Long black columns appeared, severing the angel's view. They were pale, soft, maternal. Palms settled upon his cheeks like morning dew; the wrinkles fitted themselves into the scratches across his face, wounds born from the battle that had ended only moments before, offering their very cells to mend them; the fingertips, meanwhile, massaged his soft and delicate eyelids.
At that instant, the world that had previously been frozen within an endless sunset reached a prophetic darkness. Every entity that had existed before was swallowed without the slightest resistance. No screams, no pain, no prayers. Only the darkness running its course.
A valiant deed had been accomplished by the nameless one, marking the end of his second mission assigned by the Creator. And so that comforting scent of mint sang the announcement of his return. By then, the stars in the heavens could no longer behold the angel. They had withdrawn into the wounds of a land no longer visible. Every form of dance and euphoria had therefore come to an end. It was difficult, however, to say whether their presence would have brought about the usual stage of colours. Days and feathers, meanwhile, had slipped away like seconds. One hundred and one, to be exact, had fallen from his wings.
Every other detail belonging to the golden bonsai, however, remained unchanged. Countless dead hands, many of them missing fingers, carpeted its limited surroundings. Only by changing one's point of view could the fateful golden flashes be seen emerging through an optical illusion from the holes within the hands, hanging like fruit from the bonsai's branches. The usual master branch stretched farther than the others, a short distance from the Creator's hood. His silent gaze shifted irregularly, first toward the tip of the branch and then toward the only star remaining in the sky...
No...
It, too, had vanished.
Even the two hybrid angelic eyes, one of which now bore a star-shaped iris, were not lying: God had withdrawn with His false prostitutes from the celestial ocean above. Perhaps He had followed them. Chased after them. Or perhaps it was merely a simple, yet harmless, pause...
And indeed, His presence could still be felt. It was that subtle anxiety emanating from the Creator that revealed it. Glances, random drawings upon that small patch of earth, all accompanied by nods, denials, and, from time to time, indistinguishable words. Long sighs and almost animalistic sounds were causing the sacred image the angel had always cherished of his father to crumble. And yet, it was not him who haunted his thoughts.
After countless days, perhaps even weeks or months, the prodigal son had returned home, still overflowing with nostalgia, with an absence so profound that it did not even allow him to take a single miserable step.
There he was again. Every death was merely a temporary pass into that place, where he had always found a refuge destined to evaporate. Scarlet, restless silence, and indifference were like three magi bearing hidden despair and much more into the remaining kingdoms of the Lord. But how could such a Coward remain discouraged before an old and unclean creature, destined sooner or later to cease existing altogether? What, then, had the mother flames been, if not merely an aspect of man? Now that one, if not several, of the sins so often sung of by the Creator had been defeated, what reason was there to be afraid?
God?
Afraid?
What, then, had God become within the minds of those who had always worshipped and feared Him? And if God felt even an atom of fear, what was man destined for?
Such doubts prevented the angel's legs from moving. He remained ensnared within an invisible web, while the clouds of the stage kissed his feet, almost yearning to merge with the light, nebulous fabric that clothed him. The Creator's gestures also gave the impression that he might not even have noticed his arrival. What appeared to be prayers or despair could, in truth, be interpreted as faint blasphemies and subtle insults. Where, then, lay the boundary that enclosed at least the Creator's sanity? And how could the only son present remain so distant, refusing to run toward him and claim the majestic feat he had drawn forth from the pistil of a flower?
And yet, observing him, there was nothing particularly alarming to be seen. The frail, aged body seemed to have undergone some slight rejuvenation. At first glance, focusing upon his legs, one could notice denser, more defined musculature, though still lacking in strength. his skin had lost many of the scars of old age, while his cheeks and forehead bore fewer of those invasive furrows. His hair was somewhat smoother, less greasy, yet still plagued by dandruff and reeking of something akin to a carcass. Finally, beneath the robe clouded between the nameless one's legs, there was...
A little man.
