SINS OF THE FORGETTER

 

It was a perfectly ordinary day by all means. The sun was shining on him, radiating warmth. The ground beneath his feet, a sense of security. Sometimes the most extraordinary things happen on days like these. For instance, the death of God.

Joy walked into his new high school. Head held high with an invisible effort and his smile constantly changing and correcting itself. He knew no one would dare tell him that he only got into this school because of his father, Archangel Gabriel, but he knew. Lucian Academy for Angels and Demons. Here the best and brightest of celestial offspring learn and, once in a while, get the opportunity to be an archangel, an honour of the highest order. Archangel Remiel was old enough to die soon and the students would jump at the chance to be him. When an old angel dies, his body is destroyed but his soul remains with all his knowledge and memories concerning himself. A new student is selected and his body is offered as host to the soul. And his young soul is destroyed save for a few key memories, which will be forgotten when that body is also replaced. So easy, in fact, that even the garden cherubs could do it.

Joy was obviously given extensive lectures by his father on how to behave and fight to secure his position as the new Remy. His footsteps echoed through the heavenly lit hallways, each sunbeam through the windows, concrete and hot. His ears caught snippets of his name and they tasted sour most of the time. Many sharp and passing glances graced his skin, leaving behind an unpleasant and unscrachable itch. After a few wrong turns, some of them deliberate, he found his homeroom class. A seat in the far back felt more advantageous. The teacher came in, a serpentine man with sharp and thin features. Oily black hair slit back and piercing golden eyes. He said his name, but Joy didn’t hear it.

"Class, I will be your homeroom teacher. That means it will be me who will personally deliver you to the gates of hell if you put at least a toe out of line. I know the devils and incubi you have met in the study tours and school meets give a pretty picture, it is true, but that is not the hell I am talking about. "

A staff member opened the door, looked at the teacher without a word, closed the door, and went out. The teacher took a deep breath and started writing on the blackboard. All this happened in seconds. Beneath the heading, ‘procedures and protocols’, he wrote, ‘What if God dies?’ When the question was completed and the teacher turned back, he saw confused, confident, and excited faces among the crowd. A chubby girl shot up with raised hands and started explaining in detail how, if God dies, a messenger is sent to earth to find a mortal and give him the news, and after the mortal spreads the word, the whole world observes the night as ‘a night to remember’. A new soul will form itself out of their memories and life force, this soul will enter the dead God’s body, and he will be the new God. Humans are then free to settle their affairs, and when the sun sets again, the world will be destroyed and the new God will create a new one.

After the girl finished, she met the teacher’s metallic golden eyes, and anyone who was watching felt a shiver. The pride on her face drained as soon as he explained that he didn’t ask any questions and that it was no big feat that she knew what everybody who had ever passed kindergarten knew. The teacher’s face searched the crowd in cold calculation and without missing a beat said ‘God is dead, so no class today. Leave."

Kids in the hallway were vibrating with excitement. They were from a few generations who could see the death and birth of a God, as it only happens once every few eons or so.

Walking into his home, Joy was surprised to see his father there. He can’t even remember the last time he saw his father in the house at this time. Gabriel’s knit brows and tight jaws spoke volumes. He summoned Joy to the table and explained in brutal detail how he managed to get consent that Joy would be the messenger to earth and that it was a great honor, second only to becoming an archangel, and that if he did it, Gabriel could make a good case for how Joy could be the next Remy. Grinning widely, he thrust the parchment into Joy’s hands and clapped his shoulders in fatherly pride before walking out. As the door closed, Joy said softly, "the first day of school was great, dad."

Every single celestial creature came the next morning to the gates of Celestos to send off the messenger. Joy walked down the carpet in his finest clothes and with bright eyes that concealed perfectly what his heart was feeling. When he reached the gate, he turned back to face his crowd, and among them, he saw eyes of admiration and jealousy, but nothing familiar anywhere. Without ceremony, he locked the gate behind him and leaped out.

Passing between eternal clouds and skimming through galaxies. His wings parted the sleepy gases of the vast space, revealing a blue orb. His feet cut through the air and gently graced the sand. The pressure of the atmosphere embraced him. Joy felt loved by the universe. The scent of dried coconut and its oil rode in the air. The misty sea breeze flowed between his fingers as if a childhood friend was holding his hands.

