NEW HEAVEN
CHAPTER1
From blood, there came fire.Nazarene man, God, the Son of God — find him feeding the flames.Through a wound in his palm from a coarse hand drill, his red tears wept, then whipped hot unto themselves.Cracks like those that rip open the Earth, like the breaking of bones.Kneeling was as frail on him as the flutters of oranges, yellows, whites that bloomed bright over a desert-baked, middle-aging face.The shades of Hell, see, cast over the Son of God, the Nazarene man, with a shadow cast behind himself in the shape of death.A misplaced past; what will happen has already happened.Above, the mother moon is shattered into silver pieces to trade for a kiss.But never was it the silver that rewarded the crucifixion.Death was death’s reward, and it was a kiss for a kiss.From God, the Son of God, ancient eyes opening in a manger.Incarnation to know to be wretched.
Silence, Nazarene man.Watch the bygone approach, enshrouded in veil and robe, a sentenced stranger without shape.The damned one spoke serpentine, asking if it had been forty days, forty mornings and nights, that they had spent here in silence, in starving.With each footstep, the Nazarene never stirred to the sound of marches between his own nor to each hiss between his prayers.Yet, prayer is pleading; what Son of God implores for his Father to listen?The carpentry in his blood must have boiled; it believed love must be beat and sawed and nailed to be built.In the temple, the child had touched the wood of a wall, and he had breathed in the dust and hacked it out.No breath of life, see.The Lord’s sighs into the mouths of man were absent in the teeth of a Nazarene boy.Hear his mother.She chased her lost son, and she had not found him but an ingrown body of grandeur dreams.
Son of God?You are no Son of God.Pre-determined mad man.Had the Nazarene come to the desert to die from the drought drying the skin of his tongue, or to collapse from the pulses of heat in his divine skull?Or had he come to drown in his animal sweat and find purpose there?Hours past, the man had searched in the sea of sand for all the drowned of an earlier apocalypse.Fingers had bore holes in the ground like those that would tear into hands and feet, pressed to wood the Nazarene man knew the scrape of before his own God-given, mother-ridden name.
First, the devil took a stone and threw it at the man’s feet.He said, If you are the Son of God, turn this stone into bread.
But, Satan, it is written: Man shall not live on bread alone.
Then, the mocking devil said, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself from the high temple.It is written that He will command His angels concerning you, and they will lift you up into their hands, so that you will not strike a foot against a stone.
It is written: Do not put the Lord your God to the test.
Thus the devil brought God, the Son of God, with him to see all the kingdoms of the world and answered, All this I will give you, if you bow down and worship me.
It is written that the Nazarene man will die to the crucifix, and it is written that God is alone.He will walk with twelve alone, and he will break bread alone.He was born alone, and he will carry the bleeding of whips and a cross on his back alone.God, the Son of God, will be worshiped alone.
The devil has and will watch God die in tortured agony.In wretchedness.His final miracle.
The Lord will say: Lord, why have you forsaken me?The Lord will say: Lord, to you, I hand over my spirit.The Lord will say, It is finished.I have done it.Write this for they are His final words.I have found purpose through death and only death.It is only through suffering that I have found meaning to being here.
God is dead; He has killed Himself.It is only like this that He could save us.
CHAPTER2
At the center of Heaven, the archangel Michael was burned at the stake.For minutes, his screams engulfed him and all the angels who’d gathered to watch his silhouette disappear into the trinity of flamed colors ripping at his brown skin, scratching to peel it away before the fires seeped into exposing muscle.As if an angel made of wax, the prince melted.As if he were a candle, thick blood rushed into his mouth, gurgling his cries in pain.Darkness scaled along his body where smoke trickled upwards, but it would not stop.His feet were buried in the Fountain of Life, in her waters, and Michael’s burns would stitch closed only for the fire to skin him raw again.He burned, and he healed; bound to the fountain, Michael’s suffering never ended and never began.
It was a man, in Heaven, who announced his sin with spindly hands still clutching the rope he’d ceremoniously confined the strongest angel of all with.He was ancient, with colorless hair, wrinkles that shrouded his features — the dark eyes, a stout body beneath a white robe, and new jewels that God had gifted.The man, Enoch the Elder, proclaimed: “The Lord commanded for your chief prince to pay penance.”Enoch’s marks of age seemed finer now, better carved, more purposefully placed along the sagging muscle of his arms, and they now marked him distinct among thousands of perfectly youthful angels gathered in Heaven, watching with oval-ed eyes or facing away with deep grimaces.“For when he returned to Heaven—” Enoch had to shout over the continual screams of Michael “—your prince came before God and asked for a home for the damned souls of man, where Satan and his followers may hold authority.The Lord, in His mercy, granted the devil his wish but the archangel a punishment — for acting as a messenger for the devil, for being his angel.”He was stepping away from the Fountain of Life, and the angels nearby stumbled back as if Enoch were Satan himself.“And for having sullied his body,” pure venom in his voice, “with that of the devil — your prince must know penance.”
