Angel Dream

I think my new desktop wallpaper inspired an interesting continuation off a dream I had about two years ago. The wallpaper depicts two angels locked in battle, blade to blade, over a fantasy cityscape. One angel is classically heroic, muscled and fair-haired, the other is bald and vaguely sinister-looking for the shadows cast across his back. Both dreams were fuzzy and somewhat indistinct, but the concept must have been sufficiently memorable… most dreams I don’t remember unless they’re recurring nightmares, so even recalling this one makes it noteworthy to me.

Please pardon the dramatics, ‘cuz it means that, at least in the dream, I was some sort of angel. Ruefully wishful thinking, I know. I’m not even religious. Still, religious or not, the mere idea of angels and demons is fantastic and inspiring. The symbolism isn’t wasted on me, even though religion isn’t much a part of my life.

But I want to remember it later, so I’ll record it for myself at least, liberally, uh, ‘embellished.’ No, it wasn’t quite this extraordinary, but if I write it down, maybe it will come back.

The sky looks different in heaven. It is not the azure dome of the terrestrial sky; it looks more like the aquamarine blue of a pristine equatorial ocean. The blue extends so far into infinity that you can’t even perceive its great distance; on earth, you think you can see where the sky ends. Not so in Heaven; the view of infinity is so profound that the mind can’t conjure even the illusion of a periphery. There are angels here, some dressed in simple white robes, others in sharply cut finery of pearlescent elegance. Their wings are like those of doves, and they float amongst the clouds with regal poise.

My wings, though, are speckled and dark. I’m not beautiful, like these angels. My wings are angular, with long, spread pinions, and not comforting to look at. I don’t have their refined bearing; I’m smaller of stature, disheveled, and I lack their radiance. My dress differs; my clothing is older, coarser, torn and frayed at the ends, and singed. I wish I belonged here, but I know I am out of place. I am always out of place.

I regard the other angels with a tense longing in my heart. I want to be accepted, but I’m too different. They don’t even talk to me. I want to be with them, visions of grace and beauty all… but instead I lean backwards and to my right, winging over into a dive. I cut downward through the skies of Heaven with mounting speed, wings folded tightly to hasten my descent. I’m angry. I don’t exactly know why, but the rage adds strength to my dive and intensifies the scream of the wind that accompanies my plunge.

The sound of the air roaring in my ears is muffled by my entrance into a thunderhead below, and the stately blue gives way to the opaque grayness of the Boundary between Heaven and Hell. A few eerily silent minutes pass before I emerge from the cloud’s lower extreme.

Here, the sky is sooty and gray, seared occasionally by painfully jagged lightning strokes. Their glow limns the figures plummeting from the Boundary with flickering highlights of blue and violet. The winged figures streak towards the shadowy expanse below, trailing streams of cloud torn by their descent through the thunderheads. All of them have wings like mine; the wings of hawks, of raptors and falcons. The wings of birds of prey; the wings of war. We carry swords, but we aren’t wearing armor. Why am I doing this? I’m no warrior… why have I left Heaven for Hell?

Horrid humanoid beasts rise from the shadows below to meet us. Some of them I recognize from life, others I do not. They rise upward like a flight of missiles. We are outnumbered.

I roll forward and snap my wings open, bracing myself as I slow my descent violently. Sword raised, I meet the first of the demons who soars upwards towards me. It grips barbed chains in its talons and we clash, link to blade, and recoil, riding the currents to find a favorable position. His venomous chain rakes my left arm and I feel pain.

I do feel pain in my dreams, sometimes. This bothers me, since I’ve always been told you don’t feel pain in your dreams. This being the case, though, I can only hope I don’t have a particularly violent nightmare one of these days.

I see the other demons taking advantage of the opportunity to pass us by, streaking ever faster towards the Boundary. They mean to attack Heaven; I can call on no one for help; the nearest angel is far away, and similarly encumbered. I have to kill this demon myself, and I have to do it quickly. The demon means to ruin my wings with his weapon, but I coil and deflect, knocking it askew, and out of readiness. He needs time to overcome the inertia, but I don’t give it to him; timing my flight, I slide past him, and I run my sword across his midriff. I don’t see what happens, but I know he’s doomed; my inherent viciousness would have me gloat and hack away with bloodthirsty abandon (How is it that I can be an angel? In battle I am every bit as terrible as the opponent I’ve just dispatched), but I beat my wings furiously to gain altitude: the legion of slimy, jagged horrors mounting Heavenward must be stopped before they can bring harm to the graceful ones above. I cannot let them be hurt.

