Souls - XLII

Before I can ask a third time, a trumpet bellows from above. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard. My brain identifies it as a trumpet sound, but it seems to emanate from everything, my bones rattling from the vibrato.

Lucifer smiles, “There’s our girl.”

“Fuck! That’s my thing. She stole my thing!” Jesus storms out of the bus like a petulant child.

Lucifer watches him go, “Don’t worry about him, he had his chance but he decided to play trailer trash in the desert instead.”

Something bangs hard against the side of the bus facing the skyless sky.

Another bang,

then another,

another,

another,

it becomes a torrential chorus of bangs. I remember this sound. It’s hail. Actual precipitation.  I look up and see it falling onto the bus windows. They start slamming down with so much force, the glass begins to crack. Then something else joins in, a liquid. I assume it’s rain. That is, I assume it’s rain until I see the crimson splats on the window. It’s blood. It’s raining blood.

Finally, I see lights form in the skyless sky. For a minute I think it’s stars, I think my daughter has brought back stars. But they are moving closer, and moving quickly. It’s fire, fire is falling to Earth.

Through all of it, Lucifer just looks up and smiles. He finally looks to me, gleaming as he does.

“I know she’s your child, but since she did the thing,” he takes the time to mimic her soul jab to the eye, “I feel like she’s our child now. And I am more than proud of her.”

I think about arguing, about lashing out and demanding to know what’s happening. But I know, I know what’s happening. I preached this. This is the rapture.

“The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth”

The sounds of the windows cracking above me serves as the soundtrack of my own internal break. My brain, my soul, my self were desperately trying to cope with this new world. I had just gotten used to the old one.

“We should go, it’s not going to get better.”

Lucifer offers me his hand and I take it out of habit. He leads me to a Lincoln TownCar outside of the bus. Jesus is sitting in the front seat, his arms crossed angrily. Emily is sitting in his lap.

Lucifer ushers us into the back seat. He nods to the faceless driver, “Back to the office.”

The car jerks into motion, driving nonchalantly as if the sky wasn’t falling.

We drive for what seems an eternity before I can form a question to ask.

“So, she’s Jesus now?”

Jesus turns, glares and points his finger at me, “You fuckin’ watch it lady.”

Lucifer laughs, “Not exactly.”

“Fuckin’ humans man, somehow take the natural chaos of the universe and fucking triple it. And that’s them trying to make it make sense.”

“Who made us?”

No answer in the car. I ask again.

“If you didn’t make us, if we made you, who made us?”

“I don’t know sweetheart, which came first the fuckin’ chicken or the goddam egg? Have you not been listening?”

Lucifer smacks the back of Jesus’s head.

“That’s enough, show some respect.”

Lucifer turns to me, “You came to me in a very confusing time in my existence. I was a bit…fractured.”

Jesus laughs at this. Lucifer’s eyes show a moment of decision. A decision of wether to let it go, or to smack Jesus in the head again. He goes with the former.

“Satan quit on us a few millennia ago, got tired of being a villain. Tried to retire, to be a human and live a life. It really mucked everything up. It was slow at first, but with no singularity of evil things got very sloppy. As you’ve noticed all around you.”

“You are not what you think you are.”

I look out to the storm, the landscape behind it. I think I know where this is going.

“Let me get to the point here, I wasn’t sure at first, I wasn’t sure of much really back then. Like I said, fractured. But now I can see it, I can see it one-hundred percent.

You dear, you are the devil.”