Gabriel's Story - 10 February 2020

At first, Sean’s place looked normal, or at least as normal as Gabriel expected it would at three o’clock on a Monday morning. He noted that the front porch light was on, as normal. The screen door was closed. The driveway was alight, as usual, and Sean’s car was in the carport. It wasn’t until Gabriel parked, shut off his engine and exited his car that he noticed an eerie quiet. No birds. No crickets. Not even the sound of traffic from the nearby highway. For all intents and purposes, sound didn’t exist.

Gabriel coughed into his hand just in case. “Ahem.” Ok, so that’s not it.

Instead of going to the front door and ringing the bell, Gabriel decided to round the back, through the gate, and check the back of the house first. When he did, he found Sean’s shattered bedroom window and one of his prosthetics askew in the middle of the deck. Startled, Gabriel looked around for signs of forced entry or for anything that showed he might be in danger. He would laugh about that later – like he knew what “signs of forced entry” even meant.

After steeling his nerves, Gabriel slowly walked up the 5-step ascent to the deck. He climbed slowly, but didn’t hug the wall. He didn’t want to look like a cat burglar. When he reached the top, he stopped. He saw tiny glass shards covering the deck and it was obvious they were caused by the flying prosthetic. Looking around he could see the back yards of half a dozen of Sean’s neighbors. All were silent, peaceful, with varying degrees of backyard lighting. Each yard backed up against a tree line that Gabriel knew hid the nearby highway, a major thoroughfare heading north and south through the heart of the Ten Cities area. Although it was the middle of the night, it struck Gabriel as odd that not a single car had passed in the fifteen minutes since he had arrived. The Ten Cities was a burgeoning metropolis. There should be traffic, he thought.

Standing completely still he realized not everything was silent. In the still of the night, Gabriel could barely make out the sound of breathing, labored and intense, and barely audible from his position on the deck. He could tell from the erratic cadence and raspy quality that the source of the sound was in trouble. He threw caution to the wind and marched straight to the broken window, peering in.

When Gabriel reached the window sill, he found a sight he never imagined he would see. The floor of Sean’s bedroom was teeming with impish demons so thick that he couldn’t see the rug. Their disgusting odor seeped out through the broken glass and constituted a green fog that Gabriel hadn’t seen from the distance. It appeared heavier than air as it flowed unnaturally down the side of the home’s exterior and slowed only slightly at the deck boards before slipping through the cracks. Even more curious was the fog’s opposition to Gabriel. As he leaned in closer, the fog diverted away in what seemed a conscious effort to not contact him. Gabriel noted it, but nothing struck him as odd anymore.

Gabriel searched the room, but couldn’t find Sean. However, he did see what appeared to be an angel-like man standing in the middle of the room with his wings wrapped around him in what looked like a makeshift defense. His tunic looked old and grey and his wings were tattered, missing several feathers that the demons carried away like trophies. The little demons were launching all manner of horrible substances, striking the angel’s wings, causing untold damage to the heavenly host’s visage. The scene angered Gabriel so much that he bolted from the window, tore through the screen door and forced open the old wooden panel door to Sean’s kitchen. When he rounded the turn to Sean’s bedroom, he was shouting in a language he wasn’t even aware he knew, causing the little demons to stop throwing things at the angel and turn on him.

He didn’t flinch.

Gabriel raised his hands, not in defense, but in accusation toward the demon horde. His lips moved and his voice continued to shout, but he stopped hearing his words. Instead he heard the angel utter a single word that resonated in his soul. Recognizing the cry for help, Gabriel’s inner voice cried out louder than he had ever hear it.

“Jesus!”

Like a superheated nuclear pressure wave the sound of Christ’s name rolled across the bedroom floor vaporizing demons on contact. When the wave reached the angel, his wings and tunic shattered into a million little pieces, revealing the new, bright white of an angel Gabriel had seen only once before. It was then that Gabriel realized he hadn’t seen Sean because the Archangel Michael had been holding him tight against his chest, protecting him with his own wings from the barrage of the demons.

Gabriel knelt down and bowed his head. He wasn’t afraid anymore; rather, he recognized the presence of the most powerful angel in God’s arsenal. He gave deference to that presence.

“Come dress his wounds, Gabriel.” All at once the power in Michael’s voice struck Gabriel while at the same time it showed tenderness towards Sean.

