Fallen Angel

It is a cold, dull day in early March. Drab gray light sucks the colour from most everything around him, the one exception being the buttery yellow heads of scattered daffodils which stand out in the gloom like tethered, earthbound stars. Their presence is the only reminder that the winter months have passed, the biting chill doing its utmost to hold the burgeoning spring at bay.

Like the daffodils, their shining heads tied to the ground by their green stems, he too feels tethered and earthbound, the weight of his depression holding him down, his mood as drab and colourless as the city buildings that surround him and the sky that arches over him.

It is on days like this, at times such as this, he seeks solace within the medieval splendour of the city’s majestic cathedral. He is far from a religious man, organised religion in particular is anathema to him, yet inside those thick stone walls, walls that have witnessed the endings of two millennia, he has finally been made aware of his thirst for something spiritual, for something beyond the mundane materiality which has become the sole measure of the worth of both himself and the world he lives in.

Turning left off one of the city’s major thoroughfares he enters a quiet side street which in turn takes him to a stone gateway surmounted by a fortified tower more reminiscent of a castle than a place of worship. Passing beneath, into the grounds of the cathedral itself, he immediately feels his mood begin to lift, the worries of the temporal world somehow checked at the door like a divested coat.

A whitewashed tunnel guides him into the cloisters and past the fondly remembered coffee shop. He briefly considers stopping for a cup of tea and a slice of coffee & walnut cake but decides instead to savour that particular delight on his way out; he cannot know it but that is one cup that will remain forever untasted.

For now he savours only the feeling of transition he always undergoes as he steps through the ancient wooden door into the nave of the cathedral proper. Entering from the south he turns briefly right and then left, stopping at the crossing and taking in the power that radiates all around him. If his soul were a third lung then this would be the oxygen it thrives on. Breathing in deeply he feels the warmth, wellbeing and benevolence engendered by eleven hundred years of worship filling his body. It matters not that he doesn’t believe in God in his heaven, the legacy of all those devout believers who have stood in this spot before him is palpable, a living force in its own right.

He turns in a slow circle, looking first down the length of the nave to the great west end window, made only slightly less impressive for its stained glass being muted by the greyness outside. Turning his attention northward he takes in the entrance to the tower that even now reaches imploringly above his head, beseeching God to bear witness to the piety of its creators. He’s always meant to venture up those two hundred plus steps but now he never will.

Turning eastward he looks up the markedly fewer stone steps that lead into the quire; beyond is the high alter itself. His gaze lingers briefly until his eyes are drawn to the east window, its glory similarly dimmed by the lack of brightness behind it. Lastly he turns to the south, to the opposite end of the crossing; here lies the exit from the crypt.

For him the heart of all this splendour resides beneath his feet, below the flagstones and tombstones that make up the well trodden floor. It is in the cathedral’s crypt, the egress from which he is now looking at, where he seeks and usually finds the solace he yearns for. He heads for a spot adjacent to the high altar, the entrance to his subterranean enclave, the one place in the world where his mind can find freedom despite being surrounded by the enmity of his everyday thoughts and emotions.

As he descends the wooden staircase his feeling of calm increases, even as the temperature around him moves in the opposite direction. The haven of serenity he now enters is roughly the size of a basketball court, its vaulted roof supported by five rows of ancient stone columns. The spaces between the pillars in the two outer rows have been filled in, some long ago with similarly ancient stones, others in later times with glass panels, thus creating an inner chapel. At the point furthest from him is the doorway to this inner sanctum reached by what is in effect a narrow corridor flagged with memorials to the long ago dead. Whether the remains of those thus memorialised lie below the floor he walks upon he knows not but the softening of the carvings on the stones bears testament to the countless feet that have gone there before him.

Inside the chapel twenty-one pillars, silently bearing the weight of the cathedral above as they have for eleven centuries, stand like sentries in three evenly spaced rows. A further four pillars form a semi-circle at the far end of the room, enclosing a wooden altar table that stands in close attendance to the pillar at the head of the midmost row. This one column has never caught his attention in particular but on this day it will be at the heart of his final moments on this earth.

