Curiously, I felt the wind and the cool dew of the grass on my feet. The leafy blades tickled at my skin. I had not felt the earthly plane so personally since my time in Eden, for since then I had not made myself manifest as an earthly body. I looked at my arms and legs, and found none of the delicate, perfect grace of an angel, but rather the shorter limbs of a man, a human, clothed in the rough garments of a shepherd.
For a moment I felt sudden shock and alarm. I was mortal, without my powers or wings. The shock lasted only for a moment though, for the cool wind in my hair calmed me and brought me to my senses. God had simply put His plan into effect, and this was the first step. I wondered what the next would be.
This general query was answered when I felt a disturbing spasm from within. Again I was frightened, until it dawned on me that this strange sensation must be what hunger felt like. As the sun gently rose into the sky, I realized that this was the hour where most men broke fast and ate the first meal of the day. Once I understood the sensation, it was actually rather stimulating, as it was new and different. Soon, though, its novelty wore off and I was simply hungry.
I began to walk down the hill, in the direction the girl would always take to get home. The shepherd’s family was the only hope for food in the desolate hills, and that was where my maiden, my goal, would be found. What is that saying, killing two birds with one stone? I could get rid of the discomfort being hungry caused and also find my love.
For a little while I enjoyed walking, but it too grew dull as I began to miss being able to fly. I found myself wondering how humans could stand having to do it all the time. Then it began to hurt, as my feet were bare and without a single callous. Having never needed to walk so much before, the world was wearing down my virgin feet.
Gradually, however, I realized the progress I was making despite the pain, as the family’s home came into my view after I crested another small hill. A stream went by the house and it flowed through a meadow. In the stream was my maiden, bathing. As I grew closer I realized that she was unclothed.
I remembered her routine, suddenly. Before heading off to bring her father his noon water, she took the opportunity to bathe in privacy behind the house in the stream. She would repeat the ritual every evening upon her return home to wash the day’s sweat and dust from her form. It was a ritual I had observed countless times before. I came closer, and leaned against the side wall of the house. I watched her, as I had always watched her, while she splashed around. I was lost in thought about how beautiful her dark hair was, and how lovely her tanned skin. So lost in thought, I took no steps towards concealing my presence, so when she turned to the bank to get out of the stream, she caught me staring.
She screamed, and then grabbed her robes and rolled out of sight on the grass to the back of the house. As I came around the corner, hoping to reassure her (I had realized my unexpected presence must have been alarming), she swung out with a filled water-bag, catching me across the forehead and knocking me to the ground. I fell onto the grass, clutching my brow. Pain, like hunger, was a new experience, but not one I felt I needed to take time to appreciate. It hurt. I saw that she was about to hit me again, so I did the only thing I could think of to avoid getting pounded. I spoke to her.
“Hannah, wait!” I said in her language, speaking her name for the first time, “I come in peace! In the name of God, please let me speak.”
I don’t know if she stopped her second swing with the bag because I knew her name or because I mentioned God. It doesn’t matter, I guess, since either way she decided not to strike again.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” She demanded instead, lowering the bag but keeping it in her hand, just in case I should have proved hostile.
“I’m…” I realized suddenly that I had nothing to say, save for the absolute truth. As unbelievable as it would be to hear, it was also honest, and my love for her made me feel truth was the best policy. I looked up at her, radiantly angry and beautiful, naked as the day she was born, and confessed why I was there. “I have been sent by God. That’s how I knew your name. My name is Raphael. I’m sorry if I frightened you.”
“God sent you?” Her expression, which had been one of fierce determination to protect herself and her home in case I was threatening, instantly changed to a softer, hopeful look. I had expected her to be disbelieving, simply because many people are sceptical about God’s presence, but she took my word as truth. Faith can be a powerful thing, and she had been waiting for God to send someone for a long, long time.
She bent down to look me in the eye. She studied my face carefully, looking for something… whether for signs of dishonesty, truth, or the mark of the Lord, I cannot say. She closed her eyes suddenly, and seemed lost in thought. It was a tense moment for me, as I wondered what she was pondering. My heart began to throb within my chest as she sat there, unmoving. Finally, she opened her eyes. Evidently she must have come to some positive conclusion, for, as her eyes opened, she placed a cool, somewhat moist hand to my cheek and smiled brightly.
“I’m sorry for hitting you, but you must admit, it was awkward. One never really expects to be watched while one is bathing.” She almost laughed.
So did I, out of nerves and relief. As she had stared into my eyes, I had gazed into hers. I found myself lost in their brown depths, and I never wanted to be found. I was tremendously happy to be near her, to speak with her, to have her hand upon my cheek.
“And why were you watching? I fail to see how a servant of God can find it acceptable to view a naked woman without her knowledge or consent.”
“I am sorry for that. I had forgotten that I might be seen, out of habit. I was just watching, I meant no harm. And, what crime is there in watching something beautiful? God created things as beautiful so we would praise His Creation. Such is right. We only sin when we seek to own or destroy that which the Lord gives freely.”
She pondered my answer for a moment, her palm never moving from its place on my face. I began to feel as if I would never want to move again, but that eternity could be spent like this, she and I together.
