“I don’t sin,” Uriel replied promptly.“That is Dina.He cleans my house and has no house of his own.Raphael told you of the chaos in Heaven when we heard what the Watchers had done, didn’t he?”Metatron was quiet, and so Uriel sighed harshly.“The angels who sinned during our war were blamed and attacked, thrown from their homes.The Lord ordered me to take in this one, though He gave me no reason as to why.Dina is the one who spoke to your great-grandchild Noah.”Metatron asked why.“Gabriel hesitated when God ordered His message to be given, and I suppose He wanted to show that even an insignificant angel could easily replace him.”
Metatron laughed.“Is that so?So it is not only Michael’s affinity for sins of the flesh, nor your lies, that have created God’s dissatisfaction with His archangels?It is doubt.”
“I told you that I don’t lie,” Uriel said, twisting around to show Metatron a glower.“Days that Raphael and I have spent before the Lord, trying to convince Him that your pride is like that of the devil.But it must be that He knows you will ruin yourself, that you will fall, and that you will bring the fate of man with you.”Lower, he added: “You will not touch the library I have curated.All of Heaven’s wisdom is here, and you will not corrupt it.It’s the meeting of man and angel knowledges that flooded your Earth.Leave this place.Return to God if you so claim to be at His left side.Fly as high as you can, Metatron, so that you will burn to dust when you fall back to the Earth you belong.”
“You will be the one to fall when us men judge you.”But Metatron was turning on his heel, and as he did, he said, “I will be back, Uriel.The library will hold the history of man, whether you will be here to read it or not.”His departure was quiet, his steps slow as he returned to the entrance that was just out of sight of the seating space with its three divans, its short tables, one of which held a scroll that Dina had been mindlessly skimming hours ago.
The young angel hesitated, then timidly raised his face to the tall Uriel, whose expression was hot stone, eyes so sharp in rage that Dina feared staring too long would cut him.“Uriel,” he called softly.“Has Michael really been freed from the penance?”
“Start cleaning out the eastern side of the library,” Uriel commanded, instead of answering, before he exhaled through his nose, face flickering with something akin to fear but too angry.“Metatron will return with God’s blessing.I’m certain of it.Clean out the eastern side and then keep your mouth shut when he speaks to you.Do you hear me?”Dina nodded aggressively and tried to scurry behind as Uriel stepped into the library, began making his way across it.“Michael has ruined the last good will that us angels had with God.We will all pay the price.”Dina looked back, as if Metatron followed, or as if Michael followed.He kept wondering of Michael, if it had really been seven days only, if God had been kind enough to be satisfied with that.“All of us will suffer because of the damned Michael, because of Satan, because of the Watchers.”
Suffer?Dina didn’t think so.For the rest of his life, he didn’t think so.
The next time Metatron arrived, he did come proclaiming God’s approval, and he’d come with tablets already, histories of humanity and genealogies that only he, the one man in Heaven, could inspect for accuracy.Uriel, this time, didn’t resist when Metatron went to organize what he’d brought while Dina stood behind the prince’s back, clutching a broom to keep his hands from trembling.An old friend, Armoni, had taught him to clean, had told Dina, ‘It will always make you feel better.Even the worst of sadness isn’t as terrible as it could be if you’re in a spotless room.’
‘I confess,’ Dina thought, ‘to not understand your anger, Uriel.’When Metatron snapped at Dina to help chase away the dust from some of the limestone shelves, Dina tried a pleasant smile, and he did as told even if he could feel Uriel’s flared, angry look.“Yes, Metatron,” the young angel said obediently and dealt with the dust.
He simply couldn’t understand why Uriel was furious, but he supposed that he was a sinner, and this was no different than how he’d been treated before.Half of Heaven lamented that they were ruined now, but Dina had been ruined by sin for most of his years.And thus, when Metatron left, then returned with more scrolls, Dina met him amicably, and he aided him.Each time Metatron brought more human wisdom, Uriel argued, but Dina never did.The young angel didn’t even yelp when Metatron slapped him for dropping a stone tablet.
Time went on like this, and eventually, Dina no longer woke up cold, alone in Uriel’s spare room, frightened to half-death from the image of Michael burning.If he tried to recall it specifically, the memory would return in horrific vividness, but it was merely one of many violences that Dina had seen by now.Heaven lived on forever, regardless.
Metatron, however, preached change, and Dina, one day, noticed that the materials being wheeled into the library were growing more divergent from all those that came before.Suddenly — wooden boards, thicker pages, a thick covering that could have been skin.That was odd; it’d only been a thousand or two thousand years since Metatron had risen; that seemed too quick for Earth to change to Dina.Distantly, he heard Uriel always arguing with Metatron, claiming that infesting the library with the scripture of living humans was a step too far.But — ‘This is beautiful?’— Dina busied himself tracing the illustrations he found in the new manuscripts, the shape of humans, then animals, then all the flora.What a lovely place Earth seemed.
More books, more stories.More charming illustrations of humanity.With each day, Dina buried his face deeper into parchment and leather and tales; he hardly noticed what Metatron and Uriel were yelling about.