Gabriel watched as Michael lay Sean on the bed and retreated to the corner, far enough to be out of the way, but close enough to reach Sean in a flash if need be. He raced into Sean’s adjoining master bathroom, sloshing through rancid blood, sweat and vomit along the way. He slipped, but quickly regained his balance after slamming into Sean’s bathroom door. Inside he found more emergency supplies than he imagined – various sizes of gauze and several ointments. He recognized a few, like bacitracin and triple antibiotic ointment. Others, like silver sulfadiazine, he had no idea what purpose they served.

Turning back with his hands full, he found the bedroom light on and the angel gone.

Sean coughed, spit up a little blood, and reached for Gabriel through weary eyes before passing out. He was spent.

***---***

Two men paced while the rest of the group sat. Word travels fast in church circles, especially in tight-knit circles. By simply looking at the waiting room, a bystander might even assume a mass casualty event had occurred. However, a deeper look would show praying and laughing, and even some light-hearted jabbing. They didn’t know how bad Sean’s condition was, but they didn’t let that dampen their spirits. This group claimed to trust God. It was days like today that they put their money where their mouth was. At least, that was Gabriel’s first impression when he turned the corner over an hour ago. Upon seeing the gaggle, he quickly slipped back around the corner and tiptoed into Sean’s room. Except for that short moment when the nurses had forced him to leave so they could clean Sean up a bit, he had been with Sean since the ambulance brought him in.

He stopped short of the curtain where he could still hear, but not see. Listening didn’t seem like a violation of Sean’s privacy until he heard something he regretted.

“How long has it been like that?” The female nurse’s voice was kind, but firm. She disapproved of Sean’s neglect and it showed in her tone.

“It cracks like that every few months, especially if I’ve been on my feet a lot, which I have lately.” Sean’s voice was still raspy, but he was starting to recover.

“Well, you know if you let it get infected the doctors will remove your implants and you’ll have to go back to a strap-on.”

“I know. I treat it with Sulfazine.”

“I still don’t understand why the surgeon didn’t excise the burned skin or graft in fresh. It would’ve been a better barrier against infection.”

“My surgeon disagrees. He’s performed thousands of prosthetic implants and says the rejection rate doubles when he has to graft skin.” Sean’s voice started to regain his pastoral rhythm and tone. “I like my freedom too much to risk rejection just because of some discomfort with the skin.”

“Umhm. Well just remember the cost of that freedom now might be more surgery later if you let infection set into those scars.” The nurse pulled the curtain and almost jumped when she saw Gabriel standing there.

“You’re still here?” Sean tried to laugh, coughing instead.

So far, Gabriel had successfully rebuffed Sean’s attempts to convince him to leave his side and go give an update to the gathering congregation. He wasn’t aware that, in the three hours since Gabriel had made the first call, half the congregation had arrived and now occupied Good Shepherd’s trauma waiting room. All he knew is some of his beloved congregation were in the waiting room and he wanted them to know he would be fine.

“Gabriel,” Sean reached for his hand, “I need you to be my voice, or else they’re going to start drifting back here.”

Gabriel felt, possibly for the first time, the ridges on Sean’s hand created when his skin healed after being burned. He never really paid much attention before, focusing mainly on Sean’s legs. He didn’t even know what type of injuries his pastor had suffered beyond the amputations.

“I’ll go, but only because I know I would want someone updating me,” he stood up and released Sean’s hand, “but I’m coming back as soon as…”

“Why, Gabriel?” Sean’s eyes searched, seemingly not able to find an answer in Gabriel’s face.

“Because I’m not leaving you alone here, that’s why.”

“No, not that. Why do you have so much faith that you can walk into a room full of demons assaulting the mightiest angel in heaven, but you don’t have enough faith to hand me to Him in this hospital room? When will you see that we’re never alone?”

He looked up and realized that Sean was talking about the angel or angels in the room, but that Gabriel still couldn’t see them unless they revealed themselves to him. It was frustrating, yet he also felt unworthy to have seen them in the first place.

“I don’t k now, Sean. All I know is that I can’t see any angels here right now and…”

“That’s because there aren’t any, Gabriel. I’m not talking about angels.”

Gabriel was confused. “Then what are you talking about, Sean? I don’t see anyone here but us.”

With some discomfort on his face, Sean sat up and put his finger in Gabriel’s chest. “It’s not who you see. It’s who you know.”