75. Gabriel's Message

We made small talk. All except Gee-Oh-Dee, who had tucked a corner of the gingham tablecloth into his collar and was sucking the linguini into his mouth one strand at a time. Mr D had chosen to sit opposite him, which was appropriate and kept him out of the ragu’s splash-radius. That meant I was sitting opposite Lilith. She smacked her lips,

‘So you’re not, you said?’ Mr D sniggered at this. TAFKAG banged his spoon on the table and his bowl filled up with more linguini, this time with clams. I edged my seat away a little.

‘No, I don’t know why everyone thinks I am. There must be another half dozen angels called Gabriel.’

‘Not like you, though.’ Lilith took a sip of the Italian white.

‘It doesn’t matter, I’m not him.’

‘Well, what happened to him, then?’

Lucifer laughed again, spilling some wine down the front of his leisure suit.

‘Can’t you guess?’

Lilith shook her head.

‘Ever seen it written how long the annunciation was before Jesus was born?’

We all shook our heads, except TAFKAG who was staring into the inside of a shellfish.

‘Nobody wrote it down, but I reckon you might guess.’

I thought about that for a while. ‘But that would mean Gabriel fell.’

‘Exactly.’

Lilith ran a finger around the rim of her glass, ‘And just disappeared? For two millennia? I don’t think so.’

‘What about the camel trader at Jabl Al Nar?’

The Devil cocked his head,’You said it yourself, no reason for there not to be more than one Archangel. Besides, you ever seen a single one of those houris up in the Heavens?’

We talked about such things in whispers in The Milk and Honey. The Saved included some of Allah’s true believers, if Pearly Pete decided they were good enough folks to allow into heaven. But the answer was no, there were no seventy virgins and no suicide bombers in the afterlife.

‘So you get ‘em. The fanatics?’

‘Yeah, of course I do. But don’t get me wrong, we are an equal opportunities Gehenna. We even got some Buddhists once.’

I twirled my fork in the pasta.

‘What happened? The Earthbound have always had their own ideas about creation.What happened to all the Gods from before? The Greeks’, The Romans’ and those party boys and girls from Asgard? Why is there just him, and you?’

It was TAFKAG who spoke, the light of a once bright candle shining in his eyes, ‘There is only good and evil. Binary choice. Free will with every lifetime, just like a mortgage.’

Then the candle blew out and he dribbled pasta sauce into his beard.