"Millions started to build the tower in opposition to Him. They were supposed to be spreading across the land, not gathering together and opposing Him." She uncrossed her legs and crossed them back the other way.
I had a glimpse of redness, all wet and sticky. I blocked it from my mind.
"Many descendents of Noah and his family now filled vast tracks of land, stretching far and wide. Nimrod created armies, capturing whole families and villages, turning them into slaves to build his monument. Which he said would benefit them all. They weren"t given a choice.
"He " referring to G.o.d, never by name or stature " decided the best way to break them all up was to confuse them. See, up until that time the whole world was the same language, a form of the Syriac dialect. He went amongst them and confused their tongues. Different words, mutually incomprehensible languages came into being. Ah... the story of The Origin of Language, or known in linguistics as glottogony.
"Now they didn"t understand each other. None able to follow each other"s orders. They split up into their new tongues and went their separate ways. The different nations were born.
"That is why it was later referred to as Babel meaning confusion. Its later name, which you"ll probably recognizes was Babylon in ancient Mesopotamia. On today"s map it"s near Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq." She blew a plume of blue smoke towards the rafters.
"Of course the tower also has had many names. The Sumerians called it Etemenanki, which meant Temple of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth. Nebuchadnezzar wrote about the magnificent tower, which he called the Temple of the Seven Lights of the Earth. The Greek historian Herodotus called it the Temple of Zeus Belus. He described in detail its vast dimensions. In fact, Alexander the Great discovered what was left of the decaying Great Ziggurat of Babylon as he called it and attempted to rebuild it. Alexander"s ma.s.sive army dismantled the remains of the structure but his death stopped the reconstruction.
"You can even see the base of it today on Google Earth. Just tap in 32.5362583N and 44.4208252E, it"s about fifty-five miles south of Baghdad. Modern technology huh." She shrugged her shoulders, in a kind of, what can you do, manner.
My head started to ache, the same way it did just before I had the strange sensation that I was reliving the past, envisioning it. Then, suddenly I was looking down at a ma.s.sive structure as if I was floating far above. Somehow I knew I was seeing what he once beheld, as if he needed to show me, because his words could never convey how magnificent it was.
The battering, frigid wind pummelled my body, pulling the breath from my lungs. I panicked. I was high up. At first I thought I was falling, but soon realized I was stationary, just floating.
But the site captivated my attention. It was a phenomenal structure which must have risen almost four hundred feet. It was vast at its square base, and as it started its heavenly ascent it got smaller and smaller, like a cosmic wedding cake, reminding me of the famous painting The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Hundreds of thousands of people swarmed all over it like insects. Far into the distance there were quarries and brick making a.s.sembly lines, and everything a worksite of this magnitude would need. Huge tracks of dilapidated housing and buildings to support all the slave workers. Fields being harvested for food. Vast herds of cattle in the distance. Huge channels dug to bring water from nearby rivers. Smoke from countless fires and forges hung over the whole site in an enormous murky cloud. It was a site on the scale never before seen, and wouldn"t be repeated until the great pyramid of Giza.
I was up high; the wind battered me from all sides. But even from way up the hubbub of sound was constant. The ringing of hammers on stone. The sounds of tens of thousands of shuffling, labouring feet. Vast clouds of kicked up dust. The smell of pungent smoke. The pain and suffering of the ma.s.ses was blatant.
It suddenly accrued to me I was almost a mile up. How? Then the sensation came to me, as if just waking from a dream. A pulsating originating from my around my shoulders... Wings! I was seeing everything unfold from his angelic perspective.
I looked at myself for the first time; I was humanoid in shape, completely naked. I craned my neck to see my wings. I expected feathers, like giant beautiful white swan appendages, instead I was looking at what could only be described as dull flesh coloured bat wings; contorted bones, like giant stretched fingers, with skin stretch between them. Almost like a plucked bird wing. Maybe when they were thrown out of heaven they lost their attractive ones?
As I craned my neck to examine my wings I noticed other ent.i.ties close by. Hundreds of them, all engrossed in the pain and suffering far below. They had the same wings as I, and I presumed I had the same body as them. They were lanky, almost ill looking, naked beings. They were androgynous, having a combination of masculine and feminine attributes. With thin but muscular bodies, with feminine facial features. There were no s.e.xual organs, no p.e.n.i.s or v.a.g.i.n.a, just a smooth area, like a Ken or Barbie doll. Not even nipples or a belly b.u.t.ton. All had blondish white straight, shoulder length hair which whipped about their face from the strong wind.