It was impossible to understand who or what had put it there, or at least where it had come from. It stood there, restless and frightened, beside the right ankle. It was roughly the height of an ordinary tulip. Its skin was completely black, like pitch. Four limbs that ended neither in hands nor feet. No eyes, no nose, no mouth. It was equally difficult for the angel to determine whether the things upon its head were tiny, adorable horns. The very instant he felt himself being brushed, he turned his attention toward his own feet. Yet, he could not decipher the behaviour of the little creature. He merely wanted to study it until the creature made some kind of move.
Or perhaps... by touching him... something might happen. Something that would perhaps bring the slightest measure of sanity into such ridiculous peace. The more deaths occurred, the more fragments of madness accumulated throughout the Lord's kingdoms, gathered by the golden flashes behind the Creator. The battles and inner nightmares until then had not granted the young angel a single moment of respite.
But there was no more time to waste. Not now, when the only aid sent by a destiny that mocked God Himself could disappear at any moment. And so he bent down, extending his arm in a futile attempt to touch the little creature resting against the ankle.
Everything's ready...
In the blink of an eye, the creature broke into a run, arms spread wide, along the cloudy path. Naturally, its limited size inevitably affected the number of centimetres it could traverse each second. And so, at certain moments, it would come to a halt, continuing afterward at a far slower speed, accompanying it all with a dance strikingly similar to the one with which the nameless one had reached the Creator after resurrecting for the first time. Tiny piano notes could even be heard with every step, accompanied by tiny lights illuminating themselves in synchrony across the cloudy surface.
It was all far too familiar to the young angel. So familiar that, of his own accord, he did not rush after him. Instead, he seemed almost to anticipate the little man's sinuous movements at specific points. And shortly afterward, almost automatically, he imitated those gestures from afar, as though somehow attempting to provide the little being with cues from behind the curtain.
A kick into the air...
The left hand sliding from above to below...
Legs crossing...
Elbows raised into the air...
Chest thrust upward, then finally sucked back inside the ribcage...
Face turned downward...
Gaze to the left, then to the right...
Repeat five more times...
The fingers of the right hand turned toward the hands of the bonsai, as a greeting...
The index finger of the left hand pointing, palm toward the heavens, at the final target: the Creator...
Every movement matched. But even he, absurdly enough, was part of the scene. This mysterious theatricality spread into every particle reigning at the foot of the bonsai, until it seized his right arm, thrust forward to welcome the little man's arrival in a dramatic, disjointed, terrifying pose. The hand was missing, the hilt of the fateful sword with which the angel had ended his battle at the twin gates. Yet for the little black man, that tiny opening in the wrist was enough.
Without hesitation, he slipped inside. Its upper limbs latched on as though they were the hooks of a tick. At the moment of entry, its pelvis underwent an extension, fusing with the inner walls of the limb. Its legs kicked wildly like those of a newborn child: a mockery, a parody of the nameless one's own birth. And thus, an ecstasy of profane divinity suddenly flooded the Creator.
A surge of extreme pleasure.
Pain and worries erased.
He sighed breathlessly, yet laughed all the while, gazing toward the absent stars within the reborn celestial mosaic, though gravity itself could not pull his hood down. The sounds of torn intestines, bodies carved open, blood being sucked away, bones breaking, and heads being severed grew louder with every passing second, until they became one with the two protagonists. The third, the one farthest away, could only hasten toward his father as quickly as possible, before time could play yet another irreversible trick upon him...
"Assois-toi là. Installe-toi, sois bien.
La lumière face à toi va changer de chemin.
Par moments elle s'éteindra, perdant sa clarté; parfois elle renaîtra, en ton cœur abrité.
À cet instant précis, tu devras répliquer.
Les caractères s'apprêtent, l'encre va s'enflammer.
La rancœur au fourreau, prête à se libérer.
La guerre va commencer, terrible et sans répit, celle que le soleil et la lune, de jour comme de nuit, jamais n'abandonneront sous la voûte infinie."
(Sit here. Make yourself comfortable. Find your peace.
The light before you changes its course.
At times it will fade, losing its radiance; at times it will be reborn, guarded within your heart.
At that precise moment, you must replicate.
The characters are preparing. The ink is about to burn.
Resentment rests within the sheath, ready to be released.
War is about to begin, terrible and unrelenting, the war that neither sun nor moon,
by day nor by night, shall ever abandon beneath the endless vault.)