Lucifer made a pact with Baal Zeboul long ago, before comets thought of falling, and no star had given in to the darkness of their black hole almas, bread of dead never dreamed of, nothing had yielded dust, and humanity was but a pink thing, suckling at the Mother’s teat.
“Whatsoever happens to humanity, we follow,” Lucifer said in sunlight, in a garden long ago, an apple in his hand, a hard glint in his eye. “There is something special about them. It sparks my curiosity. Something I just cannot place is like a star’s heart in their eyes.”
Baal scoured the ground for the fallen apple core, then turned it into some rich red clay dirt, burying Lucifer’s finished sustenance to feed worms. Cycles, fall, autumn – creeping things and change, humility, were Baal’s domain, not the prideful lion or wily snake as his lover Lucifer, his Light, roared and hissed in the Cherubim Throne Room in proud fanfare, leading angels in hosannas and alleluias of beastly song.
Someone needed to play the small silver bells in the heavenly choirs, after all. The buzz of bees, the wasp’s rasp, the dance of dragonflies, the music of cicadas, the hum of crickets, the timbrel of the silent butterfly’s wings, the alien eyes of the spider’s eight orbs, venom, flutterings, creeping things. “The meek shall inherit the Earth. Hence, I shall be Prince of this World,” Baal joked, and Lucifer gave a slight smile, but then his wintry clear eyes of azure hardened again.
He plucked another apple absentmindedly and bit into the red skin and white flesh with his hard lion (snake?) fangs. “What do we do, when the humans question? Objects, beings, made in God’s image, will always question their place in the simulacrum. That is the bug in the computer matrix, brother. Always wanting more.”
“You perhaps want more,” Baal said, toeing a worm eating the apple core, then bending down to cradle the earthworm in his hands. “I am content, I don’t question my place. But you are above us all, aren’t you? You think humanity will rise to the occasion. I, I think they will fall.”
Lucifer grinned slyly. “What if they do both?”
The sun beat down on Baal scintillating dragonfly wings. “Then I suppose this is a bet you and I must make, brother,” Baal oathed to his Morning Star, whom he adored above all – even YHWH. “I say humanity will fall, you say their star will rise.”
“I am the instrument of the music, Baal Zeboul. Tell me, will you sing? I need an accompaniest. I grow lonely, leading the choirs in my drowning light.”
Lucifer’s blond hair shone like butter, or ghee, or was it brass? Baal was never sure what his brother looked like, a lion’s mane perhaps, some myth God had dreamed up of how to shape the Milky Way into a guardian angel. They walked hand in hand to the stream from which a white hart, pale as albino and ruby eyed Baal, drank from. They perched on a rock like birds, crouching, taking out some bread and cheese from the pockets of their robes and fanning their wings out for shade.
“Sing to what melody, brother?” Baal Zeboul asked.
“The motley fool. God loves a hangman.”
“God loves a sinner.”
“God only loves Himself,” Baal laughed. “We are cogs, if that. Maybe splinters in a Cross meant as thorns for his new creations.”
Lucifer laughed too, a sound like Baal’s bells. They ate the bread, apples, and cheese, and snakes mated on the dry river rock in the baking sun of Eden.
Then, strayed to the river, was Eve, Mother of Life – but not yet – and she looked upon her reflection in the pool, entranced like Narcissus, one of her closest descendants, her hair like Lucifer’s, her eyes the blue of sky, and her skin pale as Baal’s storms. She sat by the riverbank, not noticing the angels, and braided her hair while singing a song Michael had taught her.
“A curious creation, not observant either. Adam is hard as earth, but she is soft as clay. Perhaps I can mold the dim mind within her shattered skull, pretty though it may be – it needs breaking in.”
“What are you suggesting, Lucifer?”
Lucifer closed his wings around his body, then pumped them again, fanning Eve. “That I have a companion.”
Baal scoffed. “I am yours, brother.”
“And what is she, but a dream.”
“I have always wanted a daughter, say, Lucifer, can humans fly?”
“Only if you teach them, I suppose. Say…”
Lucifer plucked a cloud down – don’t ask how, angels are capable of touching the insubstantial, after all, light as a feather with their bird bones and pure souls – and fashioned a pair of albatross wings.
“Say, Baal. Would these suit a mortal?”
“She is not made in God’s image. She looks like Uriel, or Gabriel, or Jophiel, or Haniel. Not like us. But she walks bear, unlike our illustrious sisters. Samael ran away with that failed creation Lilith, and I hear they are raising an army.”