None find their way through the thunderhead, but it is close. Many times, they fall back into the shadows afore a vanguard of lightning strokes. Others I catch, somehow, in the disorienting gray of the Boundary. I become tired and weary; I have trouble lifting my sword, but every time I chase one of the vile creatures down, a familiar surge of wrath gives me the strength I need to kill another one. I am frustrated with the fair ones above; they know what I am doing here, but they are creatures of peace. They cannot defend themselves, and it falls to the rest of us to hold back this evil tide that would bubble upwards through the Boundary to put them to pain and torture. Exhausted, I fall backwards through the Boundary, and a winged shape blasts through the cloud cover, following in my wake.

I am relieved, literally: the other angel gives me a nod, and I nod in return. I level off and begin regaining the altitude to return ‘home,’ as my replacement knifes downward to fight in my stead.

I clear the upper reaches of the Boundary, emerging into that wondrous blue expanse; and again, as beautiful as it is, it does not feel as though I am being welcomed home at all. I’m just here to rest; I’ll be going back down as soon as my sword arm recovers.

Why am I being made to do this? It isn’t fair.

No, it isn’t.

Why can’t I be with them? Why do I always have to fight like this?

It’s your nature. You are not peaceful; you don’t love yourself, though you love others.

Always you fight. You sought to fight the good fight, and so that is what you do. You have spent so much time learning how to fight that you wouldn’t know how to live the life above; you spend more time below the Boundary because it is what you have prepared yourself to do.

I wasn’t given this choice.

Yes, you were. It isn’t fair, but the only reason it couldn’t be fair is because you never believed it could be.

This is thankless. They don’t even know how much danger they’re in, all the time! They never glide below the Boundary. They never fight, fist to claw, with those evil hordes down there.

But you don’t want them to get hurt, do you?

They can’t defend themselves. They have no idea how!

No, they don’t.

You chose to be what you are now. It causes you pain, but the alternative would hurt you more. You won’t ever be happy, and I’m sorry for that. You say you weren’t given a choice, but you were.

Do you really even want to know what is fair, and what is not? In at least one way, the angels above and the demons below were alike in life. They chose only to be what came naturally to them. Many of the angels and many of the demons never made the choices you did; they entered the circles of Heaven and the ranks of Hell without making any choices. In many cases, the only difference between the ones that you protect and the ones you slay were decided practically by accident of birth; the selfless and the caring, you love. The selfish, you despise. It’s not so much that Heaven is blue and Hell is dark; it’s just that this is the Boundary you choose to see.

That’s ridiculous. I can’t be alone in the way I think; what about the others with whom I fight?

They see the same Boundary that you do. I did not say that your Boundary was without meaning; the Boundary divides a difference as stark as the one between night and day.

Enough for now. Maybe, some day, you’ll become wise enough to find your answers. Maybe you’ll understand well enough to know that the questions you have now aren’t as important as you make them out to be. Maybe then you’ll know peace. Until then, you’ll fight, because that, at least, is something you do understand.

I don’t like what you’re suggesting.

You think I’m suggesting that you shouldn’t care. I said no such thing. But perhaps this will soothe you: you could have been one of the ones below. That is who you once were, and you rejected yourself. As unnatural and painful as that might have been, you at least made a conscious choice. That is also why you spend at least as much time in Hell as Heaven. All the same, your choice was a good one, though not a perfect one.

You’re not explaining very much.

Hardly. The depth of what you are depends greatly on the depth of what you understand, and though I could force-feed you what it is you want to know, you wouldn’t yet have the capacity to appreciate it. It would only confuse you now. If it were as easy as merely explaining it to you, you would already understand it.

Are you saying that once I understand, I won’t have to fight anymore?

Even asking that question proves to me you don’t understand yourself as well as you think you do. Just rest for now.

The angels circle above. I am still too afraid to join them.

Maybe I could enter this into a Bad Writing Contest and earn a little supplemental dough. I hear that such a thing really does exist. I could use the money; I’m quite poor these days. Anyways, this probably all means that I wish I were a tragic hero, but really I’m just plain tragic. Whatever.