by Rice, Anne
I was aware of a rather cool breeze suddenly, and glanced over my shoulder. The veldt and the humans were long gone. The shadowy ferns rose so thickly behind us that it took me a moment to realize that rain was falling from the sky, high above, striking the topmost greenery and only touching us with its soft, soothing sound.
There had been no humans in this forest ever, that was certain, but what manner of monsters were there, which might step from the shadows?
“Now,” Memnoch said, easily moving aside the dense foliage with his right arm as we continued to walk. “Let me get to the specifics, or what I have organized into the Thirteen Revelations of Evolution as the angels perceived them and discussed them with God. Understand, throughout we will speak of this world only—planets, stars, other galaxies, these have nothing to do with our discussion.”
“You mean, we are the only life in the entire universe.”
“I mean my world and my heaven and my God are all that I know.”
“I see.”
“As I told you, we witnessed complex geological processes; we saw the mountains rise, we saw the seas created, we saw the continents shift. Our anthems of praise and wonder were endless. You cannot imagine the singing in Heaven; you heard a mere taste of it in a Heaven filled with human souls. Then we were only the celestial choirs, and each new development prompted its psalms and canticles. The sound was different. Not better, no, but not the same.
“Meantime, we were very busy, descending into the atmosphere of earth, oblivious to its composition, and losing ourselves in contemplation of various details. The minutiae of life involved a demand on our focus which did not exist in the celestial realm.”
“You mean everything there was large and clear.”
“Precisely and fully illuminated, the Love of God was in no way enhanced or enlarged or complicated by any question of tiny details.”
We had come now to a waterfall, thin, fierce, and descending into a bubbling pool. I stood for a moment, refreshed by the mist of water on my face and hands. Memnoch seemed to enjoy the same.
For the first time I realized his feet were bare. He let his foot slip into the water itself, and watched the water swirl around his toes. The nails of his toes were ivory, perfectly trimmed.
As he looked down into the churning, bubbling water, his wings became visible, rising straight up suddenly to great peaks above him, and I could see the moisture glittering as it coated the feathers. There was a commotion; the wings appeared to close, exactly like those of a bird, and to fold back behind him, and then to disappear.
“Imagine now,” he said, “the legions of angels, the multitudes of all ranks—and there are ranks—coming down to this earth to fall in love with something as simple as the bubbling water we see before us or the changing color of sunlight as it pierces the gases surrounding the planet itself.”
“Was it more interesting than Heaven?”
“Yes. One has to say yes. Of course, on reentry, one feels complete satisfaction in Heaven, especially if God is pleased; but the longing returns, the innate curiosity, thoughts seemed to collect inside our minds. We became aware of having a mind in this fashion, but let me move on to the Thirteen Revelations.
“The First Revelation was the change of inorganic molecules to organic molecules … from rock to tiny living molecule, so to speak. Forget this forest. It didn’t exist then. But look to the pool. It was in pools such as this, caught in the hands of the mountain, warm, and busy, and full of gases from the furnaces of the earth, that such things started—the first organic molecules appeared.
“A clamour rose to Heaven. ‘Lord, look what Matter has done.’ And the Almighty gave His usual beaming smile of approval. ‘Wait and Watch,’ He said again, and as we watched, there came the Second Revelation: Molecules commenced to organize themselves into three forms of Material: cells, enzymes, and genes. Indeed, no sooner had the one-celled form of such things appeared than the multicellular forms began to appear; and what we had divined with the first organic molecules was now fully apparent; some spark of life animated these things; they had a crude form of purpose, and it was as if we could see that spark of life and recognize it as a tiny, tiny evidence of the essence of life which we in abundance possessed!
“In sum, the world was full of commotion of a new kind altogether; and as we watched these tiny multicelled beings drift through water, collecting to form the most primitive algae, or fungi, we saw these green living things then take hold upon the land itself! Out of the water climbed the slime which had clung for millions of years to its shores. And from these creeping green things sprang the ferns and the conifers which you see around us, rising finally until they attained massive size.
“Now angels have size. We could walk beneath these things on the green-covered world. Again, listen, if you will, in your imagination, to the anthems of praise that rose to heaven; listen if you will to the joy of God, perceiving all this through His own Intellect and through the choruses and tales and prayers of his angels!
“Angels began to spread out all over the earth; they began to delight in certain places; some preferred the mountains; others the deep valleys, some the waters, some the forest of green shadow and shade.”
“So they became like the water spirits,” I said, “or the spirits of the woods—all the spirits that men later came to worship.”
“Precisely. But you jump way ahead!
“My response to these very first Two Revelations was like that of many of my legions; as quickly as we sensed a spark of life emanating from these multicelled plant organisms, we also began to sense the death of that spark, as one organism devoured another, or overran it and took its food from it; indeed we saw multiplicity and destruction!
“What had been mere change before—exchange of energy and matter—now took on a new dimension. We began to see the beginning of the Third Revelation. Only it did not come home to us until the first animal organisms distinguished themselves from plants.