Shouts from the distance reminded him of his objective. Slightly warm sand cushioned his feet and sent tendrils of oneness throughout his body. The assaulting sharp smell of fish curry gave a shock to his senses. Mixed with it was a palate of delicacies infused in the air. Joy felt all this come from a palm front-roofed shed on the beach and on a blackboard with white paint was written ‘Toddy shop’. Out came a man stumbling on his feet. He held on to Joy for balance. He slurred, "Best prawn fries on the planet". Joy’s wonder at the world and its inhabitants had paralyzed him. The man’s voice dragged him from that ecstasy. Joy read from the parchment, his voice, mechanical and his pace unemotional. Inhaling once more of the myriad of aromas, Joy took flight again. The return journey was quick. He came back and locked the gates again. A familiar body embraced him, and a cheer of echoing harmony spread throughout the crowd. A devil spawn and a cherub placed laurel on his head. On his way back with his father, Joy didn’t notice the countless celestial beings crowded on the streets throwing flowers at the chariot.

That night, the whole of Celestos gathered at the Colosseum to witness the birth of the soul. The night to remember arrived, but nothing happened. The moon sand on the clock ran out and the body of God still lay dead. Whispers and shouts rippled through the crowd. The sun-sand started to fall and the archangels were quick to come to a verdict. They decided that the humans were not sufficient to spread the word, so they had to re-send Joy and make them observe ‘the night to remember’. Joy walked with his father to the gate, Gabriel’s face seemed to be made of stone. His eyes were fixed ahead, and when Joy looked at him to say goodbye, they were still distant.

Joy landed on the same beach. This time, the scent of dried fish coloured the air in its pleasant decay. Joy walked with uneven steps on the uneven sand. The same man from yesterday was walking away from the shop. His feet were like jelly, but he was grinning from ear to ear. Joy followed him to the centre of a busy town and lost him among the throbbing crowd of people. The vibrations on the ground of huge trucks flowing on the streets, the assault of horns and street vendors shouting, the canopy of smells and colors.

"God is dead but nothing has changed. I thought at least the skies would darken, but nothing. The cacophony of civilization is ever-present. The sound and hurry of life all around. People are still going to temples, mosques and churches. I see a man lighting a candle for his daughter’s health. I see a man giving thanks to God for the safe return of his father from the army by breaking a coconut. God doesn’t hear them, maybe he never has. He is dead. They don’t need God, not really. They never have. They needed faith. Life lives. Who is God to take it or steer it? Maybe a dead God doesn’t have much difference between a living one. He was an absentee father, sending his children off to boarding school with only a cheque once in a while. No one was sure if the cheque was really from him. And he doesn’t respond to letters. But if he was present, his children wouldn’t have grown like they have. Like the sun, if he were too close, they would have burned. So let the sun die, man will light a candle. Let them live in ignorance, let them have their short lie that they call life, but let them live. "

Joy took flight before, his eyes landed on the broken coconut. He locked the gate from outside and threw away the key into the river of the cosmos. Seeing this mad action, angels and devils of all kinds mobbed together. Gabriel wore a fury in his eyes which he had only worn a few bodies before. With a constrained voice, he commanded his son to open the gates. "If you can’t do a simple messenger duty, then I will do it myself."

"Why should the earth die?" Joy’s voice was soft but weighted by the emotion behind his eyes.

"I thought they taught you that at preschool.” Gabriel spoke through his teeth. “If a new god is not born, then a dying arch angel will not be able to possess a new body. Are you that selfish to deny a young angel or demon that honor? Or to let the great Remiel die. Are you that childish?"

"Dear father," Joy's voice broke, "you are willing to sacrifice a young demon or angel for someone who has seen millennia, but can only remember themselves. Tell me, will you remember me in your next body. "

"So, what are we to do with the body of God? Since you have gained wisdom from that cesspool called earth, tell us?"

"The Earth has a wonderful tradition. I think it’s time you buried God. Remember him, mourn him. It is disrespectful to the dead to postpone burial. “Though the words he spoke appeared mocking, everyone who saw Joy's face knew he said them with the greatest respect and kindness anyone has ever shown to God. And no recorded history has such a story. "We will always have his memories. Death is a part of life and it’s time we grew up to accept that. If we can’t die, then our memories lose their value. The children of the earth die every day. That’s why their memory is powerful enough to create even God. Their willingness to love and remember in spite of the fact that whatever they love or save to memory will be lost is divine. "

The sheer look of hopelessness in the crowd deepened as the reality of a dead God settled in. But a slender man with oily black hair and calm, golden eyes walked forward. With a tranquil voice and a curious expression, he asked, "What are you going to do now?"

"Me," Joy said, measuring his insignificance on the cosmic scale of things, "I am going to get some prawn fries. Then forgo my powers and memories and live my life among humans, creating new memories, ones worth spending nights remembering, and ones worth being remembered for. "

Joy and his teacher shared a genuine smile as Joy fell from the clouds of Celestos. To where anyone who wants a new beginning goes. To Earth.