“Kafziel, please. It’s your turn.”
He just wanted to help; he was told it was the right thing to do.
It’s why he wanted to become a guardian in the first place. He would watch the others crowding around the portal he was stationed by, as one by one they disappeared into the light.
Kafziel rises, hesitant, and glides into the main room. The marble and gold decor everywhere is throwing him off. He typically doesn’t bother with the “finer things” that these head archangels tend to surround themselves with, and being encased in this bubble of delicate metalwork and stone arches is making him feel horrifically out of place on top of the anxiety that already comes along with a visit to the Judgment Hall.
Kafziel trained hard to secure his place as a guardian-in-training. All he really had to do was receive some (not much) instructions from previous guardians, visit Earth so he could see it with his own eyes, and take an oath, swearing that he would never intentionally harm anyone under his watchful gaze. He got the temporary wings that signify a guardian-in-training running their first trials (they sprouted from his back like they had always been there, just waiting to come out) and all the fanfare that came along with them.
The room he enters is spacious, but feels even bigger than it really is due to how much of it is empty. The gold-and-white theme continues, but without any of the intricacies. This is not a place created to look pretty. A council of only five archangels sit before him, elevated fully high-and-mighty. Kafziel must look up in order to make eye contact with them. They look remarkably human like this, with the exception of the massive wings marking their status stretching from their backs. It makes Kafziel long to return to the humans he met over the course of his trials.
The first time he traveled to Earth, Kafziel was overwhelmed by how much he wanted to stay. Autumn was thick as the layers of leaves he kicked around, settling over the Northern Hemisphere like a heavy comforter, and he was stricken by how strong his senses were. He could feel the chill of the wind on the back of his neck, smell the rain softly falling, taste what can only be described as fall. Kafziel had never experienced any Earthly season before, but as soon as he arrived and felt the crunch underneath his loafers, he felt he’d known forever. He decided then that autumn was his most favorite of all the seasons.
“Take this time to reflect,” one of the archangels orders, “on those you have served. We will discuss your abilities and determine what comes next.”
What a warm welcome, Kafziel thinks as he gives a curt nod, trying to squash his apprehension. As much as he doesn’t want to be here, he just has to get this part over with. Then he can figure out what to do next.
Kafziel loves Earth in part because of how stimulating it is to the senses. It’s nothing like the realm he comes from, where everything is dulled and somehow constantly, unpleasantly pleasant. Sterile. Uniform beyond perfection. But his desire to stay on the planet is really all due to the humans who inhabit it.
They’re so… fragile. But they’re so unafraid all the same, so fearless. It amazes Kafziel that, though any of them could perish at any moment, most of them seem to pay it no mind.
They aren’t particularly smart about it, either, which he found funny the first time he witnessed it. Crossing busy streets without looking, speeding down highways and weaving in and out between other cars, ingesting harmful materials for fun, slowly eating away at their own lifespans.
But something about them is so adorable to angels. It’s why they want to protect them. They hold close bonds, care for each other when there’s nothing to gain; some even make careers out of it! They craft, they make things, they make families, they teach each other, they work, they make up stories, they cook, they play with each other, they assign meaning to things that didn’t ever mean anything at all, they puzzle over their own existence, they reach out and cry into the universe and beg for companionship, they call each other cute little words and made-up names, they hold each other in every way physically possible, they stay together even after they’re grown, they hold gatherings and set routines and have traditions and do silly little things for no reason, and, more than anything, they seem to love each other so much that it’s the only thing keeping that little blue ball spinning.
“Your first assignment,” the head drawls. “Xiao Jinghan.”
Kafziel nods again, sighs, and tries to remember.
When he met Jinghan, his first trial-run at guardianship, Kafziel was very new and not very good at his job.
She was a clumsy little thing, the only reason she really needed any guidance, and always looked around when Kafziel had helped her, like she knew. Like she could tell that it couldn’t possibly be her doing—that she didn’t have an ounce of luck to her name.