Oftentimes as he has sat in peaceful contemplation in the cool air of the crypt he has found himself totally alone. On other occasions the silence has been interrupted by the soft scraping of feet on the flagstones and the all too loud whisperings of fellow visitors. An intrusion perhaps, but as sounds go they are perfectly safe. Today however all is quiet, all is solitude... until….

Until the silence is suddenly broken by a sound totally unexpected and completely out of place. It is the sound his imagination tells him would be made by a snake slithering along a narrow pipe, a dry rasping sound like a leather suitcase being dragged across a rough concrete floor. Intrigued and disturbed in equal measure he casts about him for the source of the interruption, his senses eventually leading him to the pillar closest to the altar. As he steps closer the sound abruptly ceases; curiosity overcoming fear he presses his ear to the cold stone.

The sudden resumption of that strange scraping startles him; a quiet click similar to that made by the opening of a latched cupboard causes him to jump with fright. On the face of the pillar the outline of a panel can now be seen, like a door that has been pushed to but not completely set back into its frame. Drawn by some irresistible impulse his fingers scrabble at the edges of the crack. Gaining purchase on the side of the panel he pulls it towards him.

Bright light stabs forth from the opening. He feels no sense of being uplifted as one might expect if this were the light of God made incarnate in His house. Instead he is overwhelmed by intense fear, a feeling so strong it becomes physical. His scalp tingles violently, as if a hundred needle thin electrodes have attached themselves and started vibrating in unison. A chill seeps into the hollow at the front of his neck, the outer edge of each breast is beset by a pain as if he’s been punched, while in the centre of his chest is a feeling of unbearable tightness. His breathing comes in short, laboured gasps. Icy fingers run up and down his spine and his limbs begin to itch uncontrollably as though a host of tiny ants were scurrying over his skin. He feels the muscles tighten in his arms and legs while his stomach feels like it is trying to fold in on itself. An overpowering sense of “wrongness” clutches at his mind coupled with a certainty something terrible is about to happen.

The panel swings open completely, the ungodly light leaping out at him. It sears his face, turning his skin to a bubbling mess, boiling the sight from his eyes. He tries to scream but even as he opens his mouth the heat steals his voice, turning his throat to a ruined, useless hole that quickly swells shut. So it is this man who has craved death as an end to his suffering, who has contemplated suicide numerous times and attempted it twice, dies at last in unbearable, insufferable pain. He dies too in ignorance, ignorant that this is not the divine light of God’s revelation but the hellish radiance of a fallen angel cast out from Heaven and held captive inside the pillar for eleven hundred years.

As quickly as it began the demonic, destructive pulse of light is gone, gone too the life of an innocent bystander; never has the phrase “wrong time, wrong place” rung so tragically true. Had he the life or indeed the eyes left to see he would see the void in the pillar completely filled by the body of a great serpent, a body that continues both up and down within the confines of its stone prison. Upwards there could be six feet or so hidden from view, how much more lies below is anybody’s guess.

From the shadows at the back of the crypt step the figures of two men, two men whose own guess at the size of the horror imprisoned within the fabric of the cathedral would be more educated than most. Dressed in black from head to toe, broken only by the gleaming white of their matching dog collars, they approach the pillar. They show no fear of what lies inside, nor do they show any compassion for the burnt and broken soul lying dead at its base.

The shorter of the two priests gently pushes the panel shut; the pillar at the centre of the crypt again looks identical to those that surround it. He lays a chubby, well manicured hand almost lovingly upon the stone, gently caressing its surface. This is no gaol built to keep someone a prisoner, it is a refuge designed for keeping someone safe, for keeping someone hidden.

‘Rest my master,’ the priest coos softly. ‘Rest for just a little longer, your time has almost come.

COPYRIGHT D M PAMMENT 22nd aPRIL 2011