“I saw God in a crazy dead toothed Hispanic kid”
BY
Julius St. Clair
Copyright 2012 Julius St. Clair
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I Saw God in a Crazy Dead-Toothed Hispanic Kid
The Angelic Testament (preview)
“Why is his tooth gray like that?”
“Can your teeth turn gray from not brushing?” I asked my best friend, Lukas, fidgeting in the pew.
“I thought you just got cavities. Your teeth don’t turn gray like that.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I had two cavities when I was eight and they didn’t look like that.”
“Maybe he has a different kind,” I said, turning to whisper in his ear as I kept one eye on the preacher, bulldozing sin from the pulpit.
“No, that thing’s unique,” he shuddered, “but if you’re so curious, why don’t you ask his mom?”
I instinctively looked at the pear shaped Hispanic woman that was staring down our pastor’s throat, as if catching a glimpse of his tonsils would be the equivalent of seeing God. She was completely unaware of her hyperactive son who had already mastered the all-important art of inconspicuous observation. Many had tried calling out his staring episodes only to face failure, and now, for some hair-pulling reason, he had fixed his eyes on me.
His smile was untamed and maniacal, resembling a cross between an adrenaline junkie and a crack head clown. His dimpled cheeks were fat and ball-shaped, his hair greasy and matted into his forehead and scalp. The hand-me-down checkered suit was too big for an eight year old and always shifted a second after his body had moved. The infamous gray tooth that haunted me was relentless and I was sure it would finally be the type of horror that would transform my recent string of dreams into nightmares.
“Sister Dejesus would bug out on me if I asked. You know how protective she is of him.”
“You must face your fears,” Lukas imitated a therapist with a jedi-like voice, “in order to overcome the dreaded gray-“
“-AND SOME OF YOU,” my pastor bellowed over the speakers, “CONTINUE TO TALK WHILE THE LORD IS SPEAKING!!!”
Lukas got the message and went to attention, blending in with the rest of the army of the Lord. I stifled a chuckle, my frame shaking like a car over gravel road. Lukas kicked my leg, but I ignored him, stealing glances at the kid with the gray tooth.
I wouldn’t dare ask his mom the origin of my disgust, but I could at least try to get her to notice his defiance against God’s word. I waited for a few seconds for him to lock his face onto mine and then I launched the counterstrike. Throwing a disfigured, bug-eyed, teeth-barred face his way, he gasped in surprise, turned around and began tapping his mother’s attentive hands. She came back to the real world and was about to (no lie) scold him, when she saw her son was pointing my way. Sister Dejesus fired the war ending shot through her fine dark curls and I bowed my head in defeat.
Lukas, face forward, patted my shoulder in condolence and continued to daydream as his body praised the Lord with the rest of us…
After service, Lukas and I were picking up our bibles to go outside when the pastor glided through the crowd toward us like a ghost. I pretended not to notice, as if my sudden urgency to leave the sanctuary was a full bladder and not an empty apology, but he firmly grabbed our shoulders to prevent our escape. We locked our eyes to God’s mouthpiece like we were caught in an aliens’ tractor beam.
“I can tell when my sheep lose focus, boys. Do you have something to say about that?”
His castrating staccato turned us into weeping willows as nothing rose to meet him but our humility and reverence.
“Sorry,” we said by heart as he released his teeth from our bodies.
“Don’t say sorry because of me. How do you think God feels when you ignore his word? How would you feel? Tell me, Nicolas, what would you think of Lukas if he dismissed everything you had to say? Ignored every joke? Each story you were excited to relay to him?”
“I would be sad,” I said as I felt that nauseating sense of déjà vu.
“And you, Lukas?”
“I would be sad too,” he mimicked as our pastor nodded and like a specter, he disappeared back into the congregation as quickly as he came. I swear he was attached to some kind of pulley system.
“Scary,” Lukas sighed as I shook off the fear like a wet dog.
“Crippling,” I agreed, “God’s no joke.”
“No, not Pastor,” he shook his head furiously, “that.”
I followed his pointing finger’s invisible line to the ever approaching Sister Dejesus and her ghoul of a son.
“Sorry, Dude,” Lukas said apologetically, “this is where we part. Work out your own salvation, right?”
