Suspension

The air pulses with droning techno music, drowning out polite conversation. It is not as though there is much conversation worth hearing, though, owing more to the revelers than to the cacophony blaring from the immense speakers, like phallic idols. Aside from the drifting but ubiquitous petitions for drugs and sex, little is said to which bears listening. The air is stale and damp, reeking of marijuana and bodily secretions of the writhing teenagers. The walls of the abandon factory the rave occupies are covered in phosphorescent murals of Dante’s levels of hell. Above me, a radiant blue devil appears to be attempting forced sexual congress with a particularly comely angel. The angels are the only figures that are not glowing, painted in earth tones. Fortunately for me, Fate has vouchsafed me a clandestine seat on the ratty, faux velvet couch that has been suspended by a series of chains and pulleys to the overhead staircase. Indeed, a lovely event to be enjoyed all around.

I recline to take in the sexual depravity of an obviously underage lesbian couple undulating before me. It rather annoys me that these two trollops have chosen my line of vision to consummate their spontaneous union, but I know from experience that neither one of these poor girls shall keep at it for very long. Underneath the tight latex, they are both scared, lost souls who are just trying their damnedest to conform with those who claim to shun conformity. Before their embrace can reach the startling edge where experimentation turns to molestation, a lithe, fair-haired creature, one whom I know of old, propels their coupling apart. She moves fluidly, like she was dancing through water. I raise my eyebrow appreciatively, a gesture that the lass seizes upon as an invitation approach me. As she glides closer, an obviously drugged man stumbles into her, causing her to fall into the seat next to me and nearly spill her drink. The introduction of her body to this post-apocalyptic version of a hanging swing causes it to sway in beat with the music. The sensualist in me rather loved her for this.

"Oh, I am so terribly sorry!" the girl gasps out. The most pleasant blush was gracing her pallid cheeks. Despite just entering my sanctuary, the floral scents of her hair and skin begin to press into my nose, piquing my appetite to know her better, mayhaps Biblically.

"Please, don’t be, my dear. If your falling into me is the worst thing that happens here tonight, I think I shall consider myself quite lucky. What are you doing here?" I patted the space on the sofa closest to be, inviting a closer view of this pearl. My slight pat on the ancient cushion raises a cloud of dust, which was instantly put to work by the lasers and strobe lights for proper mood.

She looked about at the revelers with a sweetly pitying glance in her violet eyes. She was tugging on the hanging, white lace sleeve of her Renaissance shirt idly, thoughtlessly. "What is anyone doing here tonight?"

I smile at her unintentional avoidance of my question, as hers was so revealing itself. Politely I reply, "They are... living and dying, respectively." This provokes a knowing nod from her, as she languidly licks her lips. "But you did not answer my question."

Her eyes were still quietly appraising the situation before her. Despite her forbearance toward the congregation to social excess, she had not an ounce on fear in her. Delicious, utterly and completely delicious was her every move; her every dart of the eye and quiver of the lip. It was moments like the one she was unwittingly granting me that kept me sane in this decaying world.

Her eyes drifted back to me, though I purposefully avoided eye contact. Not just yet. Apples must ripen on their branch before one can truly savor the experience of consumption, so shall this bit of knowledge. When her eyes finally rested upon me, she answered slowly, "What am I doing here, you mean? I am... mingling. Partying."

The thought so struck me that I think I rather laughed for a moment. No hurt could be seen in her face to my slight outburst, so I explained, "Somehow I quite doubt you are the partying type. Well, at least not this manner of party." She grinned knowingly, "No, I suppose I am not. Pardon me for saying, you do not seem to belong here yourself. And you seem... troubled. Do you need to talk?"

I closed my eyes for momentarily against the barrage of stimuli, though the flashing lights invaded still. I had not considered that I would seem incongruous here. While not bedecked in rubber or vinyl like so many of the surrounding bodies, nothing about me would suggest I were anything other than another lost soul looking for release. In a way, we are never anything more. Perhaps she does know more than I was giving her credit for, but the unintentional irony of all her statements suggests otherwise. Never were we so clever, that was our chief virtue and fault.