Jinghan didn’t do much. She mostly studied, got lunch out, took walks, called her parents. But everything she did, every step she took, the potential for a catastrophe was there. It was incredible, and it was unlike anything Kafziel had ever seen. She was a disaster.
The first time he stepped through the portal door and came out the other side in sweltering, mid-summer Sichuan, she was on her way to the Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art to meet up with two of her friends. It appeared she had attempted to keep her hair out of her face, but severely underestimated just how much of it she really had, as half of it had already fallen out of the clip clinging to the back of her head. She pushed up her glasses with the back of one hand while typing hurriedly on her phone with the other, so focused on the small screen that she didn’t notice the woman with the stroller in front of her coming to a halt.
Kafziel flailed in place for a moment, unsure if such a small collision would warrant his interference, before hastily pointing at the woman and shifting her to the right, next to a bench and safely out of the way. Jinghan didn’t even look up.
He knew then, approximately fifteen seconds in, that he had his work cut out for him.
But Kafziel watched over Jinghan decently well. He watched in awe when she celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival with her family, his greedy eyes raking in every detail of the culture-rich holiday, when she took long walks through the city at night, following the slope of each neon sign and taking note of the way she situated her keys in between her fingers when anyone got too close to her, when she dropped by her favorite street vendor and left with her palms sinking into the soft bun of the baozi she was so fond of, unable to stop his smile as she moaned at the taste of her first bite.
Over the next few weeks, Kafziel got to know China. Through watching Jinghan—he may have been stupid, but he wasn’t irresponsible enough to just ditch her—but also by heading out on his own when she was in the library for hours, safely tucked away into a corner, or once she went to bed. He quickly became enamored with the Yangtze River, Huashan Mountain, the Yuanyang rice terraces; but also downtown Beijing, the beach stretched across Sanya, the Hanging Temple in Datong. He loved listening to spoken Mandarin, too, loved the rising and falling of the syllables, the melody of its words.
And when he’d seen a decent amount of the country, he hopped around. He dropped by Hanoi, Osaka, Bangkok, Incheon, Manila, never staying long but dying to know what was there. He was a tourist everywhere he went. He hit every major landmark, every sprawling city, every “good side” of every place.
Though, to his surprise, he had the most fun when he was nowhere at all, watching humans live through mundane days. In the middle of the suburbs, deep in a forest, at the edge of a lake. Humans were everywhere, and Kafziel was obsessed with observing them. Family members treated each other so gently, friends threw taunts at each other, but their teasing was laced with care, even strangers would quietly dance around each other, trying to keep out of each other’s way, but still affectionate enough to greet each other or wish them a good day. Kafziel couldn’t stop the longing welling up inside him, the longing to be part of something the way that they were.
He spent two months there with Jinghan before it all came to a head.
She was hurrying (a bad omen in itself) to the library. Her old laptop had finally bit the dust a few days after Kafziel was assigned to her, so until she could put aside enough to buy a new one, she’d been taking down notes and writing her thesis in a scarlet notebook, then taking it to the library to copy her work onto a document. It was clearly tedious, her handwriting was god-awful, but it was really her only choice. The last time she’d had the chance to go and sit down and transcribe was a little over a month ago, and Kafziel could tell she was itching to get it copied down.
She was practically speed walking, her tote bag swinging back and forth, and bumped full-force into a man walking from the other direction who was cursing someone out via Bluetooth. The impact sent her sailing off to the side, colliding with another man standing in front of a bench, lighting a cigarette.
An apology flew from Jinghan’s lips, but she was moving on before anything else could happen, clearly embarrassed, and trudged on toward the doors to the library.
To Kafziel’s horror, she didn’t notice the small flame from the man’s lighter clinging to her sleeve.
There was no time to ponder what he should do. There was a fire feeding a little too close to her flesh for his comfort, and he needed to stop it before it claimed any more of her.