I began to tell Lukas that the scripture he quoted was out of context and that he probably never opened the bible in his life when he ducked behind Brother Carrington and left me to face Sister Dejesus. She flung her son in front of her to face me. I was grateful he wasn’t smiling for I had a full breakfast, and I was never one for seconds.
“I see you’ve taken interest in my son,” she said quickly, her words fleeing the moment she parted her lips, a staple characteristic of a single mom.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I stammered as she smiled deceptively.
“My son, Jonathan told me how you were, playing around with him during church.”
“Oh, well, I-“
“-I think it’s wonderful. He really needs a positive male figure in his life. I was thinking that you could watch over him – just during services or when you’re hanging around the church. He needs a big brother that can teach him social skills.”
“Sister, I don’t-“
“-he won’t bother you…he really needs this, Nicolas. Just spend a little time with him.”
I threw chains onto my face’s twitches, ticks and automatic responses, restraining them with inhuman strength…but one lone traitor escaped the bonds and defiantly declared…
“Sure,” I squeaked as my world crashed.
“Jonathan, be good,” she recited her mission statement as a miniature mound of flesh was thrown into my abdomen. I could almost feel the gray nuzzling against my shirt and staining it forever. Sister Dejesus disappeared before I could object, apparently learning the same arts Pastor had long mastered. The monster hugged me furiously, and the world around me blurred as I went into panic. Was this a bad dream?
“What do you want to do first?” Jonathan asked me as he pulled on my left arm.
“Whatever you want,” I said as I began making my way out the sanctuary and downstairs to the fellowship hall where all the people would eat and laugh together. I knew Lukas would be there, trying to avoid me the best he could, but I had a plan of vengeance to carry out.
“Hey, Jonathan,” I said cheerfully as he began jumping up and down for no reason. “I need you to do something for me – it’s like a game.”
“Okay!” he cried out, too loudly for my taste. “What is it? What’s the game?”
“I want you to find Lukas. You know Lukas, right? When you find him, I want you to punch him in the kidney as hard as you can and then run back to me, okay?”
“Kidney…”
“Uh…punch him in the back instead. And say that was from me, got it?’
“Yeah!” he screamed as he sped off like the cockroach that he is. I found a spare chair near the stairs leading back up to the sanctuary and sighed as I let my mind wander, biding my time until night service began later that night. Now that I had Jonathan attached to my hip, I couldn’t leave, but it didn’t matter. It’s not like I had anything better to do that night.
“So you’re the one!” I heard Lukas yell as he slowed down his pursuit of Jonathan, seeing him run to me for safety. The Gray Tooth giggled and burrowed his greasy hair into my suit jacket as Lukas was shaking his head in disbelief.
“I can’t believe you sent the kid to hit me.”
“I can’t believe you ditched me like that...I thought we were friends.”
“Oh, go cry me a river,” Lukas spat back, mildly annoyed. He was still glaring at the creature next to me.
“So now that you’re here, we can hang out some. Help me carry the burden.”
“I actually promised to get lunch with Jacob today, and I would invite you to come, but I see you’re busy.”
“Since when do you hang out with Jacob?”
“We always hang out after morning service. It’s not my fault you’re never here for the night one. Let’s be honest, if morning service wasn’t mandatory – you probably wouldn’t be there either.”
“You’re just jealous because my parents let me decide if I want to go or not.”
“Just putting your time in – the bare minimum to make it to Heaven, aren’t you?”
“Aren’t we all?” I replied as he stood there silently. Jonathan was no longer giggling and was listening attentively. I decided to squash the conversation. Lukas could never understand why I only attended service when I was forced – that it had nothing to do with boredom or that I didn’t care.
“Alright, I’ll see you later,” I said as Lukas flashed a quick smile and walked away. Forgetting everything he heard, Jonathan immediately ran toward a nearby empty table and pulled a crumpled stack of paper and broken crayons from this pockets. He offered me a yellow crayon arbitrarily and began making interpretive art. I silently joined him, making various shapes and buildings, actually enjoying the peace. For a few minutes we just drew, but I wasn’t sure if he was finding the silence awkward or not so I tried making small talk.
“What’s that supposed to be?” I asked, pointing to a half circle squiggly line that shot forward into a lion- like, cloud…thing. Jonathan shrugged his shoulders and added a touch of green to the base of it, shading it carefully.