Among all the others, Dina watched, fingers interlocked, barely peering over the shoulders of two tall angels standing before him.And like all the others, his breath hitched.‘Sullied?’The old man, this strange man, who’d arrived in Heaven claiming to be like them, an angel himself.‘Michael sullied by the devil?’The youngest — or was he the second youngest now that this man was here?— looked all about, seeking an answer, hoping someone would ask the question that he wouldn’t dare.Others anxiously shifted in the crowd, avoiding gazes or, like Dina, searching for guidance, perhaps from an archangel.But they were absent, all except for Michael.
Enoch spoke once more: “Your prince sullied his body, his body that is God’s temple, as all your bodies are temples to God.He was tempted by Satan.He fell into sins of the flesh with the devil.Even your most holy prince betrayed our Lord, Creator.The greatest of God’s elect could not be faithful.”He took another step, and he spread his arms, offering himself to them.“Let it be known that there is no angel pure of sin, then.All angels are tainted.All angels carry the original sin of the first war.”Dina’s heart thudded against his chest, and he gripped nervously at his tunic’s front, dipped his head, wishing his lace veil would slip down his face to shield his twitching expression and the frightened burn in his eyes.“Those you called the Watchers have proven to Heaven that the devil corrupted even those among you who thought yourselves so holy.And, because of this, the Lord has said, as He once did: angel will serve man.”
Dina’s gaze flickered to Michael, to his writhing body — a mere shadow in the tongues of flames.Uneasily, Dina’s nails picked at the joints of fingers.He watched.He listened to the gurgles of agony.‘Michael.’It couldn’t be true.‘I was the one who revealed to Noah that a Flood would do away with sin.’How could Michael be tempted?Were all angels truly corrupted?Were all angels sinners before God — whether they had even committed a sin or not?Had it been Satan’s forbidden fruit, the forbidden knowledge of evil, of sin, of flesh; had it been knowledge alone that condemned them?
“It will be man who inherits Heaven,” said Enoch as Dina clenched his eyes shut, trying to swallow a hiccup now of worry and confusion.Where were his friends?Azazel?Armoni?What had Michael and the angels really done to the Watchers?“Man will be the new angels, and man will judge the original angels to see who will serve and who will be cast down.”Finally, he proclaimed: “I will be known as Metatron, the first man to live in Heaven.I will sit at the left side of God.Know this for they are His words.The Lord’s words.”
Over the pain of their chief prince, the angels affirmed, “Amen.”
But it was only for seven days that Michael burned, hardly a blink of an eye, and he didn’t scream for much longer than Metatron’s announcement.Only silence sounded from him after the first three days, even if the fire didn’t appear to lose its intensity — or so it is said.Dina himself couldn’t handle the sight, and he refused to visit the center of the city for all the time that Michael was tortured, refused to even step outside Uriel’s home, even tried not to peer out the sparse windows.Yet, he saw the tortured archangel each time he shut his eyes, and he found himself without appetite for these days, as well.Hiding couldn’t save Dina for long, however, for he lived in the house of an archangel, and one day, the prince Uriel returned from the unexplained absence since the stake burning began, bringing with him all the horror that Dina had been trying to avoid.
The front door, suddenly, violently, was thrown open with such a loud screech that Dina — laying on his stomach, sleeping, on the divan — startled awake.
“Seven days,” came the voice of Uriel, in conversation, “of penance and burning?Is that really what the Lord commanded or your own whims?”
“Uriel,” came the voice of Metatron, “step aside.”
“Leave,” replied Uriel as Dina hastily climbed off the cushions, stumbling onto bare feet, just in time to see the prince walk into the wide sitting area before the endless library.When Dina saw the old man-angel following behind, he flinched.“This is no place for you, Enoch.”Uriel’s brows were furrowed, a scowl pulling at his mouth while his hands curled into fists.“You will not touch the library.”
But the man, Metatron, stopped, far from the archway leading into the labyrinth of books.His eyes landed on Dina, curiously, then he asked, “Who is this angel?”to Uriel.
Right past the young angel, Uriel halted his steps, facing away, towards the library.“No one.”
“You told me that this house was yours alone,” Metatron said.“Did you lie, archangel?”