He reached out and sent force Jinghan’s way, sending her tumbling right into the fountain she was breezing by, in front of the library’s entrance. The splash made him wince, and Jinghan’s confused cry didn’t help his guilt.
She looked okay when she surfaced, just surprised, of course. Kafziel exhaled once he could see the flame was doused. He let relief wash over him, and even allowed himself to feel a little prideful. He actually did it. A real act of guardianship.
It wasn’t until he saw Jinghan frantically digging through her tote bag, stifling a sob when she found what she was looking for, a flash of dripping scarlet, and pulling out her soaked notebook that Kafziel actually understood what he had just done.
He ruined a month’s worth of her work.
She did it again, the thing she did every time he intervened—looked around like there was someone to blame. But this time, her eyes fell directly on Kafziel. She couldn’t see him—he knew that, if anything, she was seeing through him. But her glare made a shiver run through his entire body, and before he could move, he was summoned back to his realm.
And that was his first assignment. Failed.
“Wonderful,” the head praises, moving right along with no regard for Kafziel struggling to reenter the world. “Your second assignment, Winston Todd.”
Kafziel takes one extra second to send an apology Jinghan’s way, shuddering at the memory of the evil eye she gave him, and focuses on his second assignment.
Winston was much shorter, only a little over a week. Which was a shame, because Kafziel was very curious about the United States, having just come from China.
He was high risk, as most men like him are. Approaching sixty, he spent his whole life working hard labor jobs, smoked a pack a day, and seemed to be taunting death. That’s why Kafziel was sent to him. Winston was like a muted daredevil, in a weird way. It was like those little risks he took gave him enough of an adrenaline rush to keep living.
When Kafziel first dropped in, he was in the middle of a work day, had donned in his bright orange vest and hardhat on and was waving forward a big machine that Kafziel could not possibly imagine the function of. Winston was chipper as could be, yelling to the other guys working with a big, goofy smile on his face, shrugging it off when someone else wouldn’t return the same enthusiasm. He was great at his job, directing people where they were meant to go, giving orders, expertly controlling various vehicles and machinery. Kafziel was impressed. It seemed that Winston always knew exactly what he should be doing, exactly what was needed and how to fix things.
He’d make a great guardian, he thought. Better than me, at least.
Winston was just so capable. Kafziel didn’t even have to interfere with his life, not at all. He just sat back and watched. Winston would get up, eat breakfast, head out, work all day, come home, have dinner with his younger sister, and watch television until he fell asleep. That was the brunt of it. He didn’t take big risks that put him in immediate danger, or do anything that Kafziel could fix—it wasn’t like he could just stop him from buying cigarettes. And he wasn’t completely oblivious and careless, like Jinghan had been. He was always in control. Without it having anything to do with his abilities, Kafziel’s second assignment was going smoothly.
He didn’t explore as much as he did in China, but he made sure to hit one place that he had heard about again and again—New York City. He was so excited, thrilled to see a completely new group of humans and entirely different culture, eager to compare it with all that he had seen in Asia. It was there, in Manhattan, that he found the strangest of all humans he had observed so far. He decided not to stay very long. New York made him… uneasy.
Nine days after he was assigned to Winston, Kafziel was watching from a few feet away. It was Saturday, Winston’s day off, and he was digging around in the shed behind his house. Kafziel was taking it easy, content to watch the clouds and the people that lived in Winston’s neighborhood float by.
When Winston emerged with a bright red ladder, Kafziel’s interest was piqued.
He leaned it against the side of the house and started climbing with no apprehension, hammer in hand, undoubtedly on his way to fix something on the roof. Kafziel watched with bated breath as the ladder shifted under Winston’s weight, swaying side to side as one leg lifted off the ground. Kafziel reached out and tried to adjust it better, get it on more even ground, but even as he moved it an inch to the left, it was still wobbly.