“It’s not anything? Nothing you learned in school?”
“No,” he said flatly.
“You should be drawing buildings, animals, shapes and stuff.”
“No,” he said again, and added a X on the side.
“So…you like to draw?”
“Yes.”
I nodded and simply watched him for a few minutes, trying to figure out where his mind was at. I had never seen a kid take his drawings so seriously. Eventually, I decided to probe for more answers from the monster while he was in his hibernation state.
“So, why do you have a gray tooth?” I winced as the words came out. Surely kids were quick to forget and forgive.
“My daddy used to hit me,” he stated emotionless. The words startled me and I didn’t know what to say. I had never wondered where Mr. Dejesus was in the church services, but of course, this monster had a mother and a father.
“My tooth,” he continued as he kept drawing, “my tooth died. The dentist said that. I don’t like it. It’s ugly…but, if I keep brushing, maybe it will be alive again.”
“Maybe…” I nodded as he suddenly stuffed his crayons back into his pants.
“We gotta go!” he cried out. “Upstairs!”
I looked at my watch and realized that the night service was about to begin, but we still had a half hour until the singing started to open up the service. In the meantime, it was just prayer, and although it was the waving banner and claim of every church under the sun, few actually showed up, let alone on time. Even I wasn’t excited to rush upstairs and pray needlessly.
“We don’t have to go right now,” I said. “We have time.”
“No, it’s prayer time,” he insisted, tugging at my arms. “We gotta pray.”
I couldn’t understand the big deal. We prayed all the time already – after singing, before the preaching, after the preaching, altar call…if you added it all up, we probably prayed for a solid two hours as a church by the end. Still, Jonathan was on the verge of tears and I couldn’t understand why he was so adamant about praying, as if this kid actually reaped rewards from it.
“Nicolas,” he cried, stressing every syllable of my name. “Please.”
Again, I didn’t understand the urgency, but I sighed and let him lead me upstairs. I guess it couldn’t hurt – getting an extra half hour of prayer in. Who knows? Maybe an extra blessing would be thrown my way. I tried slowing Jonathan down but he was persistent in his arm pulling and in no time, we were back into the sanctuary. I let him pick the pew and he immediately plopped down and clasped his grungy hands together. I followed his lead as I heard him mutter a couple of words. Any moment now, and he’d assuredly be asleep.
It took a few minutes for me to find the most comfortable position but when I did, I was ready to get down to business. I began reciting the Lord’s Prayer by heart, but then Jonathan began giggling. I ignored it at first, letting him get in his laugh from some funny joke he heard earlier or maybe he was being distracted by one of the babies nearby. But then I heard him giggle again, this time, it was louder, and the more I tried to ignore it, the louder it got, until it broke out in full blown laughter. The last thing I needed was for me to look like a fool in the middle of the sanctuary unable to handle the laughing kid he was responsible for.
“HEY!” I whispered sharply as I grabbed his arm and pulled him toward me. “You’re not supposed to be laughing when you’re praying! Stop playing around!”
Jonathan didn’t whimper or complain, taken aback by the sudden anger in my voice. His lip stammered for a moment, and then he made his case.
“But Nicolas, I was laughing with God.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“I was laughing with God. I was telling him about the comic I drew and how funny it was and how I want him to read it.”
His words slapped me in the face, for in that moment…I realized, why he could not miss out on prayer that evening – because it was when he met with God and spent time together. He had a relationship. A genuine relationship. He didn’t pray for reward, show, or monotony. He did it because he enjoyed it. He did it because he simply wanted to talk with one of his friends.
I had nothing to say as he waited for my reaction to his words. Seeing none, he went back to his conversation with God. What could be said? In a few seconds, I had learned more about relationships with God from a crazy dead toothed Hispanic kid than I did all my life and suddenly, everything became so clear. I understood why I couldn’t enjoy church like so many claimed. Without title, status or involvement in the politics of my chosen faith, why did I need to be there?
I couldn’t take the realization, and for the first time in my life, I began to cry from the heart. Jonathan put his hand on my shoulder and asked me why I was crying, but it was hard to tell him. I was so ashamed and angry over all the time I had wasted. Still, he was always a persistent one.
“Nicolas, why are you crying?”
I cried, because I knew why I went to church. I knew now what I was searching for, but somehow never found.
