Fifteen ~ Fragment

My dearest H-----,

       Such a pity your party was ruined, it had such promise, darling. A superb guest list, exquisite decoration and fascinating entertainment. Quite a fabulous occasion, until M----- appeared. What a strange look in his eyes last night! A look which I could not read, could not compare to any I have ever seen. I still cannot find the words for it, something that has long been simmering in his soul now breaching the surface. Something that unsettles me greatly, I do not like it in the least, there is something familiar that---

       Never mind that.

       From the moment he entered the room, the atmosphere changed, we all felt it. Subtle as a fragrance, shaking as a planet knocked from its orbit. For quite a time, he barely spoke, yet as time wore on so too did the weight of all he had yet to say, his very bearing altering the mood of the night. A dis-ease, an air of disapproval - perhaps disappointment - but also a hint of reminiscence that caused a sharp pinprick of pain in us all...

       But I needn't try to describe, you felt it as well as I.

       Nor need I repeat what he said... no one of us heard it all, but each received a small piece, a scrap of tapestry, a fragment just enough to lodge in the mind, as a bit of dust in the eye, too small to extract but impossible to ignore.

       "The brighter a light once was, the darker the shadow it needs to hide within."

       "Decadence is the pungence of chances spoiled."

       "What has fallen is not always lost."

       Phrases muttered with only just the volume to be heard, slipped into conversation so gently that none noticed for a time just what he had said. Seeds left to fester in the richest of compost:

       Our past.

       Such bitterness in his voice! And far more loathsome - pity. He was the one to first proclaim what our existence should be, it was he who let us see the chance we could snatch from what They saw as only punishment. What right has he to look down on us so? How is he any different than us, he Fell as hard as we, he has done all that we have done, what claim has he to know better than us? What is there that we do not know!

       He must have realised what wrath he would incur - no-one has seen him since that night. But let him sit alone and nurse his self-inflicted wounds, what need have we for the regret and ridiculous depression of him and T-----?

       We set out to make a grand existence for ourselves, and outdo Heaven in all its presumptions. Are we not doing so? And are we not enjoying ourselves far more than those hampered by unceasing "devotion" (far more like to enslavement) to His commands? There is so much more that we can see now, the Light blinded us to any number of things. Once our sight adjusted, and that hateful radiance faded, every delight we suspected we had been denied was laid out before us, willing and more than able to sate the lusts welling up in our souls.

       M----- looked even more worn and faint than T-----, did you notice? He looked a if he had aged! Quite disgraceful, how careless they and their lot are becoming. Appearance is truth, particularly in a world so bound to the physical. I can honestly say I have seen mortals more beautiful than they are now - such a sad state of things. Oh, of course I remember the rumours regarding ----- soon after our exile, but surely you cannot believe all of that gossip, and after so much time! We were all a bit flustered with the turn of events then, and I am afraid some became downright fearful. I truly believe the accounts of his disappearance were greatly exaggerated - no angel, fallen or otherwise, would allow himself to succumb to that degree of suffering. It is simply a fault which is outside of our nature, he could not possibly have wasted away in such fashion...

       Not a chance of it.

       Well, darling, I did suggest to M----- that he attend your soiree, for his own benefit, but I see he has only wasted the opportunity. I shall not again offer him special consideration, or, indeed, any thought at all.

       If he cares to return, he may. If he prefers to sully himself with inferior company, and - what was it he said? Fill the hole which had become his soul, or some such nonsense. He envies humans their hearts! Their contradictory emotions, their self-defeating postures, trying to engender in themselves futile and altogether false notions of compassion, sympathy, concern for others. Man is, in his most basic elements, concerned most with himself. The foolish creatures refuse to accept this reasonable state of being, which I see as still another of their innumerable shortcomings.

       M----- shall find himself only forgotten, despite his martyr-like posturing.

       Fool.