They reminded me of the catwalk sensation, Andrej Pejic, the Serbian Australian model, who could wear male or female clothes, and depending on how he dressed determined what s.e.x he looked.
None of the other fallen angel"s acknowledged my presence, they just hovered, wings beating, staring fixated at the misery below. Eyes unblinking engrossed, almost like a predatory animal waiting for its prey to show itself.
"Great days, great days," she muttered which seemed to float on the wind.
The words snapped me back into the here and now.
She stared at me hard, as if trying to come to a decision. She obviously did.
"We didn"t always look like that. We were once magnificent to behold. Sublime, sensual bodies. Graceful, glorious wings of pure white feathers. Beautiful curly, lushes colourful hair. But... we no longer stood close by His glorious personage. We were disconnected you could say, from His Might. Once we were thrown down to earth we started to shrivel up physically and spiritually.
"It never occurred to us that we would be tossed out of heaven. We wanted more, craved s.e.x and countless depravities. We turned against everything He taught us everything we supposedly stood for. We were wayward children. We thought we would get a smack on the wrist. But complete removal from everything celestial?
"Of course I knew deep down this would happen. I had started it after all. But the other angels that joined me thought it would soon go back to normal. They would soon be stood back before His glorious throne. Have their fun, get it out of their system and that would be it.
"What eventually made it even worse for us was you lot. His perfect new creation. You can do anything, from killing, raping, paedophilia and blaspheming, and then simply repent." She spat on the carpet, a big glob of phlegm and blood.
"Yet when some of my wayward brothers went to return, throwing themselves prostrate before Him to beg for His forgiveness, crying out that they had been weak, led astray by me, they were simply thrown back out.
"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of G.o.d"s grace, Ephesians one verse seven states." She snorted.
"In first Corinthians chapter thirteen and verse five it says that, real love keeps no record of wrongs." She was getting worked up.
"Does it not say in the First Letter of John chapter one verses six to nine, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness? And yet his very own children, his angelic family, he doesn"t offer forgiveness.
"The Catholic Church offers the sinner absolution after they have confessed; giving them what is called an indulgence, which is the full or partial remission of temporal punishment due for sins which have already been forgiven.
"There is an inscription on the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, which in Latin reads: Indulgentia plenaria perpetua quotidiana toties quoties pro vivis et defunctis. Translated it states: Perpetual everyday plenary indulgence on every occasion for the living and the dead. In other words, do what the h.e.l.l you like, just repent after.
"The Catholic Church has even given their blessing to a new iPhone application that allows a Christian to confess their sins via their mobile phone. The program is even named Confession. Not only does it help them confess, but it also allows them to keep track of all their sins!
"f.u.c.king humans."
She shook her head slowly, as if trying to shake out the memories. She gave a long deep sigh, before continuing, as if never straying from the story.
"All the powerful nations now started to be formed, creating niches of different languages. None bothering to try and understand the other.
"Hundreds of years pa.s.sed. Nothing noteworthy happened. A few skirmishes and even a few trivial wars, but nothing on the scale of when our children the nephilim filled the world.
"I continued to walk among mankind. But now not being able to take form I simply went among them invisibly, but still being able to affect them in many ways." The smile played across her face. She uncrossed her legs, leaving them open.
I diverted my eyes, not wanting to look. Even though some part of me wanted to know what she had died of, or how she had died.
I realized my shoulders ached, as if I had actually been there, my wings beating.
"Babylon was a great city of false G.o.ds. They knew who G.o.d was. You got to remember it wasn"t long after the Great Flood. Even so they were so easily misled.
"Mankind had always been worshiping in the monotheistic style one G.o.d, one belief system. But I now brought another idea into affect, polytheism the worship of many G.o.ds.
"At the height of Babylon"s glory she was a boiling pot of temples and priests, none to the true G.o.d. It was so bad and filled with false religions that the Book actually refers to Babylon as the Harlot, where all false doctrines and religions started. Egypt, Persia and Greece felt the influence of Babylonian religion. Becoming central points to Greek mythology and Grecian Cults, all stemming from the rotten fruit of Babylon." She started to tick of on her fingers.
"Fifty-five temples of the Chief G.o.ds. Fifty-five temples of Marduk. Three hundred chapels for the earthly deities. A whopping six hundred to the heavenly ones. One hundred and eighty for the G.o.ddess Ishtar alone. The same amount for the G.o.ds Nergal and Adad. And last but not least, another twelve for a small collection of other trifling G.o.ds.
"All ruled over by the Lugal, or Great Man, the representative of the G.o.ds.
"Simply because as the Book says, I can transform myself into an angel of light. Making them believe all these G.o.ds did actually exist.
