October

Issue 37

     I'd been a guardian angel for all of ten seconds, and already I hated it.
     This thing was only four cells big, and I was supposed to stay nearby for the next what, eighty years? So yeah, I could do my job on it--my real job--and make sure its soul dropped like a concrete balloon into Hell. But I'd rather see one of the wretches end up in Heaven than be shackled to a prison of flesh. It had to die.
     A thousand years ago, another demon claimed God had muddled up which angels were which, and as a result he'd been enchained to the human he'd have guarded if we hadn't escaped Heaven. He thought he was important because Origen documented it; and ooh, the condition even had a big name, "apokatastasis."
     He recounted the tale with relish. No one tells campfire stories like we do around the big campfire ("Most demons yoked this way are never heard from again!" Boo.) Scariest was that when it got older, he could feel its emotions, sometimes even heard it praying. He urged his revolted audience just to kill it while it's small.
     In a way it was a fascinating entity, and I found myself staring at the viscous soul as if it were a carcass in the woods. It would have been mine if things had worked out differently.