Angel, and yet
And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass.
Ezra Pound
Humans.
He pitied them, really.
Running about, tumbling toddlers even at their oldest, never seeing, never knowing. Only being.
And for that he envied them, as well.
Such short-lived joy a laugh brings- And yet.
And yet.
Humans, they could smile even at the darkest of times, they could smile in the face of death and laugh in the arms of destruction.
And they could grieve for the shadows, cry for the killers, sob for the destructors and yes, humans truly were Father's worst creation.
And yet. His best. Perhaps.
For however short-lived the laugh, the joy would not end sooner for the humans than their hearts. Or their lungs. Or their eyes and their voice and their hands and their choice. Humans, who's only choice in life was live or life and maybe hear or listen.
So few, so few chose to listen.
Listen to the birds, listen to the sea, listen to the fish, listen to the moon, listen to the sun, listen to the stars, listen to the end.
Those others, they only heard, and they only heard the end. Used the little time they had on this his Father's lands to be and be and be, not think, not, never listen, never know.
His brothers, they listened and they knew. Some used the knowledge they were granted by their choice for good, some abused it.
Knowing did not make him happy and yet, and yet, those creations of mud and brief flashes of energy and air and clay and space and no time at all until they were taken continued, refused to be sullen at His sight until the very end they had listened to so intently on a midsummer night's dream, awakened by the light of a star so small and so old it would soon burn out.
And so he envied them. Of all his Father's creations he envied the men of earth and the women of sea.
They were so imperfect, flawed, faulted. And he was not, never allowed to be wrong in any way.
So maybe he was wrong in that, then.
He chuckled a little to himself as he listened to the rumble of the earth that was beneath him and the chatter and the tears and the singing and the laughing of the humans, who were not beneath him.
Never would he tire of this discussion.
Stealthily the dark haunted around him and as the first lamp went, without sound to any ears but his, everything else was drowned.
And star and I and wind and deer / Are in the dark together, -near, / Yet far, -and fear / Drums on my ear
How weak and little this first light was. And yet, the first out of many to light up the universe.
They hadn't come very far. They were never intended for that purpose, though. They were hunters and sometimes they were prey.
Some hunted themselves. Destroyed themselves, tore out their eyes and their voice and their hands and their choice. Sometimes he wished he could do the same. Give in. Give in forever.
His wish was never granted, maybe because he was not, never allowed to be wrong in any way. Or maybe because these beings demanded help. If so, no one had ever told him he was needed.
He took a deep breath, filling his vessel's bronchi with oxygen and nitrogen and dust and space and time and life and laughs and songs and light and bones and salt and lies and love and names and pollen and jouneys and shoes and metaphors and argon and secrets and skin and reasons and dreams and stories and all that is human one more time before he flapped his wings because he was tired and he wanted to go home.
All that was long ago and yet his musings continued.
These women could create life like any other animal but it made them so proud. Pride was not something he had ever felt and he simply could not comprehend what made the woman in front of him smile so. She was beaming in the way only mothers could for some reason. It made him curious, as it always did, always had, always would.
That the simple existence of a child that had not seen the day before was here now, screaming, howling, dripping over everything, growing to spite its parents, to bury them in tears and think of them again, occasionally.
The child grew fast.
And as it did, its parents abandoned it, as they do. Not for long, but perhaps long enough for an angel to sneak in, tell a fable of a lonely wolf, lonelier than the angels.
Who happened to come to a village and fell in love with the first house he saw.
Already loved its walls
the caresses of its bricklayers.
But the windows stopped him.
In the room sat people.
Apart from God nobody everfound them so beautiful
as this child-like beast.
But maybe an angel did, who was lonelier than a wolf and had thirty dead brother's weights on each wing.
Perhaps at night he went into the house.
He stopped in the middle of the room
and never moved from there any more.
He stood all through the night, with wide eyes
and on into the morning when he was beaten to death.
And then perhaps the child who an angel had watched become, fell asleep to the rough voice of a little brother like he was one.
Later then, when the child was no longer a child and had buried its parents in tears and thought of them again, occasionally, and knew this was the end because it had chosen to listen, not hear, it recalled the angels words to him, once upon a time, to listen to the earth rumbling beneath him. And then then the child, that was no longer a child, died.
The angel flew to that child that had made him curious and he ignored the angry prayers at the back of his mind. He looked for a moment at the old man - for that was what he was, not a tumbling toddler, but the oldest he had gotten.
He looked at a moment at the small smile on the old man's lips that was Oh so human and thought that life surely slipped by like a field mouse, not moving the grass.
Well I hope you enjoyed that and yes, the angel was Castiel, who else :P
And here is all the stuff I used:
'And the days are not full enough' by Ezra Pound
'Out in the Dark' by Edward Thomas (which I changed a little to fit better)
'Fable' by Janos Pilninszky (A Hungarian Fable translated by Ted Hughes which is also slightly altered)
Of course, none of these belong to me and neither does Supernatural (though I barely touched that).
I just wrote this quickly so I'd have five stories and I could beta... Well it turned out alright, I think.
What do you think? Tell me in a one-syllable review if you like, I don't care, just favourite and review and move on with your lives or whatever.
Maybe think about all this a bit... Your choice.