The Protagonist Speaks

My name is Machidiel.

I am not bound by your concept of time. I do not age. I exist outside what you might think of as the ‘bubble’ of Time. You might say that I am older than Time itself, for I was there at the creation of Time. Have you ever seen Time? Perhaps you will one day. It roams your Earth, devouring all in its path slowly. You simply cannot see it.

You mean God, I must assume. Well, I will tell you this: He is ever the same. I believe I understand your phrase, “days off,” to mean that His watchful eye over His Creation is sometimes turned away. This is not the case. He is always watchful. And yet He is always full of joy and laughter. There seems to be a misunderstanding among you humans that He is angry. Would that you all knew Him as I do!

Ah, the Great Deluge. Did you know that broke His heart, to have to destroy? My brothers visited your plane of Time long ago and fell into temptation once having seen the Daughters of Man. They fell, took for themselves human women, and betrayed Him, mixing the blood of angel and man, something your kind was never equipped to handle, until there was so much corruption and degradation that His hand was forced. In order to save what was left of both angel and man, He brought upon the Earth water from the Deep and water from the heavens. All of your Ancients once knew the tale. From Sumeria to Egypt to the Hebrew Semitic tribes; this story was ever known. Then your so-called Enlightenment happened and Time devoured this story from your memory. Did you ever read His description of the dinosaur? Of this magnificent creature, He was quite proud. And who could blame Him, no?

As you look into your fascinating and impressive instruments, out at this universe, you see Eternity, yet you do not truly see Eternity. There is life everywhere! When you look at, for instance, the planet of Ares, what you call Mars, you assume that it has always been as it is now. It was once the home of mighty ancestors of mine; beautiful and full of kingdoms and dominions. You do not see the Things that now live below the war-ravaged surface, imprisoned and entombed until it is their time to be loosed. As you view your nebula and the wonders of the Heavens, you cannot see the lifeforce contained within them; they are living entities. I both envy and pity you at times, for to see these things would almost certainly overwhelm you, yet to not know how beautiful they all were at one time is its own kind of bliss.

They disappear when I do not require them. Your temporal concept of reality will not, I suspect, allow you to fully understand the nature of those wings.

I have met so many humans who manifested the original qualities He endowed you with. It would require more than this space to note them all. I have met Pharaohs and Kings with honor and mercy; leaders of men with faith and truth within them. Your kind is ever so capable of the best of things He endowed His Creation with. But in truth, the best of you I’ve often found to be hidden from plain sight. Those who do the works that are good and true are many, yet often your kind cannot see them, anymore than you can see my kind, unless we show ourselves to you. Your heroes can be, of course, visible and lauded for the glory they give to Goodness and to Him. Still, it is more often the case that most of your kind simply overlook those heroes, and they disappear from your bubble of Time without Earthly glory bestowed upon them. But take heart in that all of these men and women of your kind will see their reward in The Kingdom.

We do not eat nor drink to sustain ourselves. It has become a cliche among your more religious peoples, but He has given us what might be called ‘living water’ that can sustain for eternity. However, we are able to enjoy your human food and drink. I find wine, for perhaps more obvious reasons, to be my favorite drink. I have supped and enjoyed drink with many humans during the years that I have spent, here and there, on Earth. There have been foodstuffs that indeed tempted me to remain longer here, that is a fact! And dining with your kind is most often when I find your best nature exhibited. And this is not accidental. One day, your kind will understand that food and drink, even for you, are more than simply fuel to power your temporal bodies. I look forward very much to the day when your kind are brought into your full glory, for glory you do possess, though throughout your time this glory has been buried, deeper and deeper, until even you often do not see it and, when you do, you do not recognize it.

You are quite welcome. I nearly always enjoy engaging in conversation with thoughtful humans. And my name means ‘protector’ and as well it means that I seek to help manifest a spirit of faith and adventure in you. I hope that I am able to do both each time that I am assigned watch over a human.

---