(no subject)
In his dreams, he remembered...
Crowley is back in the labour camp in Poland. Its name isn't important. There are so many of them these days. He's been sent to Eastern Europe on a mission from Hell, but once he arrives there he wonders why. This is already Hell on Earth. Crowley thought that nothing could be worse than the Inquisition but he's wrong. Still, here he is with orders to make things even worse for these people. The problem is, he can't do it. On the whole, he likes humans too much to torture them, and pointless brutality always makes him nauseous, so he comes up with a plan that will please his superiors and give the people another chance at life.
He walks amongst the living skeletons, unseen by the SS, but the Jews and the queers, the Serbs and the Witnesses track his lithe movements with sunken, bright eyes. He sees the nudity, the squalor, the filth; smells the waste and char. He thinks that nothing smells worse than burned hair until he catches a whiff of hundreds of decomposing bodies. With extrasensory perceptions, Crowley also sees the shame, the anger, the pain and guilt and terror. He sees Famine, War, Pollution and Death, but always out of the corner of his eye. They are everywhere and nowhere.
Halting in the center of the largest open space, a barren square of frozen dirt and dead weeds, he speaks. His voice carries in the stillness.
"Bóg was opuścił," Crowley begins in Polish. "God has forsaken you. You. The chosen people. Not chosen any longer. Persecuted, tortured, murdered. How could a just god allow it? How can a loving god see your pain and do nothing. He has abandoned you. Denounce your god who has denounced you. Turn away from Him and I will spare you. I will take you far away from here."
And some of them are so desperate that they do make a deal with the devil, or a devil, to escape. Crowley fulfills his promise. He sends them to America. Some of them cannot make the transition and die young, realizing their end of the bargain early. Others start families, live their lives, and grow old before they go to Hell. His plan works in many camps. But not here. Never here.
An old man approaches slowly, skin drawn tightly over his skull, a few wisps of thin white hair clinging to his mottled scalp.
"Do not heed the treacherous one," he cries in his reedy voice. "His forked tongue will bring you nothing but eternal misery."
The man focuses all his horrible attention on Crowley.
"Just because you were abandoned and forsaken; cast off from the Lord due to treason and depravity does not mean that we are. This is a test," he calls, with all the fervor of a true believer. "Just as God tested Moses for forty years, so must we endure to find our reward."
Crowley has heard the words before, but never directed at him. Not in nearly six thousand years has anyone reminded him of the capricious cruelty of his creator; of being discarded on a whim, of Falling so far, of endless pain and emptiness. As he stares at the old man, stunned, lost in his own whirling wretchedness, he doesn't notice the guards arriving. They see the ranting old man but they do not see Crowley. Determined to prevent his madness from spreading, one pulls a revolver and shoots the man in cold blood. His body crumples to the ground, open eyes staring upwards to Heaven, Yahweh's name on his lips.
And in the manner of dreams, Crowley is now the old man, gazing at what he can never have again. He is trapped in the terrible, depleted body. He feels every sharp rock in the cold, hard ground flaying his skin as he is dragged to the ovens and subjected to the intense heat that burns worse than all the flames of Hell. The uncaring fire turns him to ash over torturous hours where he cannot even scream to release his anguish. And in the end, he is a living pile of dust, scattered by the dead wind blowing through a yellow sky.
Crowley drew a shuddering breath and awoke, heart pounding. Disoriented, he half sat up before realizing where he was. But for the first time in the sixty years he'd been having that terrible dream, there was someone lying beside him. Possibly the only person in the universe who would understand. For the angel had been there, too, saving as many as he had damned.
Rolling over and trying to calm his racing heart, Crowley lay an arm over Aziraphale gently, trying not to wake him, but taking comfort in his soft breathing as he remembered that day. The day when he'd said God's name for the last time.
Crowley is back in the labour camp in Poland. Its name isn't important. There are so many of them these days. He's been sent to Eastern Europe on a mission from Hell, but once he arrives there he wonders why. This is already Hell on Earth. Crowley thought that nothing could be worse than the Inquisition but he's wrong. Still, here he is with orders to make things even worse for these people. The problem is, he can't do it. On the whole, he likes humans too much to torture them, and pointless brutality always makes him nauseous, so he comes up with a plan that will please his superiors and give the people another chance at life.
He walks amongst the living skeletons, unseen by the SS, but the Jews and the queers, the Serbs and the Witnesses track his lithe movements with sunken, bright eyes. He sees the nudity, the squalor, the filth; smells the waste and char. He thinks that nothing smells worse than burned hair until he catches a whiff of hundreds of decomposing bodies. With extrasensory perceptions, Crowley also sees the shame, the anger, the pain and guilt and terror. He sees Famine, War, Pollution and Death, but always out of the corner of his eye. They are everywhere and nowhere.
Halting in the center of the largest open space, a barren square of frozen dirt and dead weeds, he speaks. His voice carries in the stillness.
"Bóg was opuścił," Crowley begins in Polish. "God has forsaken you. You. The chosen people. Not chosen any longer. Persecuted, tortured, murdered. How could a just god allow it? How can a loving god see your pain and do nothing. He has abandoned you. Denounce your god who has denounced you. Turn away from Him and I will spare you. I will take you far away from here."
And some of them are so desperate that they do make a deal with the devil, or a devil, to escape. Crowley fulfills his promise. He sends them to America. Some of them cannot make the transition and die young, realizing their end of the bargain early. Others start families, live their lives, and grow old before they go to Hell. His plan works in many camps. But not here. Never here.
An old man approaches slowly, skin drawn tightly over his skull, a few wisps of thin white hair clinging to his mottled scalp.
"Do not heed the treacherous one," he cries in his reedy voice. "His forked tongue will bring you nothing but eternal misery."
The man focuses all his horrible attention on Crowley.
"Just because you were abandoned and forsaken; cast off from the Lord due to treason and depravity does not mean that we are. This is a test," he calls, with all the fervor of a true believer. "Just as God tested Moses for forty years, so must we endure to find our reward."
Crowley has heard the words before, but never directed at him. Not in nearly six thousand years has anyone reminded him of the capricious cruelty of his creator; of being discarded on a whim, of Falling so far, of endless pain and emptiness. As he stares at the old man, stunned, lost in his own whirling wretchedness, he doesn't notice the guards arriving. They see the ranting old man but they do not see Crowley. Determined to prevent his madness from spreading, one pulls a revolver and shoots the man in cold blood. His body crumples to the ground, open eyes staring upwards to Heaven, Yahweh's name on his lips.
And in the manner of dreams, Crowley is now the old man, gazing at what he can never have again. He is trapped in the terrible, depleted body. He feels every sharp rock in the cold, hard ground flaying his skin as he is dragged to the ovens and subjected to the intense heat that burns worse than all the flames of Hell. The uncaring fire turns him to ash over torturous hours where he cannot even scream to release his anguish. And in the end, he is a living pile of dust, scattered by the dead wind blowing through a yellow sky.
Crowley drew a shuddering breath and awoke, heart pounding. Disoriented, he half sat up before realizing where he was. But for the first time in the sixty years he'd been having that terrible dream, there was someone lying beside him. Possibly the only person in the universe who would understand. For the angel had been there, too, saving as many as he had damned.
Rolling over and trying to calm his racing heart, Crowley lay an arm over Aziraphale gently, trying not to wake him, but taking comfort in his soft breathing as he remembered that day. The day when he'd said God's name for the last time.