At Least it's not a Deal with the Devil

by J.A. Von Schinzel - Reynolds

+The Malaria Shroud

At least it’s not a deal with the Devil.

“Have you been talking to the angels above your desk again?”

“No, not really, only when I think of asking them where I left the lightning. I misplaced it in a dream, and it’s been bothering me again. Can’t seem to find it unless I really need it, and I’d just like to have it over on hand to entertain guests with; you should see the looks I get when I fart thunder and blow up soda cans w lightning bolts from my arse. I’ve also cauterized gunshot wounds with it before. The emotional ones anyhow – because although they don’t leave you dead, I need a little pick me up on occasion. By the way, you’re floating. I told you about that.”

“Sorry.”

She. She’s everywhere for everyone, but for me, and for now, I’ll call her Sarah, because your eyes would burn if not your mind if I wrote out her real name. She’s a newly appointed Seraphim, used to be a Nymph, of an admittedly demonic nature. A Succubus. Trying to be a Muse. A Succubus trying to be a Muse. Arch Angel. In training. They do that you know.

 I think I’ve been marginally aware of her for a long, long, time andI’m at the point where I don’t really care what she is anymore. Arch Angel in training, fine, great. We have some tension in our relationship in case you haven’t noticed.

Although I’ve been quiet recently with a lot of, in the long run, insignificant issues, yet have asked that certain lowlife infidels be struck down, Gabriel gave me an ultimatum. Yeah, that Gabriel. Get her in line. Someone needs some writing inspiration; you get her ready to inspire. Like I’m a fucking one man charm school. And Gabriel likes to find those just aware of him to amuse himself with.

After all, I’ve had a lot of experience with muses. I almost married the last one. So armed with a little knowledge of how to give this a push past the impossible, I agreed. But not to strengthen my muse for others. Because if I can’t have her, neither can you. Now my horn is blowing, I have made judgment as you would, Gabriel. But I’m sure you knew the outcome before I did.

I

Nice to be aware of the latest, just kind of stumbled on her when I got home tonight. I saw someone tonight I know only barely, yet want to know better, and I could almost sense her in the room. But it wasn’t until I sat down at my desk when I walked in tonight and thought of writing a scathing update, letting someone know I know, which is always such a waste of time, that I realized I was deliberately pretending I didn’t know I was being guided again. And I spoke with Raphael’s Cherubs over my desk, and had a quick visit with Gabriel. And started writing about all this.

II

“Sarah.”
(Moaning) “Joe.”
”Could you, um, get your head out of my lap?” I put that as politely as I could…God, she’s beautiful. Just more than slightly discarnate. Voice of an angel. I’ve been trying to give up sex with Spirits in general. She isn’t helping matters.

“You… don’t like what I’m doing? What?”
Guess you can amuse yourself with a Succubus but it’s hard to take the suck out of a Muse. Boy, am I going to Hell for that comment…

“Well, it’s just that it’s not why you’re here. According to Gabriel, remember?” Gotta love being able to name drop on the Archangel of Justice and Judgment’s behalf, gets the lessers attention pretty quickly at least.

She falls back on her knees. I pat the right side of my desk; remind her I asked her to chill there, where I can see her at least. She abides, but pouts luridly at me. What that mouth could do…

“So would you still like help with your writing, Joe?”

“Well, yeah, what do you have in mi- hey what the fuck?”

It was just a matter of course, really. Let’s call it a writing incentive.

III

“Joe, it’s just

The Malaria shroud

I look at all the love I’ve found under here within and without

The Malaria Shroud

I’m just starting to notice how hot the blood boils under

The Malaria Shroud

Rivulets of blood, purity divine stain

The Malaria Shroud

Yet my eyes do not bleed

My soul does not feed

Stasis til the end of time left here enwrapped within

The Malaria Shroud

Boiling blood smolders guides me to the cremation ground by the river

Where I burn beneath

The Malaria Shroud

It’s like Midnight lightning on the horizon

Yet it never rains, and you never sleep under

The Malaria Shroud

You’ll cry tears of blood yet you’ll never drink deep beneath

The Malaria Shroud

If you’re not careful, you might see what I truly am when I lift back

The Malaria Shroud

…Malaria Shroud…

Malaria…

IV

“EENNNOOOUUUGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!”

The voice of resonance, as if one hundred wispy, estrogen flushed and in heat, throaty yet with that innocent quality that every man has an ear for, she spoke, bantered at me, “Why Joe, can you see now why it is that you might just not need me as much as you thought? Or at the least that you might want to keep your mind on my reason for being here?”

“Point taken, Muse or whatever it is that you are now. Be free to be what thou art, whatever you may be in your truest form.”

V

There was a light in the room, and as a pair of wings spanned to the ceiling, I knew I was bearing witness to a miracle. Perhaps the miracle is that a mortal could not be selfish at just the right time, that just once the madness of both saints and madmen could be set aside and undo even an Arch Angel’s trickery; that Gabriel would want me to believe that Sarah was best with me before others in her present form. All things change even as they remain the same. I closed my eyes for a second, but what I felt in my mind was the same.

The Demon of my youth, come to rip my spirit from my body, to terrorize me until I was strong enough to leave my body willingly to destroy it – the source of all lust, reason of my debauch, the litter of broken women behind me that I needed to outgrow – the muse I would question on occasion, tortured witticisms flooding my mind faster than I could write them as if a magic dust blew in my ear. All of them the same as this entity before me that had been tamed over the years, and as I said to myself once again that I think it’s true, that aliens and angels are one and the same, it dawned on me.

That all of these creatures, all of these phantasms of the mind and my spirit were one and the same and I could either fight them for another eternity or I could embrace them and love them. So I did.

I saw an Arch Angel being born, and she knew it to be true as she saw it through the eyes she had looked through one too many times; until Gabriel, in his wisdom, did grant me some control over the situation. I hoped he was pleased, that someone else might be spared Sarah’s, um, wit of mouth.

I stood for what was selflessly correct to me and chose to see what I will call my Guardian, my Watcher, ascend. And there was Light.

Even through the Light that filled the room, like a firefly the size of a man had exploded, I saw her as she wiped her mouth and vanished. And instead of all of the burning torment, like Malaria in the vein, there was Love.

Her head was not only out of my lap, but not trying to be on my shoulders any longer, and I thought of all the times I had thought of how a divine possession is still possession and that for all those who thought they were possessed by some creature, evil or divine, they only knew the half of it. Perhaps I’m only touch’d in the head. But I knew that if there is a Heaven, it will never be the same with her there. Neither will I be.

Tempérer l'acier, encore l'esprit le fouet.

Temper the steel (of your mind), never mind the lashes (of self punishment)

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