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"I could not believe this! Because the suffering of the soulshorrified me. It hurt Michael too. He covered his ears. And the death ofthe souls horrified me. If souls could live, then why not let all know!
And were they doomed forever to exist in this gloom? What else innature remained so static? Had they become as sentient asteroidsforever orbiting the planet, moons that could scream and cry and weep?
"I asked Michael, 'What will happen? Tribes pray to differentsouls. These souls become their gods. Some are stronger than others.
Look at the war everywhere, the battle.'
" 'But Memnoch,' he said, 'primates did this before they hadsouls. Everything in Nature eats and is eaten. This is what God hasbeen trying to tell you since you first began to cry out in protest atthe sound of suffering from the Earth. These soul-god-spirits areexpressions of humans, and part of humankind, born of humans andsustained by humans, and even if these spirits grow in strength towhere they can manipulate living people exquisitely, they arenevertheless born out of Matter and part of Nature as God said.'
" 'So nature is this unspeakable unfolding horror,' I said. 'It is notenough that a shark swallows whole the infant dolphin and that thebutterfly is crushed in the teeth of the wolf who chews it up, obliviousto its beauty. It's not enough. Nature must go further, and spin frommatter these spirits in torment. Nature comes this close to Heaven,but is so far short of it that only Sheol will do for the name of thisplace.'
"This speech was too much for Michael. One cannot speak thisway to the Archangel Michael. Just doesn't work. So at once heturned away from me, not angrily, not in cowardice that God's thun-derbolt might miss me by a fraction and shatter his left wing. But heturned away in silence, as if to say, Memnoch you are impatient andunwise. Then he turned and mercifully said, 'Memnoch, you do notlook deep enough. These souls have only begun their evolution.
Who knows how strong they may become? Man has stepped into theinvisible. What if he is meant to become as we are?'
" 'But how is that to happen, Michael?' I demanded. 'How are thesesouls to know what are angels and what is Heaven? Do you think ifwe made ourselves visible to them and told them that they . . . ' Istopped. Even I knew this was unthinkable. I wouldn't have dared.
Not in millions of years would I have dared.
"But no sooner had this thought occurred to us, had we begunbrooding over it, than other angels gathered with us, and said, 'Look,living people know that we are here.'
" 'How so?' I demanded. As sorry as I felt for humanity, I didn'tconsider mortal men and women very smart. But these angelsexplained immediately.
" 'Some have sensed our presence. They sense it as they sense thepresence of a dead soul. It is the same part of the brain whichperceives other things invisible; I tell you we have been glimpsed and weshall now be imagined by these people. You will see.'
" 'This can't be God's wish,' said Michael. 'I say we return toHeaven at once.'
"The majority agreed with him instantly, the way angels agree,without a sound. I stood alone looking at the entire multitude.
" 'Well?' I said. 'God has given me my mission. I cannot go backuntil I understand,' I insisted. 'And I don't understand.'
"There ensued a huge argument. But finally Michael kissed me asangels always kiss, tenderly on the lips and cheeks, and went up toHeaven, and the whole league ascended with him.
"And I remained, standing on the earth alone. I did not pray toGod; I did not look to men; I looked into myself and I thought, Whatshall I do? I do not wish to be seen as an angel. I do not wish to beworshipped like these surviving souls. I do not wish to anger God;but I have to fulfill His commandment to me. I have to understand.
Now, I am invisible. But what if I can do what these clever souls do?
that is, gather matter to me to make for myself a body梘athersufficient tiny particles from all the world梐nd who knows better than Ido what a man is made of, having seen him evolve from his earlieststages, who knows better the makeup of tissue and cell and bone andfiber and brain matter than I know? Except God?
"So I did it. I focused my entire will and strength upon constructingfor myself a living sheath of human flesh, complete in all parts,and I chose梬ithout even thinking about it梩o be male. Does thisrequire an explanation?""Not really," I said. "I would imagine you had seen enough ofrape, childbirth, and helpless struggle to make the wiser choice. Iknow I have.""Correct. But sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I wonder if thingswould have been entirely different if I had chosen to be female. Icould have. The females resemble us more, truly. But if we are both,then surely we are more male than female. It is not in equal parts.""From what you've shown me of yourself, I tend to agree.""So. I became sheathed in flesh. It took a little longer than onemight suppose. I had to consciously evoke every bit of knowledge inmy angelic memory; I had to construct the body, and then insert myessence in it exactly in the manner in which the natural life essencewould have been inside it; and I had to surrender, that is, encasemyself within this body, really go into it, and fill out its limits and notpanic. Then I had to look through its eyes."I nodded quietly with a trace of a smile. Having given up myvampire body for a human one, I could perhaps imagine a small particleof what Memnoch had experienced. I wasn't about to boast that Iunderstood.
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