To Touch the Face
by MacGeorge
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped
the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand
and touched the face of God.
Pilot Officer Gillespie
Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941
I
must confess, it’s been a real comedown. Seriously. From being
God’s Hand On Earth to being a part time bartender, for God’s sake.
There I was, happily tweaking here, nudging there, trying – really trying
– to get these silly, feckless creatures to live up to their potential.
I saw it, Lord, all they might be. No, really. I did. Despite
my misgivings, God’s creations are always marvels, and humans among the
most marvelous, at least when I could observe from a distance. But
this business of working, crapping, pissing, eating (well, some of the
eating is rather fascinating), sleeping, washing. God, these people
smell. Why hadn’t I realized that before? Their sweat, their
breath, their unwashed clothes, the fetid air they breathe. It’s
all so sordid when you have to deal with it first hand.
If God was going to assign me to a
mere mortal coil, I actually would have preferred working amongst the
Jg’mahal in that galaxy just past the… well, never mind. No doubt
Yahweh had excellent reasons for keeping me in this backwater spot.
Wouldn’t do to start questioning The Alpha and Omega’s judgment, especially
not when I have to find a way to get back in The Lord’s good graces.
Although, frankly, I don’t think what I did was so wrong. I, of course, had assumed I was supposed to, you know, actually DO something with these creatures to help them along. Give them a challenge to rise to, some great conflict in the world they could really sink their metaphysical teeth into. (That whole Ahriman, millennial demon thing was way too lame and was dealt with before any mega-evil managed to alter history’s course. A complete flop, in my opinion. Of course, my opinion wasn’t sought. Never is, by The One Who Counts.)
And Michael is just wrong, wrong, wrong. The fate of the world will not be fought in the soul of one individual, especially his well-polished soul. All of them must be tested. All Of Them. Silly, sentimental Michael. Always wanting to protect them, mostly from themselves.
I itch. At least I assume that’s what that creepy, crawling sensation is on my shoulder blades. I never thought I’d miss them this much, but you carry yourself a certain way for a few millennia, counterbalancing every turn and twist of your body to accommodate that kind of bulk, and see what it’s like when it’s suddenly gone. I keep misjudging things, bumping into things, wanting to stretch and scratch them, but… they’re not there. Phantom limb syndrome they call it. Of course, the whole punishment-by-making-me-human thing is definitely a mixed blessing. God specializes in mixed blessings, since he left my memory intact, so I guess I’m not in that much trouble. Not like some I could name.
Or maybe it was left intact so I could “reflect on my misdeeds”. That would be just like God. Always with the parables and lessons. What a pain in the arse.
And I… just … can’t… quite reach the
right spot to scratch my damned darned shoulder blades.
I backed up to the edge of the cash register. If I press up against
it and move up and down…
“Having a problem, Gabe?”
Oops. “Joe! Thought you were in your office. No, I was just… I have this itch on my shoulder blades. It’s driving me crazy.”
“God, I know how that can feel, especially when it’s a place you can’t reach.” He thumped over behind the bar. “Where is it, exactly?” he asked, laying aside his cane and gently rubbing the middle of my back. It was an interesting sensation, being touched by a human. Made me feel… I don’t know. Odd, I guess. I had frequently touched them, but had never allowed any of them to touch me before. “Gabe?” Joe prompted.
“Right on my shoulder blades. Yes! Right there! Now the other side. Oh, Jee… wow, that feels good!”
“Both sides?” Joe asked curiously. “Man, you’ve got some serious scars under there.”
“Uh, allergic welts,” I extemporized. “Raises the skin. Really ugly, but they’ll get smaller in time.”
“They have creams and stuff for that
nowadays, you know,” he observed, scratching harder as I pushed against
his hand in a mild state of euphoria at the intense, satisfying relief
his hard, callused fingers offered as they vigorously scratched at my
newly-naked wing posts.
“I doubt it,” I mumbled, but reluctantly
managed to force myself to pull away. I do have some small modicum
of self-control, after all. “It’s just an annoyance. Something
I wore rubbed me wrong, probably. We open at 3?”
“Yeah. The chairs go down, we
check the inventory to make sure we’re not short on anything, set out
bowls of nuts and pretzels and that’s about it. Mike will take care
of the kitchen and for today, I’ll be with you behind the bar.”
“Not necessary,” I assured him.
“I’ve been around bars for… a really long time. There isn’t a drink
in the galaxy I can’t fix, if you’ve got the ingredients.”
“The whole galaxy, eh? Well,
I doubt we’ll have any intergalactic patrons so we’re probably in pretty
good shape.”
Joe picked up his cane and made his
way back to his office, probably to do some of his Watcher crap.
Can’t say I approved of that. Goes against human nature to just
sit around and watch while history is being made. Gotta participate.
Gotta “do” something or you haven’t made any moral choice, and moral choice
is what it’s all about, isn’t it? Gotta commit to something.
Good. Evil. Whatever. But, as I said, nobody asked me.
The evening proceeded as expected. There were a few regulars who came in around 4 and lingered, morosely nursing their shots or their beer, eating up the pretzels and demanding more. I really, really wanted to tell a couple of them to Get A Life! But as the new bartender, I dutifully kept my mouth shut and did my job. Hear that God? I did my duty and Kept My Mouth Shut.
At least for the moment.