IRRIDESCENT

Messenger of the soul’s throne do you remember? The day the heavens exploded? Do you still see it as clearly as I do? How there was so much light, how tremendously the earth shook, how there was so much noise and yet somehow no sound? You were there with me. You had my hand in yours. Together we watched as the pillars fell from the sky. The idol faces judged us until the end, united in their censure. The stars rained across their marbled cheeks like tears as they crumbled to nothingness. You told me that you were there for me. You said that there was no need to worry. You said there was nothing to fear. There was no need to cry because you were with me. But they were lies. In the palm of my hand the gravity of your desperation quaked against me. Though you stood unrelenting, your mighty eyes fulminating against the enemy, you were as small as I.

Our hearts and souls burst to pieces staining our faces with sooty refuse. They ripped apart into ditches and fissured open into cliffs beneath our feet bleeding out our happiness until we ran dry. The barriers of our spirits so erect, so aged, so wise, so strong began to bend by their will, snapping our rooted trunks. The branches of our life's symphony knelt before them until they surrendered at their feet. They took a step and we felt tired. They squeezed our lungs free of life and filled us with a noxious miasma of despondency. I was destroyed. I desired to fall to my knees under the weight of devastation. My alacritous prayers spilled from my eyes as I watched the heavens open before us. The savage clouds mushroomed into themselves and hemorrhaged unspeakable hues of fiery crimsons, blinding whites, scorching oranges, smoldering blues, and intolerant blacks and grays. The paean of Azrael, Michael, and Sandalphon melted to antagonizing shrieks as destruction enervated their canon. The nebulous distinction of life and the hereafter was no more.

Do you remember? How you pulled me up by your hand and bestowed me with salvation? Your hope was audacious, your faith austere, your resolution axiomatic. Your will haloed through me. You ushered me from my limitations and provoked something within me I had nearly forgotten-the need to endure. I broke free from my shackles of doubt and followed your lead. I surrendered myself to you. I sacrificed my very being blindly unto you without reserve. We bounded over great lengths. We cleared distances we never dreamed of traversing. But no matter our speed our escape seemed futile. They would obliterate everything until we stood for nothing. Their callous tentacles stretched over our heads. The sound of gears rattled and cranked into a discordant harmony that grated across our teeth. Their demoralizing, alloy-plated boots plummeted deep into our foundations. In their wake they soiled us with their gluttonous, perfidious truth.

With eyes astute as an owl's gaze and hunger voracious as a vulture's appetite their barrels coiled within their bellies. And regurgitated their theories hot as hell's fury into the skies. Hearing our feeble steps they snaked their necks around themselves. Their rotary joints hummed with ease as they contorted their heads into unspeakable positions. They rose up like cobras, flattening their necks and flashing their hoods of sporadic light. Beams of cobalt blue zigzagged over our bodies scanning our forms from tip to toe.

Something erupted in our chests, something that sparked at our fingertips and pulsated through us into one. I believe they felt it before we did. I believe they understood what we had become before we existed. The nascent creed burned our flesh. You pushed me from their line of fire as their horns hissed vehemently. Their barrels cocked as they readied to aim their irascible invective. You didn't waver. Your strength, an insurmountable Everest, poured through your flesh and made you stone. Unlike them you didn't stand to rebuke. You held out your arms to exculpate.

It could have been my mind's eye or the barrage of lights at my retina but what I saw I will never forget. Encompassing your corporeal frame a golden light pulsated with the steady rhythm of your beating heart. The genial vibrations that cradled my childish deficiencies, the exact salubrious vibrations that washed over me countless times, ruptured the empty space about us. Like the regal wings of Horus it spread. Its calidity dried away the trepidations that cascaded down my cheeks. Your words, hymns of old, spilled from your lips. In the name of forgiveness you spoke and with the touch of your hand upon their frigid shell the weight of your magnanimity washed over them. Their apparatuses rusted. Their joints locked. Their spindles broke. From underneath, their power fell away and they collided back to their rightful rung.

Hollow cries blared from the trumpeted mouths of their brethren. The seed of retribution blossomed in our wake. From all around they slithered their retractable necks and blanketed us in their unnatural lights. I precipitated myself to your side. As if I could stymie any harm that would befall unto you, I cast myself upon you, encircling you with my body. Their truculent barrels fired. Our ears rang from the dissonant roar. All at once your amber brilliance domed over us. From a single touch my skin began to prickle. I was engulfed in a tidal wave of searing glory. The flame beneath my skin blazed through my pores. Like a catalyst we combusted, synthesizing into one. Your golden light burst into a vague mist and our world eroded to white.

A rancid smog of carbon blistered inside my lungs. Black powder, acrid and thick, secreted down my throat. My mouth ran dry like desert sand. I opened my eyes born anew. Beneath my hand I felt your vitality rise and fall. Amid the dust you lay. The effete lament of the stars exhumed you from your cavernous slumber. From your chest I rose. We stood to our feet with an infant's grace. We were alone. My ears felt as if they would burst from the profound silence that lingered over us. In the distance our enemies belted savagely, too far to sully us.

Do you remember? How the moon shone like the sun? Illuminating our virginal haven in a tempest of blues and grays, its proximity loomed before us. As if it would splinter the earth itself it claimed the horizon. Powerless against Phoebe's cries Atlas reached out to cradle her. Tremendous tremors convulsed all around. Tumbling, stumbling, colliding about, we did our best to keep our ground. Mother Earth broke apart unable to endure our suffering. Father Sky thundered for her agony. When the pain could no longer be cried for, when the world had no more tears to shed, it all ceased to harrowing tranquility. Before our eyes the universe spelled our fate. The scales had been tipped. Lines had been crossed. Our axis was askew, dipping low into dark abyss.

Mountains became hills. Valleys became deserts. Streams ran to rivers, thick with the garnet oils of us all. "Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?" I cried. There was no hope. There was no faith. To go on while forsaken... such madness in reverie.

You were the first to venture out into their world. You were the first to peer into their canted skies. Perhaps you saw something I did not. Perhaps you heard when I wished not to hear. Your clothes lethargic and worn hung on your shoulders set strong. "Because he loves me, I will rescue him." Your voice came rhythmic. Your voice came unyielding. "I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name." Your words washed over me. They whispered to my irresolution. "He will call on me, and I will answer him." My heart rattled in its cage, turning violently. "I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him." Though my eyes burned the tears did not come. "With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation." With your final word you turned to me. Your eyes held love like they always had. Your movement was grace in the most forbearing of ways. In a single motion you freed me from my intrinsic condemnation. To your side I stood basking in your conviction. I took your hand there and then. Your fingers knotted with mine... you were with me. Do you remember?