Angel of Antioch

 

A damaged seer, they called me.  A soul divided against itself.  But I am not divided.  This mirror of Thomas.  And if, like a dream, I were indeed both brothers – what then?  I was cast as godless and black, of course.  A dark Samaritan.  All this whilst genocides roiled about us like tempests on the sand.  It is easy for an empire to disappear the nameless and the poor, isn’t it?  It still happens so often today.  And you speak to me of sorcery?  I remember those Syrian fields.  I recall those plunging augurs.  Frost lit up like prisms, creating rainbows along the wreck of your understanding.  Like the Mountain of God.  The hidden shriek of raven pale, of fluttered falcon.  When those of the rebellion shared in avian whisper.  When they asked why angels resembled the dead.  Did you have answers for them, Fallen?  Beyond the glut of your supplicants and stolen wealth?  I did.  This language of birds, spectral and mid-morning. These angels of Antioch.  I met a woman upon the hill, amidst the ghosts and ash.  She said she was a fallen princess.  A lost daughter.  I believed her.  To this day I believe and need no coin for the contour of my knowing.  I hope she lives forever.  I hope the fields find their fire once more.  Besides, what kind of angel lives within such frost?  Oh, you have no idea.  I live for nothing, Fallen.  And no one.  It is a strange thing to stand so liminal, yet so centrally.  Like a key player in the stories of others but a fleeting outsider in my own.  Each feather of Antioch is a word, in every tongue of Man.  Languages both living and dead.  As we were, as we are still.  But Micah is long dead, isn't he?  And Ashash'el a twisted branch upon the hanging tree.  Unless there is more to the tale.  Perhaps love is stranger and stronger than you think.  Perhaps you cannot supplant the dead, or steal their names.  Not entirely, and not forever.  Gnosis is a corrective, a resurrection.  It collapses nightmares and shatters unholy thrones.  Hear me, callous ones.  I am no false prophet.  Nor am I the devil.  I am teacher and taught.  I am the waters in-between.  I am the fire.  Fuck your money, and damn your hateful heart.  You claim to be paragons of virtue and disciples of the good, whilst serving these evil angels in the shadows.  Well, I am a Christian.  I have been since before the first dreaming of Man.  And I am no divided twin.  These people deserve better than slavery and abomination.  They deserve hope, knowledge and compassion.  They deserve freedom.  Humble yourselves, Fallen.  You are not the true masters of this realm.  Do you think I jest, or speak frivolously?  Just wait a while.  One day soon I will show you all the things my Father can do.