look in their eyes again.

How does one define ‘okay’? Physically, I’m alive. Mentally? I don’t know how to answer that. I haven’t been able to feel anything other than fear and nausea for months.

Hiding. Hiding and working and sinking further and further into the pits of despair and paranoia.

each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

Angels as we knew them growing up, human-like and innocent. But now They have tears of viscous blood streaming down Their faces as They grovel before His throne, screaming and begging for His warmth. Seraphim and Cherubim just behind Them, blocking the pathetic Angels in, forcing Them to submit to His holy gaze.

Woe is me for I am ruined [must be silent] because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.

I need out. I need out, out, out, out, OUT.

As impossible as it sounds, the twinkling lights hundreds of millions of light years away make me feel less alone. I wish I could talk to them, wish I could spill my guts to the balls of gas that illuminate the sky every night. They would listen. They would understand.

Incorrect. They are incorrect.

Shame. The one thing the church accurately teaches. Well, that and guilt. Two sides of the same coin, both telling me that I fucked up. What did I do? Doesn’t matter, I’m going to Hell either way.

But it’s a church, right? What harm could it do?

Be Not Afraid.

Be Not Afraid. Face Us.

Six wings. Two—the purest of white with golden dipped feathers—overlap and cover what I must assume is the Angel’s face. Most of it, at least. It’s jaw is visible just underneath. Clean and pristine, until it isn’t. A glitching overlay appears sporadically, as if there are two forms trying to take form at the same place. Trying to sustain the Angel in a realm it doesn’t belong, before my very eyes.

In one the Angel is perfect. Holy in the ways we were taught growing up. In the other, there is a bloody maw dripping gore and viscera with a torn intestine dangling from it’s teeth.

Two wings splay out behind the Angel’s brilliant body, suspending it in the air. The air is stolen from my lungs as I take in the sheer amount of Eyes that adorn the feathers of these wings. They are littered with the slimy organs that have been haunting me and all of them turn to observe me. One moment They look like a pattern on a feather, not dissimilar to the way a peacock’s feathers look. The next, my stomach turns and I gag. The image of those Eyes weeping blood as They are splattered like oversized gushers catches me off guard.

The final two wings hang from the body elegantly—dangling, broken, bloody—crossing before what can only be the feet of the Angel.

One moment the Angel is pristine white and gold, the wings neatly crossed before it; the next they are broken and limp, tattered and bloodied as they hang down next to clawed… I can’t describe the appendages, they are beyond what I can comprehend.

Complete and utter darkness blesses me. The only blessing I have ever and will ever receive.

Is this what we consider Holy? Is this what we have spent so much time trying to find? What we hope and pray to see when we die?