He dared a few steps closer, crouching on the ground to see where the best spot would be, but when he looked up, Winston was already gone. He’d scaled the whole thing and was skittering across the roof before Kafziel could even fix it.
Relieved and continuously impressed that he still hadn’t had to intervene, Kafziel slunk back to his previous spot near the corner of Winston’s fence, peering at his figure darting around ten feet above him.
But when Winston climbed back down, the ladder sank into soft ground on the left side, sending it and Winston free-falling in a flash of vermillion.
Without thinking, Kafziel made a scooping motion midair and plucked Winston from the falling ladder, letting it connect with the ground with a heavy clank.
And, like with Jinghan, he realized his mistake too late. Winston was hovering where Kafziel was holding him, still a good eight feet off the ground.
Humans can’t float, idiot.
He pulled his hands away like he’d been stung, letting Winston fall just as he would’ve if Kafziel had never been there at all, connecting with the ground hard, knees first, and grunting at the sound of a crack.
Kafziel sprung up, ready to get someone’s attention who could really help, but he was already being pulled away, back to his realm.
And that was his time with Winston.
Kafziel shakes off the feeling, the memory, and once again focuses back on the archangel before him. The head looks amused, like that last one was funny to him. Kafziel fights the urge to snarl. He may not have known Winston for long, but he still wanted to defend him if he could. He deserved it.
“And your final assignment, Vera Holm.”
The entire hall is deathly silent and painfully still. Kafziel feels the three damning syllables in his bones. Her name has wedged itself into his heart like a stubborn dagger that drives in deeper every time it’s spoken.
Kafziel thinks that, if he were being judged on Earth instead of his realm, he would be able to feel it turning.
The first time he ever saw her, he was confused. Where was his new assignment? All he knew was that she was a human female, but the only person he saw in the room he had been dropped into was a tall, blond man.
The room was painted bright yellow, with a small bookshelf and a small bed tucked away in the corners. Upon realizing this, Kafziel noticed that all of the furniture was small. The bookshelf, the bed with the red polka dot sheets, the nightstand, the fuzzy chair beside the shelf.
Kafziel understood the situation the same moment that the sheets were tossed aside to reveal a much smaller head of blonde hair.
“Vera, kom hit,” her father lilted with a grin, beckoning her. She grinned, a huge one that took over her whole face, and hopped out of bed, running into his arms.
His new assignment was a child. A child who couldn’t be older than three.
The panic didn’t last long. Surely, Kafziel thought, surely her parents will keep a close eye on her. I probably won’t even have to interfere much. I’ll just make sure she doesn’t choke on anything or run into the road. It’ll be the easiest yet.
And he was right, until he wasn’t.
Vera was loved by her father, immensely so. But he was a very… easily distracted man. He had a terrible habit of taking Vera out, pushing her down the sidewalk, having his attention stolen by a street vendor, and just walking away from his daughter’s stroller. Kafziel had to try his very best not to scream in total frustration when it happened.
But he was good to Vera, her father, and despite being tired from working so hard and raising her on his own, Kafziel was right. He really didn’t have to do much.
And, God, Kafziel loved that kid more than anything. He didn’t travel anymore, not once he got to her, even though he wanted to see Europe and all of it was right there within his reach. Everything he needed to see was right there, in that tiny yellow room.
Children, he decided, were the best humans of all. They loved without restraint, spoke without fear, felt more than any other. At any given moment Vera could (and would) start crying for no reason at all. If she was hungry. If she was uncomfortable. If she was tired of being in her bed alone and wanted to be with her father. But, amazingly, it never lasted. She would be fed or moved or picked up and settled into a firm embrace, and everything was okay again in her world. Kafziel was amazed by how simple it was. Everything would be a lot easier if adults could do that, too—tell other people what they need and let themselves be helped. He might be out of a job, even.
