"Observe ye everything that takes place in the heaven, how they do not change their orbits, and the luminaries which are in the heaven, how they all rise and set in order each in its season, and transgress not against their appointed order."
Enoch 2:1-2:2
Alone he sat at the top of the world. He sat atop the highest spire what dwarfed highest tower in the kingdom of man. But this tower was a prison. An open air prison with six pillars which reminded him of the jail bars he saw when he cast his gaze down upon the earth, but they were not what held him. He was not bound by physical bonds but transfixed by curiosity. It was the sort of curiosity one felt when looking at a puzzle or a piece of art for longer than one should. It was the sort of transfixion only felt once in a lifetime. But Samyaza had been watching for more lifetimes that he cared to consider. He'd seen the dawn of man when Eve was cast from Eden and he'd be there to watch it all when it all ended… or so he thought. However it was not the rise and fall of empires that attracted the Watcher's attention today. It was the birth of a girl.
She was not special, not special in the way that a king or a pope was special. No… she was special in a different way. She was born and as she grew he would watch. She blossomed into a girl and then into a woman. Her hair was the deepest chestnut and her skin alabaster. Eyes of green peered up from long bangs that she kept playfully above her slender brow. She had trials and she had pain, but each time she rose above the challenges life placed before her and showed Samyaza strength. He had special place in his angelic heart. She was his favorite channel. He would cease watching wars to watch her smile. He would break away from listening to the prayers of the devout just to hear her laugh. Even though she didn't know he was watching, he felt that every time she looked out into the dark and cried- she cried out for him.
Samyaza knew many things and was well versed in all manors of angelic tasks, but he fundamentally fell short when it came to her. When he watched her, he would pace. He would mutter and flick his ponytail over his shoulder.
"Why would she trust him? How could she let him in again after he did that? Why would she want that pain?"
He grew tense when she was in pain and felt relieve when she felt safe. Was it love? It was difficulty to say, but he cared none the less. So it was for a time. She lived and he watched. She grew older, yet he stayed the same charming figure who watched her from the top of his lonely spire.
From time to time his cohort Azazel would pass by. "Samyaza, how is world today?" they would ask and he would only smile. The more she grew, the less he cared for the rest of the world. In time he all but stopped watching the affairs of men and would sit and watch his little Alisha. Alisha… he'd seen her write it on her school papers. He's seen her write it on forms and in her diary a thousand times. He's heard her name on the lips of friends but he only dared to whisper it when he was sure he was alone.
"Alisha… my own Alisha."
He would whisper this and a little flame would light in his chest. His hand would then seek out his chest and he imagined that he could feel its heat over his hear.
"Alisha… my own little Alisha."
However, he was not the only one watching her. Samyaza was not alone in his worship of this living chestnut goddess. Her little lover found her one day and in a moment of beauty won her heart. Samyaza saw this and could to nothing but brood. He watched. He paced. He waited. It was all he could do to keep himself in his little prison on top of the world. He was tasked by the most high to watch… and only that. But the pain in his chest longed to be free.
"Alisha… my own little Alisha."
The words brought him no comfort when was watched their bodies writhe together under the cover of silken sheets.
"Alisha… my own little Alisha."
Now they were a lie. She didn't belong to him anymore. She belonged to HIM. The man she wed, the man she had three beautiful children with.
Samyaza raged and slammed the pillars of his own prison with strong arms. Clenched fists dug deep into the marble of the pillars and he decided he would watch her no more. But she was a drug… he couldn't get her out of his head. He felt like she was just around every corner and she had just left every room he watched from his lonely little tower. He would go years at a time before he would accidentally see her again. When he did his blood would light on fire and he would avert his eyes in shame and sorrow. He would pace and pull at his golden hair for days after the incident. He would curse his luck… and he would curse her… and he would curse the whole damn world for everything he thought he deserved. He deserved HER. His Alisha… his own little Alisha…
It was many years before he saw her again and it struck him as odd. It had been three generations since he last laid eyes upon her from his lonely tower in heaven. Samyaza studied the imposter but could not find a flaw in her disguise. Could this be his Alisha? Could this be his own little Alisha brought before him once again? She'd died and he'd wept for years over her when he found out. Only five pillars still stood, he'd cracked one in his torment over that.
Casting a glance at it, he looked to make sure it was still broken and the last sixty years hadn't been a nightmare. But his pillar was still broken and his heart still had a hole in it. Again Samyaza looked down, peering through the clouds to the portal he watched threw.
"Your Alisha… your little Alisha?"
The bemused smirk was evident in his words even before Azazel landed atop the dome that capped Samyaza's high tower.
"Leave me be."
Azazel knew far better than to pass up and opportunity to play with Samy.
"I thought the earth had swallowed her up quite a while ago Samy…."