"I even created a wife for Him Asherah. The word appears over forty times in the bible. You got to remember, even though the bible was inspired by Him, humans still had to write it. Humans can be influenced. And it has been translated dozens of times over the last thousand years; giving me ample opportunities to throw a spanner in the works.
"The word Asherah was used to depict a branch, a tree or simply a rod, but I changed it, twisted it, making it into G.o.ddess a fertility G.o.ddess. His wife! For hundreds of years they drew images of Him with a wife at His right hand. The ancient city of Ugarit was covered in images of her with her triangular pubic hair and ma.s.sive b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
"Never shaved down there back then. Not much oral going on. No one likes to go down on a tumbleweed." She laughed at the joke. Blood bubbled out her left nostril.
"A shard of pottery was uncovered during an archaeological dig at Kuntillet Ajrud, and graffiti on a wall at Khirbet el-Kom stating, I bless you by Yahweh of Samaria and by his Asherah.
"Of course Yahweh was the names the Israelites gave to their G.o.d. His name is unp.r.o.nounceable by mere humans.
"In Psalms eight-two verse one it reads: G.o.d presides in the great a.s.sembly he renders judgment among the "G.o.ds". Us, his angelic children it"s referring too. We are like G.o.ds compared to men. But with a slight twist you can see how it sounds like Asaph the author of psalms eighty-two is suggesting He has an equal: Asherah.
"I know what you"re thinking; the book of Psalms is attributed to King David. But truth be told, over ten different people contributed to it. From Mosses, the Sons of Korah, Haggai, Zechariah, Ethan the Ezrahite and Heman the Ezrahite, to name a few.
"Ah, false religion was my greatest accomplishment.
"In fact all false religion upon the earth that I have created is referred to as Babylon the Great. Simply because that"s where it all started. Why, instead of convincing them G.o.d doesn"t exist, I simply buried Him under millions of other false ones." That twisted smile.
"And it worked. Turning one religion which I created against another. Almost every war ever fought has been over religion. There has been only four days, since 1914, at the start of World War I, where there hasn"t been a war going on somewhere on your planet. Four f.u.c.king days, that"s how good I am at fermenting chaos. Even as we speak, this very day there are seventeen wars going on. Most are in Africa." She took a long drag and held it a touch longer and normal, before blowing a large noxious cloud.
"Of course," she said offhandedly, "my favourite three G.o.ds will always be Money, s.e.x and Power." Her face cracked into that horrific Cheshire cat grin.
"Time"s up," she said, changing the subject suddenly while climbing unsteadily to her bare, dirty feet.
"Already?" I asked. Looking at the clock hanging over the huge mantelpiece I saw that it was almost midnight. Time seemed to have a way of losing itself when he was around.
She sucked hard on the cigarette, pulling in her last breath.
"Tomorrow try and be here earlier, if you have to go out. I am a very busy ent.i.ty." She stared at me hard, her eyes boring into the top of my lowered head.
"Tomorrow is all about the gathering of the nations. Israel was born." She spat the name out, as if it tasted rotten.
Then without fanfare or another word, she fell back into the chair. As dead as those buried beneath my garden.
Whether it was his intention or not, but when the body fell back the knot in the robes come undone. She lay back in the chair, legs wide apart, head slumped sideways, arms hanging limply on either side. The most disturbing thing though was what the fallen robe had revealed. Her stomach was ripped open from her v.a.g.i.n.a right up past her belly b.u.t.ton. Her large and small greyish-purple intestines had sagged out her stomach, now the robe wasn"t holding them in place. Big purple and grey clots, red veins and twisting innards had spilled out onto the carpet. A few drips still splattered down into the now large gathered sticky pool.
What had caused the horrific injuries? I had no idea. Would someone purposefully do that to themselves? I couldn"t even being to comprehend why. Maybe she had found out she was pregnant. I had heard stories about women who tried to do home abortions on themselves. Had she slipped while trying to do it herself with a knitting needle or a pair of scissors, or possibly a twisted metal coat hanger? Or had someone else done it to her? Possibly a husband or boyfriend having found out she was pregnant by another man. Another casualty of pointless rage.
I was pondering these mysteries and thinking of how I was going to clean the mess up, when the front door started banging.
He"s forgotten to tell me something. Why had he come back with someone else? Why not just reanimate the body slumped in the chair?
"Coming. Hold your horses," I shouted.
"Sorry to disturb you so late, Mr. Cain. I just need to take a statement from you, while the incident is still fresh in your mind, being that you were one of the first on the scene along with, Ms. Cuddy and me."
f.u.c.k! What was Kemp doing here so late? It was now past midnight.
