Uriel

Words burn within me, fire in my hands, fluid as water within my mind, but in my soul they are as light and cumbersome, as pure and defiled, as barren and as rich as the truth. There is nothing else, as this light overtakes me, as the darkness swallows me whole. 1

The first thing that I notice is a faint touch. It tickles, but even as laughter bubbles on my lips, I feel the feathers link to form black chains, holding me fast to the earth. I’m beyond pain, but not beyond the anticipation that these chains summon from me. I know that they are not the end, but the beginning. My eyes are trained humbly upon the ground. In the brilliance of this place, I am naught.2

“Who stands before me?” I look up from the ground, wonder in the tears streaming down my face. 3

“Sarah,” I whisper. The force of my shout echoes to the heavens with the weight of the past, and yet, so little sound escapes. 4

“I am Uriel. Few know me, because none who live have ever heard my voice. I am fated to touch and speak to every soul as it passes through here, but only for a minute. Understand, though, that it is not I who decides your final home. I merely open the door you yourself choose.”5

“Why,” I murmur to the dark-haired, glorious angel, heartbroken, “How sad. Do you mean that in all of your existence, you’ve never spent more than a heartbeat of time with anybody?”6

“I am the last archangel. I am Loneliness. I am He Who is Forgotten, and He Who Stands Alone.” 7

“I will remember you.” A soft smile curves those proud, sad lips. He has been promised this a thousand times, and a thousand times, has been forgotten.8

His eyes cast behind me, to where a hoard of people waits. “Who bears your honor?” I look back with him, and see all whom I have ever loved, and all whom I have ever loathed, even those whom I have forgotten. 9

“I DO.” The great multitude answers as one voice, seamlessly joining those both jubilant and those who scream in rage. 10

“What path do you choose?”11

All of the souls cry out at once, each party, those whom I hated and those whom I loved, trying to drown out the other. There is no discernable winner.12

“I CHOOSE ATZILUTH, GATE OF HEAVEN.”13

"I CHOOSE GEHENNA, GATE OF HELL."14

Then I hear a voice. A single voice, one that causes my heart to leap within me, even though I know this may be the last time I ever see its owner. "Sarah," it whispers, voice dwarfed by the multitude before it.15

As beautiful as Uriel himself, as noble as the Archangel of Fire he was named for, Michael grins. "I love you," he murmurs to me. Dark hair that waves down to his shoulders, framing his luminescent face, flutters in the light as it once had in the wind. 16

"We'll go to Atziluth now," he tells Uriel firmly. 17

Uriel smiles.