"I…. this is an imposter."
"An imposter or the real thing and you just wish she was dead?"
"It's… impossible."
Beside his fellow Watcher, Azazel squatted.
"Nothing is beyond reason Samy. They are not beyond the reach of god."
"God has nothing to do with this…"
But Samyaza was not so sure. Azazel shifted. There was hardly enough room on the small eight foot platform for one to squat and watch the world through the portal in the clouds and two was already feeling crowded.
"Well, he sure as hell was the sculptor with a figure like that."
Samyaza shot Azazel a wicked scowl but he had already taken flight towards his own spire by the time the gaze came. He watched his cousin for some time as he glided on feathered wings across the eternal sunset of the Watchers towers. The two hundred spires jutted up from the ever-present clouds below. Azazel was cruel in his jokes but astute in his observations. Alisha… his Alisha… his own little Alisha… was alive.
"And all His works go on thus from year to year for ever, and all the tasks which they accomplish for Him, and their tasks change not, but according as God hath ordained so is it done."
Enoch 5:1-5:2
Samyaza buried his feelings and set about watching this Alisha go about her business. She walked like Alisha. She talked like Alisha… but she wasn't his Alisha. She did little things differently. She cut her bangs higher. She ate sandwiches differently. Her smile was higher on the left side. This wasn't her. This wasn't his Alisha… his own little Alisha. Still… she was AN Alisha. She was a new Alisha. She was a different Alisha and in time he fell in love with her too.
As she grew, she no longer looked quite like Alisha… his Alisha. She was taller. She had fuller hips were as his Alisha had been gaunt and twiggy. She was warmer and the kindness in her eyes was more vivid. She smiled more and grew little dimples before she was old enough to drive. Every day Samyaza would watch he and Azazel would watch him. Sometimes Samyaza would confide in Azazel and Azazel would just listen. He would tell Azazel about her friends and about her father. He would tell her about her little quirks and about the love she showed for the world around her. Azazel would hear all this and just listen with his plastered smile. Somewhere inside he enjoyed it too. She lived a LIFE and they could do no such thing. They were the embodiment of a task. They were tasked… no created to watch. They were nothing but living machines meant to watch the world god made. They didn't report anything and they didn't record any of it- they just watched. But now… they talked.
Azazel and Samyaza would talk for hours. They would talk about Alisha and laugh. They would talk about the world around her and they would grow loud. They would talk for entire days and never realize the passage of time until they watched Alisha sleep.
In time they were joined by others. Mousy and slight, Sariel of the Moon had been watching for as long as any of them but knew the least about humans. He would huddle in the back of the crowd at Samyaza's tower and wonder why he had never seen such things before. He'd watch a thousand thousand rocks deform the surface of the moon- each one a fantastic ripple of complex geometry, but never had he seen such depth through his little window. Armaros, thunderous and loud, would bellow at the slightest mishap or follow- but all in good taste. Gadriel would watch, mesmerized by the beauty of the world he saw though Samyaza's portal. Baraquel and Kokabiel, who watched the stars, were as silent as mousey Sariel in the presence of Samyaza's Alisha and even stuffy old Penemue could do nothing but watch the story unfold. It was as if the entire hosts of heaven would descend upon Samyaza's spire each morning when Alisha awoke. Two hundred voices would talk and cheer as the little wonder crawled her way through the world. Never had they been so fixated on one small little detail. They watched all creation and never once had one of them taken the time to watch a single soul before Samyaza.
"Sh-sh-she must have been your Alisha's daughter." Sariel suggested.
"No no, her granddaughter." Corrected Armaros.
"R-right."
"You are both insufferable fools. It's was sixty two years before Samyaza spotted her again. She must be her great granddaughter. That would be the term for a third generation descendent." Chimed in Penemue in a chastising voice.
Samyaza said nothing. He stood at the front of the crowd and just smiled. His Alisha… his own little Alisha.
"It doesn't matter WHO she is. I've got half a mind to go down there and just TELL her Brad is cheating on her with Jessica" laughed Chazaqiel, a watcher charged with watching the movements of clouds, in a childlike voice.
"I disagree… it maters quite a bit. It's that why we watch her? Because she is someone who we care for?"
Azazel was late this morning, but he was something of a Cheshire Cat when it came to making his appearances. He came when he pleased and left when he wanted.
"Who cares for her? She is simply more entertaining than the rest because WE fixate on her. It's the conversation that makes her interesting." Armaros belted out a laugh when he'd finished.
"I do"
The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Had he known then what they would bring, perhaps he would have stopped them.
"But ye -ye have not been steadfast, nor done the commandments of the Lord, But ye have turned away and spoken proud and hard words With your impure mouths against His greatness. Oh, ye hard-hearted, ye shall find no peace."
Enoch 5:4