“I understand your reasoning. There are men who would feel lust and wish to possess me, but you do not, that is what you mean?”
I nodded. She possessed me in a way, because I loved her and thought of nothing else, but no being has any right to truly own another. Desire for such is pride and greed, the ways of sin. I merely wished to be with her and serve her out of love. Lust did not enter into it.
“Yet you say I am beautiful. Is it not true that men lust for beautiful things? And you said it was your habit to watch, and I am afraid I do not understand what you meant.”
I hesitated for a moment before answering. My love required honesty, but so much so that I revealed that I was an angel to her? Did she need to know? But could I honestly say that I loved her, if I was unwilling to put my trust and faith in her?
“I am not a man, so lust is not an emotion I have. I am an angel, entrusted by God with the duty of watching over you as your guardian. I have known you your whole life, been with you through it all. While I do not lust for you, my time near you has made me love you.” I spoke with strength, my feelings for her revealing themselves. I, a mighty archangel, became completely vulnerable for a moment, trusting a mortal woman with the truth of myself and my soul, for that truth was wound up forever with my love for her.
Her face held an expression of complete surprise, frozen in her tracks, but her eyes positively glowed with emotion. Somehow my words had touched into the deepest recesses of her being. I think perhaps that she was overwhelmed at the idea that her prayer, her dream, might be coming true.
“I know it must be difficult to believe, but it is true, Hannah.” I continued in earnest, hoping to convince her. “I love you, and I am an angel. Your angel. I can prove it. I can tell you something no once could possibly know, because you were alone, unless they were invisible, like an angel.”
She could not speak, so overcome by emotion, but her eyes implored me to go on.
“I was there the day the dove fell, and the day you met the hawk. I know of your prayer to God, your wish. He sent me to grant it.”
She fell over in surprise, landing in the grass. She began to laugh and weep at the same time, her warm brown eyes shining. I sat and watched her, uncertain whether I should say anything. Gradually the laughter and tears subsided and she wiped her eyes. She looked at me and smiled.
“Forgive my laughter,” she began, almost giggling under her words, “But I find it quite funny that I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear those words, and yet I struck you when you arrived, a messenger of God. The man, or angel, that He sent to me. And I could have killed you!”
With that she began to laugh again, there in the grass by the stream in the sun.
No Man an Island 
12 comments
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November 29, 2007 at 5:25 am
Bertram
I like the last line, but I would leave off “with that.”
I hope you’re going somewhere with this archangel stuff, because you have veered far away from the story you spent all those previous chapters setting up.
November 29, 2007 at 6:04 am
nomananisland
I’d say I’ve veered off, by about at least 4000 years. Trust me, it will tie together. I hope — otherwise, I’ve seriously screwed up the whole book. 😉 I should think that our angelic narrator might be a clue as to what happened on the plane in the first chapters. I mean, as an indicator of an internal logic for miraculous survivals and prophetic dreams.
Point of trivia — the Opening section used to be the first chapter of the book. Would you have read it if that was the start?
November 30, 2007 at 6:11 am
Suzanne Francis
How can he say he was”madly in love with her” and not lust after her? I just don’t buy it.
November 30, 2007 at 2:03 pm
nomananisland
There’s a difference between lust and love, and I think he explains it pretty well. Lust is excessive, and wanting to possess the other person sexually for yourself. Love is appreciating the other person for themselves. Raphael’s personal gratification doesn’t enter into his feelings. He’s “madly” in love because it’s almost inconcievable for him to fall in love with a mortal at all, and his siblings certainly behave like he’s crazy when he visits Heaven.
However, if you think it’s helpful to have the two characters discuss the sin of lust and the virtue of love and the theological and ethical underpinnings of those theories, particularly in the Greek usages of Eros versus Agape, let me know. As a philosopher, I can go on about those ideas for pages. As a writer and a reader, it seemed unnecessarily didactic and pretty dull.
November 30, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Suzanne Francis
I know about eros and agape. And philia and storge for that matter. I am not suggesting you insert a philosophical diatribe into your novel. But where is it suggested in philosophy that lust is excessive, especially if you are making it analogous to eros? Eros is the love of beauty, the love of the body, sexual longing. Perfectly normal, perfectly human, non-sinful behavior.
When he was her angel, and she was a child, then no doubt he felt agape and storge for her. But when she grew up…
“But as she aged, my feelings for her changed dramatically.”
What did they change to?
I think you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. (There’s a cliche for you Pat!) tee hee
November 30, 2007 at 11:45 pm
azetidine
Is there a way to move the comments link to the bottom so I can see the comments right after I’m done reading and not have to go back to the top?
Thanks.
Also, I don’t think I would have started reading this if “The Opening” had been the first chapter. The way you started it here in the blog was different, intriguing, a good hook by way of promising something with a unique point of view. Raphael here, both from what I get out of the text and from what you say in your comments, really does come across as a walking cliche.
It isn’t just that, though. Both of these characters are simplistic, unfettered, probably intentionally so, but it doesn’t make much of a connection with the complicated life I’ve experienced. I’d say putting these chapters here as an interruption of the other narration is a risk–again, probably intentional, but just pointing it out. You risk losing readers. As short as these are quite a few may go by before the point at which I’d put down a book. So you have some leeway to hook this little digression back into the other storyline(s). But not, I’d say, a whole lot.
