Within Delight
The Angel Winnriel shook the windswept sand from his beige kaftan. Keeping a wary eye open for Adam’s line, he traversed the dry bed of the Pishon River. Presenting himself in their human form wouldn’t prevent a bullet if they lay among the scrub brush.
It had been thirty years since he was this close to Eden, not since Desert Storm. That first earthly mission in almost two thousand years had horrified him with the advancements in human carnage. Now the violence barely registered among their atrocities.
But Winnriel wasn’t trekking through the abandoned riverhead to reminisce. Or lament. His mission today was simple, if daunting; cross enemy territory and report to the Cherubim on the Third’s principality in Iraq. The Third rightly feared the Cherubim’s whirling blades of fire, and so they would not trouble him this close. But the journey had not been without danger from his former brothern.
If only Adam’s line could see the world as Winnriel did, as all his kin could. With angelic sight, he could see the blueprint of the land’s intention. The traces of goodness could still be read underneath. The blending points of the spiritual and physical realms where the echoes of perfection clashed with the modern state of corruption. Even now, Winnriel could perceive the forgotten roots of gold and onyx that once grew in decoration here. Although long since over-harvested, plucked without discretion until their plenty ran as dry as the river, their dormant seeds still glimmered in the hope of new birth.
Just as he did.
Winnriel reached the site of the water’s ancient convergence. He again pushed his vision beyond the apparent and towards the actual. The experience was something like those strange collages human children were fond of. The kind that hid sailboats among overlapping images of waves. All it took was the right type of focus– a twist of the mind between perspectives– and full reality coalesced. Such a trick applied angelically, and the Cherubim at the riverhead became plainy seen.
Two Cherubim stood tall and bright, humanoid giants of opalescent light. The heat shimmer waving from the sand was indistinguishable from the radiating edges of their conflagrated blades.
And guarded behind them, Eden.
“Winnriel, you are late. Does the battle fare poorly?”
“As poorly as it ever does. I myself contended for six days with the Third to reach you.”
“Unfortunate. Yet you seem none the worse for it. Michael chose you well for this task.”
Winnriel bowed to accept the words, then gave his report. When he finished, the Cheribum exchanged looks, eyes alight with worry.
“Something has troubled you?” Winnriel asked. Nothing he had said seemed of particular consequence. The Third often stirred up human corruption to divide the species. It was as commonplace as the human predilection to divide themselves. Nothing ever changed in that regard since the Third had fallen, so many millennia ago.
“No, not in the events themselves,” replied the left Cherub.
“Then…?”
“It is you, Winnriel, that gives us concern. You see Adam’s line in rebellion and forget our place in their story, or theirs in the Speaker’s. Long years of earthly service have muddled your perspective.”
Winnriel clutched the wide sleeves of his kaftan in surprise and gaped. Adam’s line slaughtered their own kin daily, all over this holy land! Yet his perspective caused concern?
The right Cherub lowered his blade and turned toward the entrance to Eden. “You will follow me in.”
Winnriel gasped. “Impossible! Is it not forbidden?”
The Cherub stepped forward, voice low, “This place is not barred to us. We guard it for the good of Adam’s line, awaiting the return of its intended use. Yet that does not mean it is without any use. Come, and I will show you the truth retained in the last of undefiled earth.”
Speechless, Winnriel followed him into the Garden of Delight.
How to describe it? Even after decades on earth, the senses for interpreting the physical world were still foreign. Could air feel nobler than this? Fragrance more poignant? Water more melodious? Could the wind-stirred frond, flower, or branch be better shaped by the light of sun or star? In Eden, all things grew in a purification of an intent as distilled in form as poetry.
Winnriel, being a creature of Heaven, was accustomed to glory. They began in the radiating splendor of the Speaker. Yet Heaven was a place of spirit; it required different senses altogether from sight or sound to perceive. Delight was heaven incarnate—a raw physicality of creation. Untainted or diluted by the corruption of the race given dominion over it. To walk it was to experience heaven in flesh, heaven meant truly for those of body.
Sidestepping the tranquil headwaters of the Pishon, Winnriel’s breath caught.
Growing from its bank, in the garden’s center, towered the Tree of Life.
The curved ridges of its bark spoke of unmoving growth. Its sunburst leaves seemed familiar to the point of pain, yet were unknowable. This was not a tree for any creature of spirit who, on occasion, took up a body as duty demanded. Its vitality was not like his angelic endlessness, but a fruit to be given again and again. This tree was a jewel of physicality, cultivated for a crown of kingship in creation’s finale.
Weeping, Winnriel understood.
In the gift of his created beauty, he himself gave a glimpse of heaven to the humans who saw him. Eden did the reverse, and gave what no words might. A glimpse at the long-obscured truth of Adam’s line.
“I see now,” he groaned, sinking to his knees beside the Cherub, “what no sight could perceive! That Snake that rules the Third, stole more than just Life from Adam’s line here!”
“Indeed.” rumbled the Cherub softly, “He stole their very place in Life. Eden bears the image of heaven, just as Adam’s line bore that of The Speaker. And our battle bears our responsibility to the Third, just as it was the glory of the Speaker’s Word to do the same for Adam’s line. Take care, as you serve, to not forget the trauma our kin inflicted. Nor the true nature of its victims.”
When Winnriel finally left, he knew he never would.
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