Gingerly, I place my pale hand on her shoulder, more in an effort to steady my own thoughts than to test how close she would allow me given but a few minutes association. "No, mon chere, this is one of the few places I’d imagine I do belong. Not that I enjoy this sort of thing much. It reminds me in more ways than I care to admit of my home." Nothing in this was false, of course. I am not a liar, that being my principle fault and virtue. I conceal, as you shall see, but I do not lie. Her look of pity, up until now reserved for the dancers - if indeed you can call the surrounding attempts at vertical sex dancing - suddenly fell upon me, boring into my core.

It was only a few second, but it was enough. She diverts her gaze to an obviously anorexic foppish male expelling bile before her. When he looks up at her through mascara-lined eyes, he gives an awkward, apologetic grin and made haste elsewhere. Returning to the matter at hand - me - she questions, "Where is it that you live... I’m sorry, I just realized I don’t know your name."

My eyebrows raise again, incredulous that she should say such things so ignorantly. She knew my name and at one time tendered it as dear as she does her own. Without thinking, I scoff out, "Don’t you know it?" Quite fortunately, she could not hear my lapse over the music and I covered by telling her, "I said my name was... is... Louis. I live... downtown."

Evidently the name pleased her and she repeated it to herself experimentally. "Louis... Louis. It’s a very nice name. Louis." She raises the drink in her hand to her lips and allows the liquid down her throat. "Louis."

The sight of her drinking this startles me immensely and I loudly question as to why she would imbibe that poison. She protests, "It’s not what it looks like, it’s a..." Instead of finishing her sentence, she presses the glass's edge to my lips.

The fluid in my mouth lacked the nip I had expected. I swallowed it promptly and smirk. "A Virgin Mary. Why, of course." I gently push the glass back toward her. She looks dreamily into the red concoction at her knee and swirls it around lethargically.

"They are my favorite drink. I like the color... and the name." Suddenly her reverie ceases and her posture became infinitesimally more ridged. "I sense you are troubled, Louis. I like helping those who need me. I guess it’s my purpose."

I somberly muse that I knew her purpose better than she did at the moment. Her innocence to our particular situation ceased to amuse me and now just made her more dear to me. She was not, could not be, baiting me. She meant it wholly. I press her further, though hardly reverentially. "Like a social worker?"

Her face grew lighter at my suggestion, as though I had just comprehended something she could not entirely put into words. "Yes, something like a social worker." A wry grin chances itself upon her lips and she quips, "I just have slightly less paperwork. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Her sincerity was breaking my heart. I remember being this pure of intention and innocent. It seemed like just a day ago but millions of years simultaneously. I wanted to be where she was, with all of my soul. "I truly wish there was something that you could do for me. I get the feeling that no one, of this world or the next, can do much good for me anymore..." In a gesture of defeat, I place my head in my hand. "You simply have to admit you are damned eventually." She could not have looked more hurt had I struck her. Sorrowfully and patiently she beseeched "Oh, Louis, do not think that way! Things can’t be so bad, can they?"

"No, my darling, they can be quite a bit worse." She simply had no idea how dreadful things were. I gently caress her cheek for want of a better way to convey my feelings to her. She smiles and continues trying to proselytize saccharine optimism.

"You are here, alive and well. You are very handsome and obviously healthy." The blush and flirtatious glance at the floor that ordinarily would accompany such words in this situation and which would well befit this close replica of a recently deceased princess were conspicuously lacking. Entirely intriguing how it is they work these days. She continues her assault on my well-founded cynicism, "Judging by your clothes, I’d bet you don’t have to worry much financially." With these words she take to gently caressing the hem of my black and red velour shirt. "Things may seem bad now, but they always get better. If not in this world, in the next. You cannot be damned. God has a very forgiving heart." As if to induce the Holy Spirit to come down and prove it to me, she smiles widely at the ceiling. When I venture to join her gaze upward, all that could be seen was a resin skeleton of a horned being. The humor of this, remarkably, did not strike her, though it gave me more than a little enjoyment. When I looked down, I saw those intent, probing eyes of her firmly locked upon my face. This forces the gall up into my chest and a wave of anger infuses itself into every cell holding me together.

