by Merry Brown
I wanted to make a run for it, but couldn’t move. I didn’t know what I was running from or how to hide, but I knew something was on its way.
I could feel the life of the world being bled out. I’ve got to get out of here my instincts yelled.
I was about to take Lizzy and run, but she shook her head with an attempted smile. “No,” she mouthed.
I turned back to face the fire.
The center flames rose higher and higher, past the old roof line. When it seemed the flames couldn’t possibly grow, being out of fuel and consuming nothing, a brilliant light shot right through the center and up to the stars.
In the middle of the light a creature appeared. I wasn’t sure what it was. I was certain, however, it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
As I stared in disbelief at this levitating being, it began to change and grow larger. Its radiance increased with its size. It was too beautiful; I feared I’d be fried alive if I continued to stare, but I couldn’t look away.
The creature was an angel, of course, ringed in fire and ice, filling the air with his commanding presence. Though I couldn’t take my eyes off him, I could feel Lizzy’s brothers and sisters had encircled me - for what reason I couldn’t guess.
And then I realized who this being must be; not any angel, but Beauty itself.
Lizzy and the others always said, “Beauty will redeem the world,” and acted as if Beauty was something, some kind of being. I never thought of beauty that way before. I always thought beauty was in the eye of the beholder. But Lizzy thought Beauty was God.
Was this being Beauty? It was beyond amazing… but I felt strange, not comforted, as if one look from Beauty would melt the flesh off my frame in an instant. Should Beauty make you feel so small and insignificant? Maybe – I wasn’t sure.
I squeezed Lizzy’s hand instinctively. Maybe we were being visited as a gesture from Beauty that Lizzy and I were meant to be together? Maybe this was a sign. Me, from the wrong side of the tracks, and Lizzy, an unfallen original, could make it work, despite our vast differences and my deficiencies.
Its radiance was growing too much for me. I had to shield my eyes.
I looked to Lizzy for the confirmation of my suspicions, only to see her shock replaced with an overflowing loathing. Before I could ask what was wrong, the great being spoke with a voice deep and rich.
“Why are you burning my world, my work? Why do you continue to kill and take what isn’t yours? I’ve let you go here and there, live in my world and drink of its goodness. When will you awake and see?”
As the being spoke, the honey falling from his lips became bitter in my stomach. I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but I could feel the façade of goodness and splendor becoming brittle until the air was filled with an unseen toxin poisoning me with each spoken word.
“Young ones,” he said with such grace, “why are you here? Why have you come to destroy what is mine once more? Always burning, taking, and killing. You are misguided.
“I would have left you alone. I would have let you enjoy your ignorance. No longer. See now and hear me. I take notice of you all. I will deal with you.”
He took in each one with his flaming eyes until he got to me.
“And I see you, offspring. You are mine and I will have you.”
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