The Death Of An Angel
By : Osiris
Eos has died. Whether she died of heart ache or by my own quite guilty hands who
can say, and who can care; definitely not me.
But the fact that
she died lead me here. ‘Here’ can never be explained fully other than it is a
hidden part of Eos, a part none of us has ever seen. A part
that no one will ever see again. It is because with Eos’ death, this
place is being claimed by death as well.
I’d be damned if
I don’t watch it die.
Standing in the
midst of this imaginary world that Eos had created for herself, I could only
sneer and jubilate at that fact that the inexorable touch of death manifested
itself well in here. This fantasy’s mistress is dead and it was dying as well.
It was filled with fountains with cherubs, each of them having a beatific
expression of bliss etched on their stiff faces. Several gardens of innumerable
flowers, most probably creating a wonderful kaleidoscope of color that Eos
would have loved dearly. Tame rainbows and hundreds of butterflies. Yes, that
would be Eos’ style.
All that was gone now.
Half of the
cherubs were beheaded roughly, looking garish in mid-flight with no head on
their shoulders. The other half lay in a hundred pieces on the floor. The floor
looked like it was a white and gray version of Herod’s massacre. Not only were
they fallen angels, they were crushed. The once tame rainbows became dull and
frenzied and their colors bled uselessly on the floor, dissipating into dark
gray and bright red. The once beautiful garden of colors blaze in only one
color now, fiery red. The great flames torched the fleeing butterflies cruelly,
the crackling of the flames starting to sound like they were laughing at the
cruel joke amongst themselves.
I smile; the
painful tugging at the edges of my lips signaled my amusement. All that
surrounded me was evidence of Eos’ death, but what I saw before me was more
proof than all those.
In the midst of
all the flames, he was trying to walk towards me, dragging his once immaculate
white robes on the filthy ground. Whether it was to confront me or to ask for
help, I can’t care any less. I will give him neither. As I predicted, he
collapsed onto his knees and his frail wings trembled, he knew he was dying.
His mistress is dead. So shall her dreams follow her.
I approached his
trembling form slowly, with more bravado than I had when he was at his full
strength. Then again, he is a dying angel and I am a very jubilant demon.
Sensing my approach, he lifted his pained visage towards me, his luminescent
violet eyes clouded by anguish. Looking down at him, I couldn’t contain my
laughter any longer.
The crackling of
the flames joined me.
His once clear
and faultless countenance was marred by a beautiful scar running down his left
eye down to his cheek. It looked like the time he swore his loyalty to her,
with blood tears. Except this time, these drops of blood were merely proof of
his oath. He was to join her soon. Thin crimson blood ebbed and flowed from the
wound and I caught a drop as I cupped his magnificent face in my hands. I
smeared it down his opposite cheek; A lake of blood in the snow white mountains
of his cheekbones. He could only wince in response.
“Tears of blood dear angel?” I sneered, running my hands
through his red-gold hair. I smiled once more before I grabbed those velvet
strands and pulled backwards. He hissed and the cloud of anguish disappeared
momentarily. It was replaced by a brilliant flash of anger. This time I smiled
sincerely. In the midst of humiliation, he still had his pride.
I can see why Eos
loved him dearly.
But that is why
he is dying. He was merely her creation. Her dream…her…
“What is it that
you want?” he said, interrupting my thoughts. The question, so simply put
forth, was free of any trembling or fear. He didn’t fear me. Interesting.
But I looked back, past the red-gold strands of his hair, to the pearl white
wings that sprung from his back. Now, they trembled.
“I already have
what I want.” I replied, continuing to caress his beautiful tresses, “You know
that.”
He was gritting
his teeth and I smiled, running my thumb across his full lips, a tragic repeat
of what Eos did to him before. His sudden blinking of his lavender eyes, I knew
he remembered.
“All I am here
for, dear, dear angel” I tilted my head slightly, “All I am waiting for, is for
you to die.”
“Why?!” from
somewhere in his dying heart, he conjured up a self-righteous anger that burst
through his anguish, lifting him momentarily from a dying victim to an angry
one. How fascinating.
Not wanting to
let him think he was getting anywhere with this show of anger, my fingers
tightened on his chin, but the fire in his eyes remained. He was not to be
intimidated. “Because Eos loved you.” I shook his chin
jerkily, “Because you and Eos dared to dream of a future that was never to be
yours.” His eyes were starting to dim again and I ran a hand through his thick
red-gold mane again, “Because your name is Love’s Fantasy.” His eyes slid shut
as I said his name.
I pushed him away and he
landed in a heap of torn cloth and quickly dulling red-gold hair. In that
moment of brokenness, I felt a twinge of regret that he must die. But then
again, if he wasn’t dying, wouldn’t he look broken and so beautiful to me?
Beautiful in the way his hair lay in tangles all of a sudden. Beautiful in the
way his blood dripped down to the filthy floor. Beautiful in the way his
clothes were torn in a million places. Beautiful in the way the river of tears
cascaded down the snow white mountains of his cheekbones. Beautiful in the way
he died slowly, from within and without. An angel beautiful
in death.
Lifting his head from where
he was crouched, his hair was highlighted by the rising flames, blurring the
room with the heat of furious and impotent anger. But I shook off the image and
he became again what he really was. A dying angel
treacherously close to the cruel flames. Flames that surrounded him now,
his wings closed around his frail body, a pathetic attempt to close out the
reality of his death.
His eyes met mine and I
looked back stonily.
“Don’t think me evil, angel”
I said, folding my arms, “Love is a weakness none of our kind can afford. You
gave Eos that weakness and she is dead.” His hands closed into fists. “Yes, you
killed her, just as her death is killing you.” I smiled faintly, “You killed
her with her love and her fantasy, her fantasy that was you.”
“It’s only fitting that you
join her in the nether”
The flames rose higher and I
couldn’t see him anymore. Turning on my heel, I walked slowly out.
But as I did, I felt an urge
to turn and make sure he was burning.
All I could see was a
gleaming tower of fire.
And in
it…two blazing lavender eyes…brilliant…bright…dead…gone.
A feather was falling softly
in front of me, impossibly surviving the flames. I narrowed my eyes; on the
feather was this word, “Dream”
Catching it in my palms, I
muttered darkly, “Our kind cannot afford dreams.” and blew it towards the
flames. A thin hand of flame reached out a few inches away and grasped the
feather, incinerating it in mid-flight.
“Goodbye Eos,” watching long
after the feather burned out, “Goodbye angel. You’re together now. That’s what
you wanted, didn’t you?”
I heard the laughter echoing
in the empty room as the flames died down further, exhausting itself. I heard it bouncing back and forth for a long time,
but it kept on repeating itself nonetheless.
Somewhere along the line, I
realized it was my laughter.