Flinging myself off the sofa onto my feet, I rail, "Which God? Old Testament, where He was a mean old bastard, getting his rocks off by smiting? Or New Testament, once Our Heavenly Father got some fucking Prozac?" I immediately regret hurting her and the strength of my words. "Sorry, I truly didn’t mean any offense." I lower myself next to her on the sofa. "I guess you could call me a recovering Catholic... or Jew... or... I don’t even know. I’m just a bit touchy when religion gets brought up."

My apology eases her pain and she takes to smiling again, but more tentatively. She offers sweetly, "I understand, it can be hard for a lot of humans. But you shouldn’t count God out. He is there always, watching you... loving you. God can help you. Please, follow me, I have something to show you."

I was utterly dispirited. All of my problems had come welling back up from a pit whose bottom I never venture down. Nonetheless, I obey her wishes and follow her passively through the oscillating throngs of innocents and unfortunates. One mescaline-addled, obese man approached the delicate creature in front of me and solicited sexual gratification for a paltry amount. She pats his baldhead and he walks away dumbly. After this spectacle, I sigh, "I’m sure you know the extent of His help."

She smiles but does not speak. After we exit the door, I look up at the sign above the factory door. "The Ark Bottling Plant." How positively apropos. She leads me by the hand into the alley between buildings. It was, logically, considerable colder outside of the rave and the cool breeze both shocks and appeals to me. The alley smells faintly of refuse and urine, I think I rather preferred the smell of sex and narcotics and stimulants within. Finally, she positions me against the dank back wall of the alley, affording me no escape except through her lithe frame. I take out a djarum from my jeans's pocket and light it as I wait for her to speak. The smoke from it, along with a faint smell of gingerbread and bonfire, chase away the accumulated smells of the rave than tenaciously clung to our clothing and the reeking of poverty in the alley. At last, "Louis, I do know. I was sent here to save you." A soft, white light arriving from no set point, but every one, envelopes her, causing her already pale skin to glow. The surrounding atmosphere bent to give the shape of feathered wings at her back. Reassuringly, she coos, "don’t be frightened, my child. It’s not a hallucination. I am an Angel. God sent me to help you."

"Can the special effects, Arielle. You certainly do not need them here." I hoped that this little light show was not the entire reason she had taken me from the rave. I didn’t much wish to tarry there longer, but at least I had my protected space. Here, we could be at the mercies of the elements and beast of the streets.

She was stunned. Instantly, the wings fell from her and the light on her skin returns to the sparse yellow given by overhead lights. Despite this, the glare from her wide dawn-tinted eyes was plainly visible. "Louis, didn’t you hear me? I am an Angel! God’s Divine Servant! God’s First Child! The Protector of..."

A grin unintentionally plays itself upon my lips. Near whispering, I began to explain, "I know what you are." Incredulously, she queries, "How can you be so calm?" This eventuality had not occurred to her. Evidently her briefing on this particular mission was lacking. Suddenly, it occurs to her how I had addressed her. She demands, "And how do you know my name?"

Now I allow my steel gray eyes to lock onto hers for the first time. Slowly I see vague recognition creep across her features. With the tone of a man who has been reminded he has nothing in the world, I explain, "I am disappointed that I matter so little in Heaven that Angels can no longer feel me; that my own sister does not recognize me when she sees me. I am Lucifer, my winsome darling."

I believe she would have run, but her feet had locked into place out of fear. Angels are not allowed to fly on this plane; they must become corporeal and thus bound be the laws of humanity. Her previously mellifluous voice shrilly charges, "What?! The Adversary? Why aren’t you in Hell?"

I gently hold her lissome hands, attempting to calm her so I can justify my earthly presence. "You were in that club with me, Arielle. Isn’t watching those beautifully divine beams of pure, sacred potential kill themselves slowly through drugs and lust just as good a punishment as fire and brimstone?" She gazes blankly, staring through me into Heaven-knows-what. "I might as well be in Hell for all it’s worth. I’m pretty sure that is how televangelists picture it."