“As we watched their sharp, determined movement, with their seemingly greater variety of choices, we sensed that the spark of life they evinced was indeed very similar to the life inside ourselves. And what was happening to these creatures? To these tiny animals and to plants?
“They died, that’s what was happening. They were born, lived and died, and began to decay. And that was the Third Revelation of Evolution: Death and Decay.”
Memnoch’s face became the darkest I’d ever seen it. It retained the innocence, and the wonder, but it was clouded with something terrible that seemed a mixture of fear and disappointment; maybe it was only the naive wonder that perceives a horrible conclusion.
“The Third Revelation was Death and Decay,” I said. “And you found yourself repelled by it.”
“Not repelled! I just assumed it had to be a mistake! I went soaring to heaven! ‘Look,’ I said to God, ‘these tiny things can cease to live, the spark can go out—as it could never go out of You or us, and then what is left behind them in matter rots.’ I wasn’t the only angel who went flying into the face of God with this great cry.
“But I think my anthems of wonder were more colored by suspicion and fear. Fear had been born in my heart. I didn’t know it, but it had come to me with the perception of decay and death; and the perception felt punitive to my mind.”
He looked at me. “Remember, we are angels. Until this time, there had been nothing punitive to our minds; nothing that made suffering in our thoughts! You grasp? And I suffered; and fear was a tiny component of it.”
“And what did God say?”
“What do you think He said?”
“That it was all part of the plan,”
“Exactly. ‘Watch. Watch, and look, and you will see that essentially nothing new is happening; there is the same interchange of energy and matter.’ ”
“But what about the spark?” I cried.
“ ‘You are living creatures,’ said God. ‘It is a credit to your fine intellect that you perceive such a thing. N
ow watch. More is to come.’ ”
“But suffering, the punitive quality.…”
“It was all resolved in a Great Discussion. Discussion with God involves not only coherent words but immense love of God, the light you saw, surrounding and permeating us all. What God gave us was reassurance, and perhaps the reassurance that this inkling of suffering in me required—that there was Nothing To Fear.”
“I see.”
“Now comes the Fourth Revelation, and remember my organization of these revelations is arbitrary. I cannot take you through the minutiae, as I’ve said. The Fourth Revelation I call the Revelation of Color, and it began with flowering plants. The creation of flowers; the introduction of an entirely more extravagant and visibly beautiful means of mating between organisms. Now understand mating had always taken place. Even in the one-celled animals there had been a mating.
“But flowers! Flowers introduced in profusion colors which had never been before in nature, except in the rainbow! Colors we had known in Heaven and thought to be purely celestial and now we saw they were not purely celestial but could develop in this great laboratory called earth for natural reasons.
“Let me say at this time that spectacular colors were also developing in sea creatures, in fishes in warm waters. But the flowers struck me in particular as exquisitely beautiful, and when it became obvious that the species would be numberless, that the patterns of petals should be endless, our anthems again rose to Heaven in such music that everything before seemed lesser, or not so deep.
“This music had of course already been tinged with something dark … dare I say it—the hesitation or the shadow produced in us by the Revelation of Death and Decay. And now with the flowers, this dark element grew even stronger in our songs and exclamations of wonder and gratitude, for when the flowers died, when they lost their petals, when they fell to the earth, it seemed a terrible loss.
“The spark of life had emanated most powerfully from these flowers, and from the larger trees and plants that were growing everywhere in profusion; and so the song took on its sombre notes.
“But we were more than ever enthralled with the earth. In fact, I would say at this time that the character of Heaven had been changed utterly. All of Heaven, God, the angels in all ranks, were now focused on the Earth. It was impossible to be in Heaven merely singing to God as before. The song would have to have something in it about Matter and process and beauty. And of course those angels who make the most complex songs did wind together these elements—death, decay, beauty—into more coherent anthems than those which came from me.
“I was troubled. I had a sleepless mind in my soul, I think. I had something in me which had already become insatiable.…”
“Those words, I spoke those words to David when I spoke of you, when you first stalked me,” I said.
“They come from an old poem that was sung of me, written in Hebrew and now rarely found in translation anywhere in the world. Those were the words of the Sibylline Oracle when she described the Watchers … we angels whom God had sent to observe. She was right. I liked her poetry, so I remember it. I adopted it in my definition of myself. God only knows why other angels are more nearly content.”
Memnoch’s whole manner had become sombre. I wondered if the music of Heaven which I had heard included this sombre quality he was describing to me, or whether its pure joy had been restored.
“No, you hear now the music of human souls in heaven as well as angels. The sounds are completely different. But let me go on quickly through the Revelations, because I know that they aren’t easy to grasp except as a whole.
“The Fifth Revelation was that of Encephalization. Animals had differentiated themselves in the water from plants some time ago, and now these gelatinous creatures were beginning to form nervous systems and skeletons and with this formation came the process of encephalization. Creatures began to develop heads!