“Because, I want what you have…I don’t have a relationship with God at all.”
“It’s okay,” he said excitedly. “Pray with me. We’ll all be friends.”
AN EXCERPT FROM THE NOVEL:
THE ANGELIC TESTAMENT
By
Julius St. Clair
PROLOGUE:
I am Immortal.
I know how that must sound…
Tempting…
Desirable.
Impossible…
But it’s true…
And I have known nothing else.
No matter how hard one may try to impose it upon me
I will never taste the finality of death…
But do not be fooled by my words
This does not mean all is well
That Immortality by definition equals
Perfect.
Unregrettable.
Bliss…
And I will tell you why.
My name is Lysander,
And I am an Angel of the most, high God…
CHAPTER 1: In the Beginning…
Something scratched my foot.
I sprung up from the grass and sat at full alert, because I’d never felt such a sensation. For no particular reason, I thought it might have been caused by a small animal of some kind, but I quickly dismissed the thought for it was impossible. Nothing of that nature had been created yet. In actuality, it was an angel trying to win over my hard-earned attention. He had to be no bigger than a large dog, and the way he hunched his shoulders and pawed at my feet, he must have been very disoriented and unaware of his surroundings. No one in their right mind would be acting that way, unless they were playing…but even then, it was usually customary to at least learn someone’s name before popping their personal bubble.
I wanted him to stop. But I couldn’t say anything, even with his strange behavior. The view around us was far too captivating, and it pulled me into its hypnotizing calm with ease as the angel before me whimpered. The universe all around me, a vast network of diverse stars, planets and phenomenon orbiting the negligible, small, floating island in which I resided. A peninsula hovering in the midst of space. With nothing else on it besides grass and a few other angels, star gazing was becoming an increasingly popular pastime - one that I had long ago mastered. You would think I would be tired of the monotony, but I had come to find out that beauty had the strange ability to renew itself, no matter how many times it was seen. And with a dazzling view at our express disposal, I was often engrossed in its splendor…
Okay…maybe an angel mauling your foot like you were a cat’s scratching post was a little more distracting…
“I don’t recognize you,” I said to him abruptly, trying to break him from his clawing frenzy. The angel ceased his assault and hung his head low, shaking it fiercely - the wings on his back coiling and shooting out like they were on springs. It looked strange, but I interpreted his body language perfectly, for I too had been in a similar predicament. Not the scratching, that was new. But I understood the rest of his dilemma and figured he would adapt to the loss he had just experienced soon enough.
“I’m new here,” he said shyly, before being consumed by the aquarium-like view walling us in. His voice trailed off and I kept silent, letting him indulge, chuckling to myself over his sudden fascination. It was hard not to be engaged with such a presentation, and within seconds, I was enchanted anew.
I didn’t even hear someone sneak up behind me. And I wish I had, because it was his favorite form of greeting someone and unquestionably the opposite of mine. Before my senses could kick in, I was already in a headlock.
“So this is why you left us?” a familiar voice laughed as its source freed me from his personal prison. I shuffled around to get a good view of the first angel I had ever met, Cadence, towering over me.
A tall and slender angel with wings as lanky as his frame, he often stood out due to his bulky armor, which looked like it was two sizes too big. A dull silver and gold plated his shoulder pads and gauntlets, and he held a bronze-colored, trashcan-looking shield in his hand like it was his security blanket. No one knew where it had come from, but there had to be some explanation as to why he was born with it. Perhaps it was identification. That was assuredly my guess because when I had first met him, his face was so plain, it had struck me as immediately forgettable.
“I told you I was going off to stargaze,” I said innocently. “Besides, the group was just prattling along…brainstorming the perfect adjective to describe the grass…I was getting tired of that conversation.”
“Lysander, every spot on this island transmits the same view. There isn’t a place you can’t stargaze. There is literally nothing else,” he said, walking in front of me, but out of the way of my new guest - now infatuated with the grass beneath him. “How is going off to look around by yourself any better than staying with us and doing it? At least we’d be together.”
“I was hoping to see something new. We never move from our meeting spot on the island, and we hang out there so often it’s like our home…so much so that I’ve got cabin fever. Some travelling could do me some good.”