Her internal conflict is visible. I knew she had been taught never to believe a word I said, but I was speaking honest words. After staring intently at my hands on hers, she asks sharply, "Why do you care about those dying souls, Satan? You caused their gluttony of drugs and their consuming lust."

Her words explode at me like shrapnel, shredding my hope. She realizes my hands were still grasping hers and yanks them away with as much force as she can muster. Still I persist in my exposition, "Do not call me Satan. That is not my name, it has never been! It was a title, Sanskrit for ‘prosecuting attorney.’ I am Lucifer, the Angel of Light." She allows herself a swift look into my eyes to sum up my soul, and this I seize upon to plead my case as I was built to do. "Arielle, you must know I did not create these vices. Lust and Gluttony existed long before I was cast out, simply ask God." She looks at the sky, as though for a sign, only to have a slight drizzle of pollution tainted rain fall upon her elegant features. "Sins are as much a part of His plan as you are. I could no more cause people to lust than I could cause an Angel to." I reflect that I certainly did feel an attraction emanating from Arielle when we were within the rave, but knew this couldn’t be. Mortality’s bind or not, she wouldn’t lust. Her eyes begin to soften as she looks into mine and I feel her compassion return. As though realizing this herself, she turns her back to me. I grasp her shoulder and turn her, speaking into her ear as lovers are wont to do. I persist, "True, humans have free will, while you must do as He bids. Even being corporeal for this long, you have begun to feel their will exerting itself on you. But their free will is their only sin, and it is not a sin I can take credit for. Nor would I want to."

My words transform her internal conflict into an obvious fiery rage. Had she her flaming sword on this plane, I don’t doubt that she would use it against me in a breathe. I doff my black trench coat and place it over her petite shoulders to keep out the rain, though I know she can hardly feel it. This action angers her further, but she acquiesces nonetheless. Calmly, I continue constructing my defense, "My great sin, my dear, was to question. I questioned God, our beloved Father, about this free will. A gift and fault He passed on me as well, so He could have someone to talk with intelligently; someone to have ask him about his creation. He made me able to question Him! That was my purpose in existence. The moment I fulfill my purpose as I must, I am deemed arrogant and after the Throne. When I tell other Angels what I think of this human race, beings that curse God’s name or don’t even believe he exists, I am condemned along with nearly half of the Seraphim and Cherubim."

She turns gradually as I speak, and when I stop for a moment, she is gazing directly up at me. I can’t stop myself, I hold her, I place tiny kisses over her face. While men of flesh and blood may think they know how absence makes the heart fonder, a million year of it is impossible to bear. I had to know her further or my flesh would burn off my bones. Her arms lock behind me, and I begin to cry to her. "Do you even know what Hell is?!" She nearly imperceptibly shakes her head in the negative. "There is no fire, no brimstone, no demons with tridents. Man, in his infinity folly, to rob his brothers of their free will, has invented that. No, Hell is much worse. Hell is existing without God. That is it. None of His love enters. All that is deemed evil results from such a lack."

I raise my head from her shoulders and we gaze at one another for a long moment. Finally, Arielle finds her voice and protests, "No, it must be far worse than you tell it." In this effort to locate her words, she parts our embrace and the cold wind take me once more, though lacking any appeal it once held.

Suddenly, we notice that a thin man with sunken eyes has approached. "Hey, faggot, you or your bitch want any weed? Coke? Acid? Nah, flamer, you look like an ecstasy man. How much you got on you?"