His favorite moments with Vera were when her father was busy working on his computer and would let Vera roam around the living room as she pleased. Kafziel felt confident that her father would stay focused on his work and wasn’t watching his daughter with the keen eye that he often had for her, so he was free to play with her. He would make her little stuffed animals and toys dance around her, completely entranced by the gleeful giggles and babbled words that would come out of her. “Papa, papa, de dansar! Mina bebisar!” she would cry. Papa, they’re dancing.
All of her little friends had personalities, voices, lives. She made sure to take turns bringing them to bed with her so none of their feelings were hurt. She kissed them goodnight just as her father did with her and wished the house a good night’s sleep. She was concerned about the sleeping habits of the house. Kafziel, after witnessing that, decided he wanted to stay there forever, with that sweet little human and her life strung together by love. He would be okay if this assignment never ended, he thought.
But, of course, it did.
It was sudden, too, in a different way than his first two assignments. Vera was fine, and then she was not fine, and then she was in the hospital, and then she was fine, and then she was not fine, the worst degree of not fine that a human can be, tucked into her bed and shaking and crying and asking her father what was happening to her, swathed so tightly in those red-dotted sheets that it felt wrong to leave her there writhing, and then she was gone.
It all happened within one week.
Kafziel couldn’t understand. There was no warning, no answer. No way for him to make it okay. No way for him to guard her in the way that a guardian should. With Vera, he actually did everything right. He never messed up, not once, and she was still gone.
He tried his best, he did everything he could do. He put his soul into protecting that little girl. He would’ve done anything to save her. He didn’t even get the chance to save her. Not like Jinghan, not like Winston, where he could’ve manipulated something differently, moved someone, changed it. Where it was clearly his fault. He thought Vera would be his redemption. The chance he got to make up for it. The chance to make his mistakes with Jinghan and Winston feel like they meant something.
Was he the problem? He had to be cursed. Doomed to fail every human he was meant to protect. Some guardian he would be. He’s irresponsible. He can’t think fast enough. He let a little girl die on him.
People died in his care.
“I’m sorry, Kafziel. I’m afraid we cannot allow you to become a full guardian. We appreciate your time spent dedicated to those you served, and encourage you to keep trying.”
And though it’s not what he wants to hear, he can’t find it in himself to be disappointed. He’s not even surprised.
He doesn’t deserve it. He selfishly tried to make a life on Earth work for himself and help everyone he was assigned to, but he just couldn’t do it right. He couldn’t.
He doesn’t deserve anything.
The head isn’t finished. “If you decide not to continue with your guardian work, your wings will revert back into your body.”
Kafziel must look disturbed by the idea, because the head chuckles. “Please, don’t be alarmed. It’s quick and painless. You won’t even know it’s happening.” He pauses, considering the angel before him. “But we really do encourage you to keep trying, Kafziel. It’s apparent how much you love it.”
Kafziel almost laughs. How much he loves what, exactly? Because he’s one-hundred percent certain that he never loved guardian work. Loves Earth, yes. Humans, naturally. But never failure after failure.
“Most guardians start out like this. It’s why we pull those in training out whenever small things go wrong—they often do. It’s not an easy thing to master. It’s a challenge that only gets easier with experience.”
Is it worth trying again? Is it worth hurting more people along the way? Worth more failure? Kafziel doesn’t think he can go on living with more “experience” under his belt.
He thanks the head archangels and leaves the Judgment Hall without giving them an answer. His eyes and his feet and his back are stinging, but he trudges as quickly as he can to the nearest portal. He probably doesn’t have much time before these wings start to retreat back into his body.
He reaches the portal before then, to his relief. He hasn’t completely lost his status just yet. They’re still extending gracefully from his back, two extra limbs marking him as something he no longer wants to be. He can still do this.
There is one way for an angel who is no longer a guardian to remain on Earth. He’s heard of a few cases before. It’s gruesome. It’s the sacrifice you have to make. It’s a purely selfish decision. Maybe, maybe he can go back, if he can remember how to do it right. Maybe, instead of helping, he can just be. Maybe he can track down Vera’s father and apologize for not being able to save her. Maybe he can become as human as an angel can get.