“And it did not escape our notice for one divine instant that we, as angels, had heads! The thinking processes of these evolving organisms were centered in the head. So it was with us, obviously! No one had to tell us. Our angelic intelligence knew how we were organized. The eyes were the giveaway. We had eyes, and these eyes were part of our brains and sight led us in our movements, and in our responses, and in our search for knowledge more than any other sense.
“There was a tumult in heaven. ‘Lord,’ I said, ‘what is happening? These creatures are developing shapes … limbs … heads.’ And once again the anthems rose, but this time mingled with confusion as well as ecstasy, fear of God that such things could happen, that from Matter things could spring which had heads.
“Then even before the reptiles began to crawl out of the sea into the land, even before that happened, there came the Sixth Revelation, which struck nothing short of horror in me. These creatures, with their heads and their limbs, no matter how bizarre, or various in their structures, these things had faces! Faces like ours. I mean the simplest anthropoid had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. This is a face, such as I have! First the head, now the face, the expression of intelligence within the mind!
“I was aghast! I raised the worst arguments. ‘Is this something you want to happen? Where will this end? What are these creatures? The spark of life from them grows stronger, flares hotter, and dies hard! Are you paying attention!’ Some of my fellow angels were horrified.
“They said, ‘Memnoch, you are pushing God too far! Obviously there is a kinship between us, magnificent as we are, the Sons of God, the inhabitants of the bene ha elohim, and these creatures. The head, the face, yes, it’s evident. But how dare you challenge the plan of God?’
“I couldn’t be comforted. I was too full of suspicion, and so were those who agreed with me. We were puzzled, and back down to Earth we went, persuaded by the earth to wander, to walk. I could now measure myself in size by the scale of things as I earlier mentioned, and I could lie amongst soft bowers of plants, listening to them grow and thinking about them, and letting their colors fill my eyes.
“Yet, still the promise of disaster haunted me. Then an exceptional thing happened. God came to me.
“God doesn’t leave Heaven when He does this. He merely extends Himself, so to speak; His tight came down and took me in where I was, rolled me up into it and against Him, and He began to talk to me.
“Of course this was immediately comforting. I had denied myself the bliss of Heaven for long periods, and now to have this bliss come down and enfold me in perfect love and quiet, I was satisfied. All my arguments and doubts left me. Pain left me. The punitive effect upon my mind of death and decay was eased.
“God spoke. I was of course fused with Him and had no sense of my form in this moment; we had been so close many a time in the past, and we were this close when I had been made, and came forth out of God. But nevertheless it was a profound, merciful gift for it to happen now.
“ ‘You see more than other angels,’ He said. ‘You think in terms of the future, a concept which they are just beginning to learn. They are as mirrors reflecting the magnificence of each step; whereas you have your suspicions. You do not trust in me.’
“These words filled me with sorrow. ‘You do not trust in me.’ I had not thought of it as distrust, my fears. And no sooner had I realized this than that realization was sufficient for God, and He called me back to Heaven and said that now I should watch more often from that vantage point and not go so deep into the foliage of the world.”
I could only stare at Memnoch as he explained all these things. We stood on the bank of the stream still. He didn’t seem comforted now as he told me about this comfort. Only eager to go on with his tale.
“I did go back to Heaven, but as I told you, the entire composition of Heaven was now changed. Heaven was focused on Earth. Earth was the Heavenly Discourse. And never was I so aware of it as on this return. I went to God, I knelt in adoration, I poured out my heart, my doubts, above all my gratitude that He had come to me as He had. I asked if I was free again to
return to the World below.
“He gave one of His sublime noncommittal answers, meaning, ‘You are not forbidden. You are a Watcher and your duty is to Watch.’ So I went down—”
“Wait,” I said. “I want to ask you a question.”
“Yes,” he answered patiently. “But come, let’s continue on our journey. You can step on the rocks as you cross the stream.”
I followed him this way easily enough, and within minutes we had left the sound of the water behind us, and we were in an even denser forest alive, I think, with creatures, though I couldn’t tell.
“My question,” I pressed, “was this. Was Heaven boring compared to Earth?”
“Oh, never, it’s just that the Earth was the focus. One could not be in Heaven and forget about Earth because everybody in Heaven was watching Earth and singing about it. That’s all. No, Heaven was as fascinating and blissful as ever; in fact, the sombre note which had been introduced, the solemn acknowledgment of decay and death had added to the infinite variation of things which might be said and sung and dwelt upon in Heaven.”
“I see. Heaven expanded with these revelations.”
“Always! And remember the music, never, never think that that is a cliché of religion. The music was reaching new heights all the time in its celebration of wonder. It would be millennia before physical instruments would reach a level where they could make even a pale imitation of the sounds of the music of the angels—their voices, mingling with the beat of their wings, and some interplay with the winds that rose from Earth.”
I nodded.
“What is it?” he asked. “What do you want to say?”
“I can’t put it in words! Only that our understanding of Heaven fails again and again because we are not taught this, that Heaven is focused upon the earth. Why, all my life, I’ve heard nothing but the contrary, the denigration of matter, and that it is a prison for the soul.”