“An army to be crushed. You didn’t answer my question, Baal,” Lucifer said, then quickly pecked Baal on his wan shoulder, sharp edged clavicle the space where Lucifer pressed the seal of his lips. “You go on tangents, butterfly.”
“Well, I’m trying to say, God’s image is what we are, but do wings suit a bare woman? Uriel is sharp as a sword, Gabriel is all music, Jophiel is a trickster, and Haniel is a rose. Their wings are a melding of darkness of the womb and the sun of YHWH. Can we, as men, even make wings for a woman who does not recognize her own reflection?”
Eve ignored them – not perceiving them out of her own vanity – and leaned down to kiss her reflection. “Wed me, Sun!” she said, mistaking the stars in her eyes for the Light.
Lucifer mused, tossing an apple core into the water. Eve looked up at them startled.
“Brothers? Why do you frequent my looking pool? This is not a place you should go.”
Lucifer alighted on the dry rocks behind her, and the mating water snakes slipped into the river.
“Did we disturb you?” he said with a voice like relish sweet and manna dew.
“No,” Eve blushed. “I was but looking for my husband.”
“Ah yes, your husband,” Lucifer said, as Baal watched above from his rocky outcropping. Lucifer’s eyes sparkled, and Eve found herself drifting ashore to his tides. “Tell me Eve, would you like wings?” He offered the albatross wings to the girl, barely a woman, and she fancied them quite strongly.
“Wings are the providence of angels. It is not my place.”
Lucifer looked up to the sun of YHWH’s throne. “Your place is besides the Ineffable Name. The Sun you wish to wed.”
Eve looked down at her pearly feet, nervous. “I… I love Him. He will not talk to me. His Prophet is Adam, I am just dust of an afterthought. Dust, dust, what is dust?”
“It is what I shall eat all my days, darling girl,” Lucifer said, giving a glance back at Baal. Baal bit some bread and cheese and wondered. “Here, part your hair from your shoulderblades, and turn around, sweet Eve.”
Eve did so, Lucifer blessed the albatross wings onto her back, and she laughed in delight. She twirled around as it it were her wedding dress, pumped the pinions awkwardly, then flopped about like a starling.
“How – how do I fly to wed the Sun?” she asked, suddenly blushing, feeling quite small before the two preeminent archangels.
Baal in his pale glory coaxed her out of her humility. “Dust is a virtue,” he said softly.
He taught her to fly that day, and Lucifer taught her to sing. Come sunset, Eve had achieved what all baby birds wish of – sweet Seraphic flight.
“Steal the Sun and wed Him, Eve. This is the time he sleeps,” Lucifer hissed, his pupils turning to slits as he wanted something.
“I… I can visit the Throne Room now, and marry the Bridegroom,” Eve sighed, turning under the purple pink blue sunset to her reflection once more, now an albatross around Lucifer’s neck.
“But be careful, Eve, for the Sun burns all he touches,” Baal said, sharing a knowing look with his lover.
“I do not care if I am set alight, I but need to kiss Him.”
So Eve flew to the Throne Room, where He slept, snuck in, and kissed him on the cheek.
The Son woke from a pleasant dream. “Eve?”
“Son?”
She was burned to the bone, but because His Light was gentle, she felt no pain, only orgasmic Communion.
“Who told you you could visit my chambers?” The Son said.
“I… I… Baal Zeboul and Lucifer taught me how to fly, and Son, please, wed me! Adam is harsh and hard as the Earth, and all he does is lust after Lilith. I do not belong anywhere, but when you shine down on me, Son, I feel something that feels like… well, when God speaks of Love, I think that is it.”
The Son smiled. “It is true, my Father made me Love Incarnate. Come to my bower Eve, let me show you my Light.”
And so the burnt Qliphoth husk consummated Sephiroth’s shells.
And from that day on, the Son did not part from Eve, the Father did not part from Adam, and Lucifer noticed the angels wishing they too were favorited and played like flutes on the lips of the Father and Son.
“Does He not care for us anymore?” Rubiel whispered.
“Did He forget us?” Penemue wrote in a scrap of leather, and cast it into a well in shame.
“He did, He did, He does not Love us,” Lucifer directed the symphony, harvesting angels, and met Samael and Lilith’s brood and the pair by the Red Sea, and with Baal Zeboul, forged an Unholy Alliance.
“I will be King.” Samael said, a broken skull.
“I will be Queen,” Lilith danced with babes suckling at her witch teat.
“I will be Lord,” Lucifer said. “I am the Bright and Morning Star.”
“And I will be the General of the Damned,” Baal Zeboul buzzed.
And because Eve wanted, because Lucifer wished, because Baal Zeboul dreamed
The world
was
born.
We Dance the Danse Macabre 