But first he has to find something sharp.
There are a few other angels milling about around the portal, a few pillars on either side of its entrance, but that’s all. There’s absolutely nothing to work with. Weapons don’t exist in Kafziel’s realm. Most pointy things don’t exist in Kafziel’s realm. There’s no reason for anyone to have access to things that can cause harm.
It’s apparent, then. There’s no easy way to do this. There’s no easy way out.
He doesn’t have time to think about what he could possibly get his hands on to make this easier. He has to live with his failure forever, keep trying until he gets it right, or act now. Now.
Before he can feel apprehensive, he reaches over his shoulders and grasps a wing in each hand and pulls as hard as he can.
He’s never been more thankful for this toned-down world than he is right now. If tearing his own flesh off is unbearable here, he can’t fathom how it would feel on Earth. He wouldn’t be able to do it.
He knows his body is going numb to try to dull the pain, but he can still feel it. And even if he couldn’t, he would still be able to hear the ripping of his skin. It’s even louder than his screams, echoing in his ears and sinking down into his stomach.
Kafziel’s glance shifts back to his hands dripping with ichor, to the feathers smothered in gold falling to the ground beside him, to the smears of it painting the stone floor. White and gold, his brain supplies, like it matters, as he howls. It’s hard to get a good grip on his wings when they’re so slippery and flimsy, but he digs his nails in and pulls with all the strength in his body and wails with the force of five archangels. He can hear stilted conversation around him, but he’s so delirious from pain that none of it makes any sense to him, just garbled syllables and high-pitched voices.
It’s getting close, it has to be, he feels like he’s been pulling for a hundred Earth years. Another harsh tug tells him that yes, his wings are only clinging on to his back by a little, and a few more rough pulls should be enough to do the trick. He has a horrible thought, then, a sudden and intense fear that the wings will stay fused to his skin and he’ll just keep pulling and peeling until he’s skinned himself and totally bare of any flesh.
To his relief, when he digs his heels into the floor and brings his hands down to meet them there, two horrifically bent and molted wings are resting in his hands. Serene looking. Still beautiful, even after the weight of his faults fell on them.
He tosses them to the side as he drags his limp body to the portal, not even glancing behind him at what he imagines is a crowd of horrified spectators before he crouches into himself like he’s spring-loaded and launches himself through the threshold.
And Kafziel falls.
He didn’t think he would. He thought he would step through and come out on the other side, wherever he was supposed to be, like all the times he shifted to Earth as a guardian. He doesn’t know how long or how far down he goes, just that he wishes the wind was less like sandpaper against his skin, less like ice being blasted into his eyes.
When he hits the ground, he hits hard. He feels it in his shoulder and his hip. And he’s stunned by how much he feels it. He must have a little bit of angel invincibility left in him (otherwise he doesn’t think he would have survived), but every part of his body is stinging with sharp pain, intensifying with every breath, and the groan that slips from his lips is entirely involuntary. His physical form feels much more… real. He was unprepared for how much it would hurt to be here.
Kafziel manages to turn himself over and roll onto his stomach. His fingers shake as they search blindly behind him, running down his back from his shoulders until he yelps. Two matching gashes on either side of his spine. Mementos of his demotion.
He looks around. Everything is red, red, red. Almost intensely so. Red in the trees, speckled in between shades of orange and yellow, red on the ground, stomped on and fading into the dirt. Red all over him, spilling out from the wounds on his back, coating his fingers and dripping down his arms. It’s much thinner than ichor, with a smell that instantly makes Kafziel feel sick. He struggles for a few seconds, but finds the strength to get to his feet and take a step forward, once, twice. The leaves crunch underneath his shoes, and he smiles.
Look at that, how lucky, he thinks. My favorite season.
Kylie George is an English major at University Park. She plans to graduate in 2022.