Anyway, keep going, good luck, and have fun.
December 2, 2007 at 12:50 pm
nomananisland
To Azetidine:
Your comments are exactly why “The Opening” is not the first chapter. The risk involved in keeping it, is part of why I call this book “experimental” in the subtitle. If Raphael is coming across as cliche, that’s both good (because that’s his character) and bad (because it is indeed a risk).
My hope is that the risk is worth it, and that readers who have made it this far would trust the author that brought them, to see the point of all of this. That’s maybe a lot to ask, but I think it’s also giving credit to readers: I think readers are wise enough to see that the writing style has shifted to something resembling folk-stories and fairy tales, with more stereotypical characters — and that they’ll assume it’s for a valid reason, and suspend judgement until it makes sense.
Otherwise, I’m shooting myself in the foot 😉 .
December 2, 2007 at 1:05 pm
nomananisland
To Suzanne:
Because I don’t want to include a philosophical symposium in my book, I compressed several ideas into my last comment instead of discussing them at length. I was not trying to imply that Eros and Lust were synonymous, I was simply indicating that there is more to human experience than love versus lust, there are more classical interpretations.
But since it’s come up, I guess discussing it here is a good idea (and it may give me ideas about improving the book, so nothing is ever wasted 🙂 ). In theology, and also church-inspired fiction throughout history, Lust is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. These sins are often of excess. Greed is excessive desire for money, Gluttony for food, Lust for sex, Vanity is excessive self-admiration.
In the modern age, lust is usually used as a synonym for desire, for longing. But I would argue that this takes away from the impact of the word and its historical usage. Eros in Greek thought was much closer to that idea of desire and bodily love, which (you’re right) is a very human experience and has nothing sinful about it.
Raphael certainly changes over the course of his experiences with Hannah: as a child, he watched over her like a father or an older sibling, and had feelings of Agape, primarily for the soul. Now that he is in human form and meeting her as an adult, that is taking on a new dimension of Eros, which he is only developing a vocabulary for.
The conversation he has with Hannah about love and lust is to indicate the difference between him and human men: as an angel, he literally cannot sin, it’s not in his nature. Therefore, he cannot Lust, which would be excessive sexual desire and the need to possess the object of his desire. He can certainly experience the non-sinful aspects of love held in the two ideas of Eros and Agape, where the beloved is a subject and not an object.
Because of this discussion, I’m going to need to review the entire “Opening” to see if a) I need the discussion at all — is it relevant? and then b) do I say enough about it, or does it need a better description? Thank you for your thoughts!
December 2, 2007 at 1:10 pm
nomananisland
To Azetidine:
As for the comments — I’m still learning how to use “blogs” but I do know (so far) that this particular page format doesn’t let me play a lot with the comments function. However, if you would like to read the comments immediately after the chapter and not have to scroll up, there is a simpler way to do that (rather than me having to redesign the site).
Simply click the title of the chapter (in this case 57. The Opening – Boy meets Girl) and it will take you to an identical page with the story and comments together. For some reason, when the website is linking pages together so you can click “Previous Chapter” or “Next Chapter” it doesn’t show the comments. But if you click the title, you get a page with the text and comments together, but not buttons where you can click for previous and next. Weird, I know, but I’m trying to figure out a way around it.
December 6, 2007 at 10:04 pm
azetidine
kk, awesome. That’ll work for now. 🙂
December 24, 2007 at 7:29 am
sonjanitschke
To answer your trivia question about whether I would have kept reading if the Opening was the beginning — no I wouldn’t have.
Simply because I am not a Christian.
I have to say this developement is a surprise, but not entirely a welcome one.
And the whole archangel stuff rubs against me but I’m probably extremely biased, so any other comments will focus on writing structure, not plot.
And to be completely honest with you, I probably would have put this down if this was a published book. I don’t mind that you started with something that you thought was more interesting, but it seems as if you tried to trick the reader into reading the story.
That was my first impression at any rate.
December 24, 2007 at 1:43 pm
nomananisland
I hope the impression changes. It’s not meant to be a trick. The Opening seemed like genuinely a bad place to start the story.
I realize that this is a book populated with Christian characters, even angels and demons. But it’s not a book “for Christians” or to convince people they should convert. I’m not a crazy fundamentalist evangelist.
I may have to totally revise the entire novel to accomplish what I want to in this regard, but this is not a story about Christianity. A major theme, that might be too subtle to notice, which means I may not be able to write it properly, is that our environment shapes our perspective and sometimes blinds us to the truth of reality. For example, the angels don’t like humans. But they don’t personally know any, either. Raphael adjusts his perspective, and learns to love a human.
Ethan read Beauty and the Beast and assumed the person who knew him best should love him best, so he got obssessed with Hope. But he grew up and became more mature, and tried to let it go as just childish. Perspective changes, and the paradigms we think in have to be adjusted. The angels are in the story more as allegory, symbols of an institution. That institution gets challenged in subtle ways by this text. I hope.