Snippet #2773928

In the darker days of man the stars dominated the endless nights and held sway his thoughts of heaven, gods, and fate. Scholars, kings, and prophets used these celestial bodies to divine destiny, shape human history, and understand man's place in the universe. In time, as spangled sprawls of urban lights slowly spilled across the once dark land, the earth grew to mirror the night skies, even challenging them--the stars dimmed and with it the faith man put in them.

But now that the metropolis lights blotted out the stars, where did man put his faith? What guided him now that the stars were gone, reduced to mere objects upon which a child makes a wish? With the glass and steel and neon canyons, man created his own blinders to what omens the stars foretold. Enlightened by technology at his fingertips, man had driven himself into more darkness and uncertainty. While his predessors relied upon pin points of light in the sky, man wandered through his glittering metropolitan cage faithless and without a destiny.

As if rebelling against the modernity, the blinding distractions and flashy empty signs, a single dark cross jutted into the cold night air. Nestled at the base of a thicket of skyscrapers, the church spires solemnly stood as a remnant of another time.

They were on the roof, the two of them, watching the skies. A few curls of smoke rose invisibly in the dim light as the coals died, the red embers arranged in a pentagram's five points. The city traffic was muffled here, and in the silence wafted inaudible mutterings, almost religious, almost fanatical, almost prophetic. While one of them seemed to be in a trance, the other scribbled madly into a tome.

There was a pause as the last of the embers was extinguished, casting them in total darkness, save for the watery city lights that seeped into their rooftop enclave. The hood of the cloak dropped to reveal a shock of white hair as he leaned forward to whisper something into the other's ear. The pen stopped scribbling and he, the younger one, listened.

The old man slumped onto the ground as if he had exerted all of his energy into the archaic ritual. His mouth worked silently and from his throat rasped, "Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich."

The old man's papery eyelids fluttered for the last time, into the cold night air escaped his last breath, and across his glazed eyes gleamed the blazing white streak of a falling star.

Putting a hand over the old man's eyes and saying a prayer, so he was left to ponder the omen. Every angel is frightening.