Shutting his eyes, lifting fingers to touch the lace of his veil, the material too soft to scrape, but Dina still felt as if his fingers bled.“It was a long time ago.”He remembered the sensations of feet striking against his chest until they broke it down, like a door, and some of his ribs snapped downward, pierced straight through his heart.Agony had filled his mouth hot, wet.“Satan’s angels hurt me during the war, but I deserved it.Everyone saw that I had rings that didn’t belong to me.”‘Even if on broken fingers, held up to the light that was returning to Heaven slow, like a drop of ink in water.’“I took something that didn’t belong to me.I did it even before the war… Satan told me that I would love them, so I should slip them off this angel’s hands while he rests.His name was Phanuel.It was a sin.I committed sin against him.”‘I thought God’s angels would save me after Satan and his followers tortured me, but then they hit me as well.’But they were right to do it, unlike Satan’s angels.Suffering can be good, can be needed punishment.
‘Sometimes, God needs you to suffer.’For the right reasons.‘Only God can punish me.’A body built for only God to hurt.Only God’s striking hand can be righteous.
The star asked again, “Are you happy?”
“I could be,” Dina whispered, eyes fluttering open, but his vision hazed, distant as he turned it back to the star.“If I could be forgiven, I’d be happy.”But God had already forgiven Dina; His mighty hand had taken his bruised face, dragged along the angel’s bottom lip with a thumb, threatening to press it inside, slide along his tongue like human Eucharist.“Though my Father said that He has saved me, I worry that I’m not.Maybe I’m good again but I’m not good how I once was.”The angels do not have Eucharist; there has never been a Messiah for the angels, no savior to eat alive.“I wish I could be pure again.”Wish he’d never committed the sin at all.
The angels had torn the rings off his broken fingers, left Dina on the road, left the canyon in his abdomen there to continue bleeding, red in rivulets falling to the once-gold street.To Phanuel, the angels had gone to return the rings.‘They left me there.’Someone had spit at Dina and said he’d asked for it, for what he’d received.
“God’s forgiveness isn’t enough for you.”
Painfully — “Am I a bad angel?”
“You want it all to end.”
“No.No, no.”Dina blinked, stared up at the beautiful creature.“But I miss my friends, and I wish God’s forgiveness was enough for me.I wish I didn’t… want so badly.”‘There’s something wrong with you, Uriel always tells me.He says I act and I hope like an angel just a few days old.I don’t know how to be sad, he says.An old angel knows how to be sad, doesn’t cry anymore.But I cry.I cry like I was born yesterday.’
“I know,” said the star, “how you can make everything right again.”
“But everything is… as it should be?”He hadn’t meant to sound unsure, but Dina was only a few days old.He had been a few days old for millions of years.
The human boy.His name was Tadeo.One day, he finished his school day, picked up his backpack and slung it over a shoulder with a sigh, saying nothing to no one, not even those girls he considered friends.How could he want to speak to other people?He wanted no one but his father, the man who was dead, but it had been months now since his funeral.All he could think to do was take his classroom desk and smash his head against it, but instead, he got onto his feet, brushed past a student who was hurrying forward to speak to the teacher.Heading for the open door into the hallway, Tadeo took the front of his button-up in a fist, tugging on it to have the fabric unstick from his sweaty front.He would walk home today; he would stop by the convenience store for a few things for his family and perhaps an umbrella.
Dense and wet on his skin — the humidity made him grumble.It was enough to make him miss the usual unbearable dryness of the town as he tried to survive the crowded school building and move onto the streets.From the classroom window, he’d caught the gray clouds, and now he saw them with a huff because he’d like to be thankful for the rain — the river needed it — but Tadeo didn’t appreciate gray darkness in the afternoon.Grumbling, he went on his way, staring at a vehicle ahead, parked at a corner indiscreetly — something like a large pickup truck in camouflage greens, the bed armed with railings on the sides and a stand for a machine gun.Two men were there, soldiers in helmets and clothes the same pattern as their car, with bulky, dark automatic rifles in their arms.
Tadeo walked past them, didn’t give them any attention.
In the sky, the star said, “Everything isn’t how it should be.Wickedness has corrupted God’s creation.Angels have fallen.Angels have fallen a second time.”Dina flinched, remembering his friends.“Man was banished from Eden for their wickedness.And though they were offered salvation, they’ve become the most evil creation of all.”
“No,” Dina said, though he was remembering now how Uriel had said man would destroy Heaven.“That’s not true.The humans are beautiful and good and mystical.”In every fairytale, they were.In all the stories, the princesses and princes.“They always choose good in the end.They love God so much.”
As Tadeo left the store, he noticed the same soldiers he’d seen by his school in the parking lot.They’d brought their car as well.He only saw this because one of the men was stepping away from it, moving toward the entrance, toward Tadeo.Trying to step aside, Tadeo was intent to head home, but a gloved hand came over one of his shoulders.As the soldier spoke, Tadeo stared at the man’s shoes, noticing that they were more like sneakers than combat boots.His heart was sinking, somewhere cold, like he was falling off a boat into the middle of the ocean.He’d been born on the beach, his grandparents told him, a few hours away.Firmly, the soldier said Tadeo must come with them.
Tadeo replied that he had to get home, but the soldier said they would take him home afterward.
“You don’t know them,” said the star.
“I do,” the angel insisted.“I read their stories.”
“But you see evil there too, don’t you?”
“I… suppose I do.”
The soldiers sat Tadeo in the back, between two men.It’d be difficult to see him from the windows — though as the truck rattled around, the boy peeked over a shoulder to notice the road becoming quieter, emptier.He asked where they were taking him, beginning to shake, his lungs closing.They didn’t answer.
“The only way to destroy wickedness, Dina, is to destroy the world.If you want forgiveness from your fellow angels, you must end all things.”
“No.I don’t want to….”
“It will all continue how it is.Life will only grow more wicked if you do nothing.”
“But not me.Find another angel, star.I love humans.”He’d never known one, not well.“I couldn’t.”
“Don’t you want to put an end to evil?”
The three soldiers brought the boy to a car lot, where they raped him.
“I… do.”