“What difference does it make where you’re looking out from? There are zero new events out there. It’s the same animated painting plastered on the universal wall. Look, there’s the blue steam planet, the red and purple cosmic dust, and the yellowish-green-blue nebula. Oh, and that protostar. Nothing’s out of place.”
“The protostar is new,” I said matter-of-factly, pointing toward it.
“What are you trying to say?”
“That there are new developments from time to time.”
“Like what?” he said casually. “A rock flies by? That steam planet rotates?”
“No…but that protostar wasn’t there before.”
“I’m sure it was,” he said flatly, refusing to take a closer look. I rubbed my eyes vigorously.
“New events do occur, Cadence. They’re just rare or relatively small. If you gazed out as much as I do, you would have noticed them yourself, emerging at various times and locations.”
I was surprised I had been able to keep the conversation going for so long, especially with Cadence along for the ride. Usually if he was fed up with a topic, he would end the discussion on the spot.
”Looks the same to me,” he said stubbornly.
“You’re so complacent,” I sighed.
“How long did it take you to come up with that word?”
“Complacent AND dismissive,” I yelled at him, feeling more confident by the second. “You didn’t even bother looking back at the star because you’re so stuck in your ways. No wonder you think nothing changes around here. You refuse to accept it, even when it taps you on the shoulder.”
“Change? Really? Change? Out here?!” he exclaimed, waving his hands out like he was balancing two plates.
“About as much change as there is in a fishbowl,” another angel remarked, gliding down beside Cadence. Her name was Alessa, a moderately-sized angel with the royal color of purple gracing her from head to toe. Streaks of it were lined into her silver hair. Splashes of it were spread across her slender but durable gray armor. Strands of it were even found mingling amongst the fibers of her unimposing, average-sized wings. She made it known to us on a consistent basis that she was important, but thankfully Cadence reminded her often that she was stuck here just like the rest of us, so how special could she possibly be? Seeing her ego deflate was a rare and satisfying form of entertainment.
“There was no point in leaving, Lysander,” she scolded. “And Cadence, you took too long to get him. Now Farah’s going to tell her story from the beginning, and you know how I can’t stand it when she does that. One interruption and it’s the end of the world.”
“I like her stories, even when they’re reruns,” I admitted. “They’re…epic in scale.”
“You mean exaggerated,” Alessa retorted. “Like the one where she broke through the barrier, grabbed a star and pulled it out of orbit. C’mon, that didn’t happen. Trust me, we would have noticed.”
“It could have happened. We weren’t there to say otherwise, and I did notice that star number thirty-three had veered off to the right a bit.”
“You numbered them all?” She gave me a face like I had just eaten a cockroach.
“Is there something wrong with that?” Didn’t everyone count the stars?
“It doesn’t matter,” she exhaled heavily. “The point is that Farah is making all this up. Did you notice how she can’t break through a second time? I asked her what was the point of coming back if she had made it out. Do you know what she said? She said that she wanted to tell us what had happened, like she couldn’t get our attention from outside the barrier! All she would have to do is fly in circles until we noticed! This island is not that big!” Her talking was building momentum and her hands were flailing all around her like she was trying to rap in sign language. I struggled to keep up but before her ranting got too intense, she stopped abruptly and waited for a response.
“I believe you,” I winced, cupping my left ear. “What you just said…about getting our attention.”
“If she did it before, why is it so hard all of a sudden?” she yelled, unaware of my discomfort. “I’m telling you, her story is false.”
“It might not be impossible…”
“You’re so gullible,” she huffed, and looked away from me to Cadence. He was staring at the brand new angel, still in awe at the so-called “animated painting” in the distance.
“He’s new, isn’t he?” Cadence asked, very serious, and I smiled back at him.
“First one since we arrived.”
“You mean since you arrived,” Alessa corrected.
“Right, right,” I said, stretching my wings and trying to compose myself. “I see what you’re implying - that you have some kind of seniority. But you may not be much older than I am. For all we know, we could have been created at the same time, just released sparingly. Think about the number of angels on our island. There’s no more than thirty, but something tells me there’s a multitude of them, probably in Heaven right now.”
“Do you honestly think so?” Alessa asked hopefully. Her change in attitude perplexed me, but I soon realized that Alessa may never have come to this conclusion herself. The very idea was thrilling to consider – that there were more of us on the other side and Heaven was more than an empty city we may see someday.