I could still hear him talking through the door.
"Sorry it"s so late. But it was difficult to get away from, Ms. Cuddy." He had obviously been to her house first. It sounded like he was now facing away from the door, looking around.
Nosy b.a.s.t.a.r.d.
"One moment. It"s very late," I shouted trying to stall for time.
"It will only take a few minutes, Mr. Cain," came his relaxed voice.
I stood stock still, like a rabbit trapped in the lights of an oncoming speeding car. There was a dead body slumped in my chair, her guts all over my front room floor. s.h.i.t and p.i.s.s as well now that her body had relaxed.
I ran to the kitchen grabbing the empty trashcan and a plate from off the draining board. I now found myself knelt down on my carpet, shovelling slippery innards into my kitchen bin, using my hands to push the wet sticky bruise coloured intestines, and thick blood clots, onto the plate. It felt like cold rubbery uncooked sausages.
In any other circ.u.mstance if I had seen a persons intestines spread out like a tacky Halloween display, I would"ve probably vomited everywhere. But at that precise moment I was s.h.i.t scared. A hundred and one things rushing through my mind. Kemp knew I was in, because my car was there and I had already shouted through the door.
f.u.c.k! f.u.c.k! f.u.c.k!
The voice continued on the other side of the door. "I won"t take up too much of your time," he called, sounding like he was now moving around outside.
Hopefully he wouldn"t roam all the way around, discovering the mounds in the back garden. Luckily it was pitch black around there. He couldn"t possibly see a thing. If he did see them I would say it was just rubbish I had buried. Many people with large gardens, who grow vegetables, dig long trenches and fill them with rotting vegetable matter, and other degradable household waste. Making a cheep, recyclable natural fertilizer. I use too, when I first moved in, but soon gave up because it was too much hard work.
I tried to ignore him, hopefully he thinks I"ve returned upstairs to put on some respectable clothes.
"Mr. Cain?"
I could see a powerful flashlight against my small side window. Luckily it was shut and the curtains pulled tightly across. Trust him to carry a torch. 00-f.u.c.king-7.
"One moment," I said, trying to make my voice sound like it had come from somewhere else apart from the front room.
I rested the bin on her lap, grabbing the corners of the high back chair; I tipped it backwards and dragged it along on its two back legs, heading past the hallway and stairs and into the kitchen, leaving a long trail of clotting blood behind, and a long snaking line of looped intestines that had dropped from her open abdomen, it looked like a long wet sausage skin that had been filled with greyish purple golf b.a.l.l.s. The average human body holds about seven meters of intestines about two meters were trailing along the floor.
"Mr. Cain, please can you open this door?" The m.u.f.fled voice was heading around the back now.
I felt like shouting for him to p.i.s.s-off. Or say it"s too late come back tomorrow. But Kemp was like dog with a bone; once he was up to something he wouldn"t quit until he had achieved it.
I left the chair and the body in the kitchen. Then I proceeded to roll up the carpet from in front of the fire and take it into the kitchen, throwing it down beside the dead woman. One last thing, with a couple of dishcloths I shuffled a long on my hands and knees cleaning up the blood trail. I then dropped the cloth into the coal bucket and shut the lid.
Then I noticed my shirt was saturated with blood too. s.h.i.t! I took it off and threw it next to the carpet, and took off my socks too. I composed myself while washing my hands in the kitchen sink. Then I got a handful of water and soaked my hair and sprinkled some over my shoulders and down my back.
Ready. Well, ready as I would ever be.
A thousand things ran through my mind. I pictured myself being led away handcuffed. People pointing, whispering, saying, "For him to be able to write books that twisted there had to be something wrong with him."
"Coming," I hollered loudly.
I opened the front door and started looking around trying to find him. The cold air hit my bare torso like a kick in the chest. Kemp appeared from around the corner. Just in time, he would have been standing around the back if I hadn"t called him.
"Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Cain."
No he wasn"t.
"That"s perfectly ok, Mr. Kemp." He hated being called Mr. and not stating his rank. "I was having a bath," I said lamely. He could obviously see I was stood in just my jeans, no socks or top, and my hair was dishevelled and wet. Whether it looked convincing or not was another matter.
"I was just checking everything was alright?" He peered over my shoulder. I moved slightly to block his view.
"You must have heard by now about what had happened?"
"Yes. Tragic and very upsetting." I lied. I had seen my fair share of dead bodies. Had only moments before been scooping up slippery intestines with my bare hands.
"Mind if I come in?"