Dina heard something of a Christ.A man who was killed, as many of them are.And then Metatron said that man will all rise to Heaven, soon.Blink of an eye, and then Metatron said that not yet.Dina paid no mind, entranced by the stories he tried to decipher from illustrations because he couldn’t read the human scripts.Some more blinks of eyes.Time passing.A century, then half of another one.Metatron called it the end times.Uriel ignored him.The end is near, but not too near.Dina waited.
It wasn’t until a moment like any other that Heaven, like Earth, finally changed too — one instance in which Dina had accidentally dropped a thick book while dusting, then been struck hard across the face by Metatron and shoved into the half-cleaned tall shelves.“Forgive me,” Dina replied instantly, the movement of his jaw numbing.“I didn’t mean to—” There was no confusion, no indignation.Another violent memory for a body that held onto little else.
“This is the third time in the last few days,” snarled Metatron.“How could I believe you?What has you so distracted?”
Blinking a few times, still leaning on the shelf he’d just landed against, Dina replied, “I can’t be sure, but it won’t happen again.I’ll be more careful when I clean.”He tried smiling through the ache of a forming bruise but Metatron took a sudden step forward, slammed his hand down on one of the limestone shelves.Every folded, rolled, engraved piece of wisdom there rattled, on every level, climbing so high they’d reach Heaven if they weren’t all already there — but none dared fall for him, this man.
Metatron snapped, “Stop causing trouble.”‘Don’t you ever miss being a man, Metatron?I would.If I had been human once, I think I would miss it.’“Do you hear me?”
Golden, silver — the taste of blood in Dina’s mouth as he nodded and lowered his body to pick up the book he’d dropped.“I will be good.”He was already stepping away, reeling in a breath.“And I’ll leave you now.”Metatron visibly clenched his teeth, but he was moving, as well, turning back on the youngest angel, heading off.
To escape the labyrinth, one had to take as many left turns as they could, then a right turn when they approached the most modernly bound books, standing upright with their spines flaunted at each passerby.Dina often traced the titles he couldn’t read, and he would have done it now were it not for the book he hugged to his chest — one of his favorites.Not far from here, the illustrated collections were, of which this large book actually belonged.Both Enoch and Uriel didn’t care much for that section, crinkling their noses at the illustration of princes and their princesses, whereas Dina would often stare at them, purposefully trying to keep his mind empty, to not let a single thought form about the loving touches in the fairytales.There was also, often, art of winged people in Dina’s favorite books.
‘Fairies,’ Uriel had called them once.Afterward, Dina had pointed at another illustration, and Uriel had answered, ‘Eros.’And when Dina had opened a third book and held the woodblock-print before Uriel’s fiery eyes, there had been a pause, then a hint of amusement in his deep, cold voice, ‘That’s Gabriel.The human’s Gabriel.’
Some stray bookcases trailed toward a circular space that had once been part of a wider dining area but was now a mere carpet and plush velvet chair before a fireplace built into the wall.On the hearth, there were dying, dancing flames — and Dina remembered Michael — then he drifted his gaze to see the angel sat upon the chair with a blanket over his lap.Uriel, staring straight at the fire, in silence, hair covered by the hood of his onyx-black robe, speckled with tiny white specs, stars.
“Uriel?”Dina shuffled his feet closer.“There you are, brother.You didn’t come earlier to eat…”
Without looking at him, Uriel replied, “I heard Enoch shouting at you.”‘Metatron,’ Dina wanted to correct him, but he simply frowned instead.“He’s right that you’ve been more careless lately.”
“Oh, it’s my fault for thinking too much,” Dina reassured, moving closer, lowering to settle on the ground right by Uriel’s legs.“I was going to put my book away in its proper place, but I’d really like to sit here with you for a minute first.I hope that’s alright with you.”He turned his head up at him, blinking silver eyes.“Are you well?”Silence responded, but Dina didn’t mind, flickering his gaze back toward the flames, searching for familiar shapes.
Then, a slow exhale, and Uriel said, “The humans are likely to come soon to Heaven.A lot of them.”Leaning back into the chair, there was a high-pitched creak between the crackles of the fireplace.“The world is going to end soon.The Lord has told me.”
Dina jumped, then laughed a little.“Is that so?That’s exciting.We should continue building homes for them.”He cracked open the enormous book in his hands.“I can’t wait to see families here.I love children.”He’d never seen a real one of course, but on the page he turned to, there was a sketch of a cherub.
Uriel murmured, “We don’t age in Heaven.Will the humans who come here as children grow old or will they remain that way forever?”Dina flipped to another section of his book to see the reclining figure of a woman.“Maybe they’ll be stunted.”When the archangel paused, Dina lifted his head again and noticed Uriel’s hard stare.“You’re not even a little frightened… are you?”
“What’s there to be frightened about?”asked the youngest angel.
“You don’t see, at all, how they’ll displace us?How they don’t belong in Heaven?”Uriel leaned over the armrest, hovering his face not far from Dina’s own.“Each one of them will be a new Enoch, a pile of flesh masquerading as one of us.It’s as if you immediately forget each time that old man mistreats you.When Heaven is invaded by humans, and we’re all suffering under their hands, will you ignore all of that too, Dina?”