“Even though we can only think about what is given to us, whether it be what we see or what’s in our minds…” I said, staring off into space, “I have no doubts that there’s more out there, and not just other angels. The landscape hasn’t been altered much, but occasionally I will see the birth of a new moon in the distance, or a comet streaking across our ceiling. And in that moment, I know this can’t be it. Eventually, God will take us away from here.”
“I wonder why we can’t go yet,” Cadence muttered under his breath, but Alessa already had an answer in the queue.
“God has His reasons -” she said.
“- I was talking to myself.”
“Maybe He’s preparing a place for us there, or maybe the entire construction of Heaven isn’t done yet–“
“- it was rhetorical. It was a comment that didn’t need answering.”
“Either way; we know this for a fact: Heaven exists,” Alessa enunciated happily, ignoring Cadence completely. “Our mental database tells us so.”
“It’s true. We’re bombarded with the images whenever we look it up,” I said in agreement but Cadence started sighing loudly and obnoxiously.
“Are we really going to have this debate again?” he groaned.
“Did I say we were?” Alessa, of course.
“I only ask because every time you or Marcus bring it up, we start arguing forever about whether it’s real or not - whether the concept was just planted in our minds to make us think it’s real. I’m over the subject.”
“So what do you think then?” I asked him. “Does Heaven exist?”
“Didn’t I tell you already?”
“No,” Alessa said. “Whenever we want your opinion, you get all defensive and act like you’re deaf.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve said this already, but in case you weren’t listening, I’ll tell you one more time. I don’t know. Yes, the database says Heaven exists, but that doesn’t mean we’ll get to experience it…I just want to wait and see what happens for myself. What’s the point in talking about it over and over?”
“What else can we do? It’s not like we have a lot of options,” Alessa replied as Cadence’s face sagged and his shoulders dropped wearily. It was true that we would go crazy if we kept our curiosity to ourselves, but Cadence’s mindset was also appropriate for the situation we were in. We had to be patient, especially since there was no timetable on when we would be able to leave our beautiful penitentiary. We all had tried, especially Marcus, to fly off into space - to touch one of the numerous anomalies that littered our sky - but there was an invisible barrier of some kind preventing us from going too far. Marcus tried breaking it with his fists once every few hours, and the whole island watched in anticipation when he did, but in the end, his excessive failures only confirmed that we were stuck until God decided to release us. If He had put us here, only He could get us out.
“Honestly, I would rather talk about God,” I said, picking myself up off the grass, and standing right between them. “There is no debate about His existence.”
“No, I guess not,” Alessa agreed and Cadence nodded.
“At least we would be doing more than speculating,” Cadence said. “To be honest, God takes up more of my thoughts than anything else.”
The new angel suddenly produced a surprised yelp, noticeably coming out of his daze and eagerly jumping into the conversation, hopping up and down like he was going to explode.
“You know God? Where is He? I want to see Him again!” he chirped, his teeth greeting us for the first time. We all looked at him with a mix of envy and pity, for the situation wasn’t yet known to him. But neither of us could deny the faint embers of excitement glimmering within us at the mention of God - for we too, had experienced the joy that came from being in the presence of our Father. No child could forget.
And slowly, my mind could not help but wander, from the present to the past - to when we had met for the first and last time…
This may come as a surprise, but when I was born, it was nothing like that of a human’s, for in that instant, I was fundamentally whole. I possessed all of my limbs, my wings, and dexterity. Even my stature was one of an adult and not one of an infant. I did not see these appendages and extensions of my body outright, for like any newborn, I had yet to fathom my sight. But I noticed the way my limbs moved – swimming freely from my torso like they were in the midst of their own interpretive dance.
Of course, I was unaware of what “life” had entailed before my birth, but after I had dusted off the cobwebs of my consciousness, it was like coming out of a deep sleep. As if I were an ancient computer being booted up after centuries of dormancy. My body came alive, and it swelled and compressed, my imagination soaring with thoughts of staggering awareness.
I was not a blank slate. There was no tabula rasa.
