Arcturus

Lucifer is lost, they say, he wandered astray at the fork between the Milky Way and the Perseid’s, hitched a ride on a comet with his manifold silver white wings and landed in darkness, far from the light of the furthest star.  His halo of golden hair glowed like a jellyfish in the depths of deep space, bioluminescent divinity oozing out of flaming keratin like a song heard by no one, for in the outer rim, there is no sound.

Just silence.

Lucifer’s compass broke – don’t you know men that are birds and birds that are men have magnetic bits in their skull like geese and migrate always North?  The Fall scrambled the pieces of lodestone etched in Lucifer’s skull and now, he wanders the wastes that have become Pandemonium over time, fractals of fallen angels finding a lightless abode in the void and populating it with lost dreams.

They say if Lucifer could fix the broken map of his mind, he would come roaring back into Heaven and accuse Michael.  He would lay every mishap caused by  the Angel of the Lord at the Prince of Heaven’s feet and throw vitriolic acid that would turn leaden pinions to gold, coal to diamonds, and rain to splinters of ice.

Lucifer would sob into Michael’s arms, ranting and raving, clutching at the broken ribs of his damnation like a madman as they poked through his papery skin and say, “Brother, look what I have become, this wasted thing.  Why did you let me go?  Why did you cast me out?  We could have reigned together.”

And Michael would run his scarred fingers through the cornsilk of his older twin’s hair and warmed his Kelvin zero demon with the mercy of God.  “Because, brother, I had to let you know God, and the only way you seem capable of comprehending the love of the Lord is by shunning it, running from the very thing that gave you life, and then mourning the loss of Someone that would welcome you back into His arms without a word.  You were the one who cast us out, Morning Star.”

And Lucifer would bite his lip, and he and Michael would share a bitter kiss, like day old coffee grounds and the rind of an unripe pear, and that would be the end and beginning of Lucifer’s questions.

Silence.