All the Names They Used for God

by Anjali Sachdeva

It is centuries, now, since the angel began her work with humans, and being close to them has invoked her curiosity, if not her admiration. They are just so many stories patched together, so many forgotten days encased in bone and meat. One might unearth almost anything with enough searching.

A boy who cares more for the freedom to direct his own gaze than for the master’s anger is a rare creature indeed.

But the truth is that it is not so easy to decide to die. And when, suddenly, you have the option to live again, that is not so easy either.

Aberrations, abominations, Nature wants us gone. Who knew the world was so unforgiving, so eager to cull?

This is where things crumble irrevocably, where there is nowhere left to go. We’ll become salt. We’ll become storm clouds on the water. And then emptiness, one to seven to one to zero in the space of twenty-three years. Science will have nothing to do with us anymore, nor we with it. We will be just a void in the cosmos, a dark place in the sky where there was once starlight.