I knew everything I was supposed to know. Nothing more. All that was required of me - programmed into the core of my soul, unfiltered and disorganized. I’m sure you can only imagine how disconcerting that was – to be born and have instant knowledge of nearly everything – even concepts that had yet to have significance: like how to extract sap from a maple tree, how pepperoni pizza burned the roof of one’s mouth when neglected to be blown upon, or why wind is invisible to the naked eye. A people called Israelites, a city called Babylon, a place called the Garden of Eden. Baseball, spaghetti, sleds, planets, Jerusalem, solar flares, Jazz, toilet paper, automobiles, Heaven, money, bracelets, electricity, toaster ovens and hair extensions…all these foreign objects, places and things tumbling around my head like they were in a washing machine.
I was completely stimulated, and it felt like my mind was going to collapse with the influx of information bombarding me. In that sense, I guess I was like a baby – barely moving, taking my time to open my eyes and encompass my surroundings. It was far too overwhelming to go from none to all, and if I must confess, I wanted to cry.
Crying - my mind computed, startling me with its alarming responsiveness: to weep, to utter sounds associated with grief or suffering…I listened to the definition attentively. Yes, that sounded about right. Suffering, I was. But where was the solution in making it stop? Could these definitions alleviate my distress, or were they there just to tell me what I was feeling?
Thankfully, this pain, this suffering, would not become my first memory – for the discomfort lasted for less than a millisecond, though it felt significantly longer. I suppose the agony I felt must be just like what a child experiences psychologically, coming forth from his mother’s womb and given no time to process his birth. Like a whisper heard from a mile away, I wasn’t even sure of what I had just experienced, and with new sensations flaring up around me – the pressure was already forgotten, like I was working on an assembly line, already moving on to the next product. With the vexation gone, I felt something come near, something I could not feel when my database had been downloaded into my spirit.
This something embraced me, wrapping me up in what felt like strips of soft white linen, swaddling me, soothing me.
It was not the frostbiting cold that every human baby feels when they are taken from their mother’s warmth. That abrupt disconnect from the womb in which he must suddenly face the harsh truth: that from this point on, he is an individual – that he is utterly alone in the unforgiving world.
It was not a machine to pump the fluid from my lungs, the weeping of a relative upon my advent or the cheering of a fellow angel welcoming a companion into Heaven.
No one and nothing greeted me – but Him.
My Father.
God Himself.
It is very hard to explain what it’s like to be in His uninhibited, unadulterated presence. If I had not been made of a spiritual composition, I imagine I would have been obliterated into dust and my ashes cast throughout the cosmos, like ripples spreading across a pond. But I survived, and I was able to assess Him, if only superficially.
His love is what surprised me most. It was suffocating, but in a good way – filling my thoughts, my emotions, my every desire with great respect and admiration. It swept through me like I was transparent; pouring into me once it arrived, transferring its unconditional architecture – filling an empty shell longing for sustenance. Yet even this is not what held my attention.
I could not see Him in His entirety, though we were both of a spiritual nature…but He did allow one aspect of Himself to be visually accessible.
It was the light – that is what grabbed me. A radiant, all-encompassing brilliance that stretched my vision to its breaking point - just right on the edge of strain. Its warm, cozy illumination wrapped itself around my being like a hug, causing little fires to erupt simultaneously all over my spiritual skin. It was like the sun itself had sent an armada of ultraviolet rays to pierce through me, but they were unable to harm - only to kiss my skin in wisps to the border of pleasure and pang.
For what felt like eternity, I floated in that aesthetic light, devouring it with my senses, saturated in its wonder. There was nothing but God around me as I basked in perpetual delight – a new womb to replace my old dark husk in which I had been clueless of my existence. No words were spoken and no thoughts were exchanged. We had become one and the same, our souls inseparable and divinely interwoven by an unspoken agreement.
And then it was gone.
And I was alone again.
And all I cared about – all I desired, all my soul craved, was to feel that episode of complete euphoria once more.
I almost went into a frenzy of madness and despair, until a voice interrupted my descent.
“Open your eyes…”
THE ANGELIC TESTAMENT
Book of Lysander
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Julius St. Clair is a young adult author that has always had an interest in controversial topics and asking questions most people do not want to hear. With a great interest in religious matters, he decided to write The Angelic Testament in order to promote conversation while being entertained. He’s also the author of The Deadly and the short story I Saw God in a Crazy Dead-toothed Hispanic Kid. Currently, he lives with his wife and son in Connecticut where he hopes to make a career out of helping others reach their dreams.