Recovering from my loss of composure, I reply that we had no interest in his wares. This enrages the man, most likely influenced by one of the more effective drugs, and he lunges at Arielle. "I think your bitch wants something I have, don’t you, slut?" In a flash, I knock him to the ground and place a foot on his throat. I inform him that, while Jesus may love him, I am not so fond and that he should avoid this area from now on. The dealer flees as fast as he can. Arielle falls into my arms in the wake of this attack. "My dear, that is what I mean by lack causing evil. That homicide case-in-waiting lacks love. Not the love of God as I do. Even that guttersnipe is granted what I am denied eternally. But just being denied the love of his community has driven him to ingesting and selling drugs on the street to try to recapture what he has never had. He is not evil, just lost. But even he shall go to our Father’s kingdom when he shuffles off this mortal coil with the help of on overdose or a competitor’s bullet." I sigh heavily. I rather loathe being reminded that this world is not made for me, it is made for them and they can be granted salvation.

Despite my saving her, her mistrust of me is still palpable. "Hell must be far worse that you claim, you must be lying." She insists robotically.

"Darling, living outside the Divine Presence is infinitely more painful than any physical torment man has ever dreamed." Thinking how ridiculous this must sound, I give a self-depreciative laugh as I confess to her. "I would rather be flayed alive than live without the love of Our Father for one more moment. But even on Judgment Day, I shall remain alone." I look toward the city, framed by the alley walls. Physical manifestations of God’s love, they are. "Truly and profoundly alone. Besides, my precious Arielle, Angels cannot lie. Even though Father cast my out, I am still His Angel... but my wings are broken."

"You lied to Eve." She must have been formulating this argument well in advance. My, I must applaud her craftiness, even if it means that she ignores my words. I sit upon on of the trashcans, my very posture insisting defeat. I see that Arielle was about to leave me to my own anguish.

Before she turns the corner, I yell, "I did no such thing!" Arielle stares at me in a disgusted disbelief. She can hear my arguments at this distance, even if she is flesh. Even so, I pace toward her. "I told her that the apple would teach her and make her closer to God. It did. God thought so much of the humans, favoring them best of all his creations, I thought he would want them closer to him. How was I to know that he was trying to test their free will? Even so, they showed their will as he desired and he cast them out of Paradise for it. Sound familiar?"

Arielle futilely covers her ears to keep my words from penetrating. She confesses in a near whisper, "I cannot listen to you any long, Lucifer. I cannot allow myself to be damned as you are. And there is still a pure soul in that building that I am charged to rescue before it is too late. Adieu." Though I grasp her shoulder to stop her, she spins and propels my hand away.

I could not let her just walk away from me. I need her. I had not seen another Angel in millennia and may not again for just as long. She could talk to God still. She could help. "Please, stay with me just a little longer. Everyone else has fallen away on my account. Tell me about Heaven. And Father. Does he know how much I miss Him? Please tell Him when you go back. I still love Him and all my Heavenly Brothers."

She turns toward me, though she has placed a good twenty feet between us. She stares coldly at me for what seemed like an eon before forcefully replying, "I will tell Him that I saw you are you are in agony without His Presence. That is all I will tell Him. Now I must go, there is a soul that must be saved and you are not the one." She aggressively begins walking away from me into where the welcoming sea of youthful flesh would consume her anew, though I follow just as fast. Before she can be irrevocably immersed in it, I grab the cuff of her sleeve and fall to my knees before her. "Is there nothing you can do for me? When you thought I was just Louis, not your Heavenly Brother, you said you could help. You said God would forgive me! I am his Son! I merely want to come home. Please, if you ever loved me, help me now." Damn composure, I am a man possessed. I could not allow this glimpse of salvation to pass me over.

She turns toward my nearly prone figure and closes her eyes. The slightest beam of celestial light lands on her forehead for but a second. With all the grace and pity of God, she soothes, "Lucifer, I do love you. Father... well, he has his plans that I dare not to guess after. He needs you more than He is willing to let on to you right now. You were always his favorite, because you did speak. Wait. When your part is done being played, he will welcome you back." In a flowing gesture, she smoothes back my wild hair and kisses my forehead. For a second, I felt God once more and felt pure, indescribable bliss. My skin seems to tighten as though electricity runs through it.

As the light fades and Arielle begins floating away, one word escapes my lips. "Promise?"

She smiles divinely and coos, "More than that. I pray."