Death of an Angel

I watch the humans from the heavens as the sun sets, dusting gold sun-rays across the clouds around me, full of grief at the suffering of the earth-mother. I gaze down from the sky-father, as I rest amongst the gentle clouds, where peace reins eternal, serene calmness. Pure whiteness is our world; our haven against the pain of the earth-mother. In this gold-sun moment, I seek the answer. I seek the secret of knowing, the knowledge of truth. I cast my mind back to the past times, seeking the answer which I know must be inside my soul.



We watch the humans as they go about their business, and we see them as they change, scorning the earth-mother and smothering her with the fumes from their burning-oil. The earth-mother cannot fight it, she must simply lie there and wait until she is finally given the eternal sleep, and only that way can she escape the choking grasp of the humans. It grieves us to know this pain of the earth-mother, and sometimes our sorrows become so great that the very clouds weep, and their tears shower down to earth. They are pure and innocent, full of gentle nourishment for the bruised and poisoned earth-mother, and yet the humans shake their heads at this bitter-sweet gift of the heavens, and hide away in their stone buildings until the weeping of the clouds passes.

We see all this with sadness, and although we were sorry for the earth-mothers plight, we did not truly know of the severity of her suffering. Until, that is, one of us took it upon herself to fall with the cloud-tears, so as to truly know the suffering of the earth-mother. She stayed amongst the humans, and then rose back to the sky-father after seven moon-rises and seven moon-falls. Black pollution riddled her soul, and in her mind there was the knowledge that she was dying, dying alongside the long-suffering earth-mother.

It was her wish to die alone, to spend her last moments simply remembering with only the weeping-clouds for company. So now she sits in quiet solitude, her golden hair caressing her face as she gazes out to the sky-father, and then down to the humans and the earth-mother, in the last moments before she falls into the final sleep. She is slowly dying as the disease seeps into her soul, curling its cold black fingers around her heart.

This I know. I alone know the true tragedy of what is occurring, and from this knowledge I can sense that the answer I am seeking is stepping ever closer, rising inside me alongside the coming of my soul-tears. I know this, for I am that one. I stayed among the humans, seeking the answer, forever seeking. And now dying. Forever my soul will sleep.


And so I sit, looking for the last time out over the gold-blushed clouds. At this moment, I feel closer to the earth-mother than ever before, and I know that wherever my soul sleeps, restored to pure whiteness in the moment of my passing, she will join me soon.

Only now do I truly feel what I was seeking. The answer is there, with me, as I now see it has always been, but only now do I understand it. I share this new-found answer with the gold-softened clouds around me, and they weep as they perceive it. I am glad to be in this place of pure soul-rest, surrounded by these knowing-clouds, as I die. I am glad, and yet I cannot be truly glad, for I know all that has ever been. In this one moment, I see the answer. Finally, I know truth. I know, and I weep at the knowing.

With a sigh my golden eyes close for the last time as my soul-tears mingle with those of the clouds, and together they fall, doomed to be shunned by the humans below even as the earth-mother gratefully receives my last gift, as my soul gently rains into sleep eternal.

Hey Vampyre!

Very interesting story you've got here. I liked it. It's written well, and although I never really got a feel for characters or plot, it doesn't matter; the general theme and emotion of this piece was more important.

A couple of things: I wouldn't bother trying to describe her, like when you mention her golden hair and golden eyes. This piece is so abstract that I think it's best to imagine this sufferer as a vague soul more than a human-shaped. And what is this black disease that's killing her? You call it "black pollution", but if you seriously mean that environmental pollution is killing her, I think that's a bit too literal. It's more likely that you just rolled up all the bad of humanity into one scary illness-- which is a bit of a cop-out, I think. Explain this death. Is she too contaminated with the sorrows of humanity to rejoin the other angels? Is she depressed and simply loses the will to live? I think you need to find something metaphorical (since the rest of the piece is), but a bit more concrete and easier for us to relate to than "black pollution disease".

Finally, surely the angels see that humanity has (occasionally) done something good with the world? The view is so one-sided here, and I think it'll make your angel characters seem more omnipotent if you let them acknowledge the bright side of humans. Maybe your character just notices one kind soul as she dies, and goes to sleep hoping that...well, hoping that there's still hope!

(EDIT: I also have to say that squirrely gave some excellent advice as well, about the piece being very repetitive and how there were many paragraphs and sentences saying the same thing. Repetition is a valuable skill when used on purpose, but you don't want to rehash the same ideas over and over again.)

But overall, nice job! Your tone of voice was very imperious and wise without seeming too inhuman. Keep writing, and PM me for anything!

~Evi

Ok, review time.
I know that you can do better then this because I read Escaping From Hell, which was very good and I may do a review of it sometime soon. The main problem that I found was repetition. Many of your sentences either repeated themselves or another sentence. After a while of reading the same thing multiple times I started to get bored of the story. I know someone who whenever he gets a funny joke he stores it in his head, and whenever the situation is right whips it out, without fail. Now the joke maybe funny but after the twelfth time you hear it, it gets dull. Thankfully you're a lot more creative then him.

Vampyre wrote:It was her wish to die alone, to spend her last moments simply remembering with only the weeping-clouds for company. So now she sits in quiet solitude, her golden hair caressing her face as she gazes out to the sky-father, and then down to the humans and the earth-mother, in the last moments before she falls into the final sleep. She is slowly dying as the disease seeps into her soul, curling its cold black fingers around her heart.

This I know. I alone know the true tragedy of what is occurring, and from this knowledge I can sense that the answer I am seeking is stepping ever closer, rising inside me alongside the coming of my soul-tears. I know this, for I am that one. I stayed among the humans, seeking the answer, forever seeking. And now dying. Forever my soul will sleep.

Here it seems like the view is from another angel observing the dying one then it switches to the view of the dying angel. Its something small, but perspective changes can bother a lot of readers if you don't explain them. One way to fix this is to move the break up one paragraph.

Over all I liked the idea. As an ecologically-minded person I love it when people take a stand for the environment. You were very descriptive and it was easy to visualize the whole ordeal. Hope I helped and that you keep writing. ^_^