Premonition

By Alex Saveliev

When God sends an angel to offer solace to a human...

This was going to be a long day.

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Before he could even fold his wings, much less rest his heavy eyelids, Artiya’il heard the familiar summoning gong reverberate through the hallways.

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The feathers beckoned him, fluttering gently, as if saying, “Come, lie down.” With a heavy sigh, he switched gender – the Master preferred it when he was a she – and left her eggshell feather chambers.

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Was that exasperation she felt, as she strolled along the silver spheres and luminescent columns? Artiya’il knew of exasperation, she’d dealt with it many times, but she was incapable of feeling anything but bliss and compassion. So what was that, gnawing at her chest, compressing it in its unfamiliar, ugly clutch? Anxiety? Exhaustion?

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Fear?

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Artiya’il stopped walking, leaned against one of the columns. Why is my breathing so shallow? Why does my heart race, why do my palms sweat? Those were human traits, as alien to Artiya’il as unadulterated bliss and compassion would be to a human.

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A couple materialized in a brief, blinding halo – Darda’il and Mikaaiyl, the former taking a moment to dim her shimmer.

“Well, that’s two for two,” she said, not yet noticing Artiya’il. “And I guarantee you, Ahmed counts. He’s just lost. But he’s a good soul.” She brushed the last of the shimmer off her wings and retracted them, placed her hand on Mikaaiyl’s broad shoulder. “He’s all yours, if you ask me.”

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Mikaaiyl nodded solemnly, then his eyes shifted to Artiya’il. His expression broadened into a warm smile and his large palm shot up in greeting.

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“Arti!” he shouted in his gruff voice that warmed and overwhelmed senses, like a thick cloak of tiger balm. He then noticed Artiya’il’s expression, and the solemnity returned.

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“As-salaamu alaykum. Are you well, my friend?”

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Darda’il narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Artiya’il straightened out, smiled as infectiously as she could. The Malaikah smiled back; they couldn’t help it. She was, after all, Artiya’il, the bearer of solace, the easer of anguish.

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“Wa alaykumu s-salam. All is well, my dear,” she said, bowing her head ever so slightly.

“I am on my way to see the Master. I trust your journey was blessed.”

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Before either one of them could respond, Artiya’il proceeded past them, hoping they wouldn’t notice the beads of sweat or shaky hands.

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Colors and echoes, all around Artiya’il.

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The Master’s chamber had no walls or floor or ceiling, no boundaries of any kind, yet it made one feel as if they were cocooned in a kaleidoscope. Artiya’il kept her head bowed, her eyes lowered.

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“Apathy has enveloped this man like a thick cloak, seeped into his pores, paralyzed him,” the Master boomed on, each word echoed into infinity. “You are to make him feel again.”

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Artiya’il waited for a few moments before speaking. “Such minor, piteous affairs do not normally require our meddling, Master. What makes Saadah different?”

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She felt a concentration of opprobrium.

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“You dare question my motives?” His voice a thunder.

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Artiya’il pretended to cower under the invisible yet palpable glare of the Master.

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“Please, accept my apology,” she said. “I merely meant to point out that I have just returned from imbuing an entire crumbling mosque with hope. Reconstruction shall commence within weeks. It’s been a long and arduous journey, and I feel like a single man…”

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Though she couldn’t see it, Artiya’il felt the Master lean in, could hear the grinding of his teeth as he scowled between words.

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“Am I to thank you for your efforts, Artiya’il? Are you expecting a divine medal to be bestowed upon you?” His voice grew louder, as did the grinding. Sparks of static lit up abstract shapes. “You deem our affairs minor, piteous? My methods displease you. Perhaps you would like to assume total responsibility?”

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Wow, I rubbed him the wrong way, big time, Artiya’il thought. She attempted to sound as earnest and humble as she could muster.

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“This was not my intention,” she said quietly. “Of course, I shall do my Master’s bidding.”

The sparks dissipated, followed by a release of tension. Artiya’il waited patiently.

“I do not like this feeling I’m getting from you, Artiya’il,” the Master said, softer this time, each word a dagger honed from thunder. “There’s a change in you.” He paused, letting it sink in. “We shall speak of this upon your return. Go find Saadah, bring light into his life, make sure he’s on the right path. Report back to me.”

With that, the colors dimmed, familiar white light strobing in, and all Artiya’il was left with were the echoes, swirling together as they dissipated.

“…turn-urn-urn… dah-ah-life-ife… path-ath… me-me-me.”

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Winter wind sweltered in Chicago.

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It had been a while since Artiya’il visited the United States of America. The focal point of her work, the nucleus, so to speak – especially for the past few decades – had been the Middle East. Iraq. Iran. Syria. Egypt. Gaza. Israel. Those places were a goldmine of grief.

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Artiya’il felt deeply confounded, walking down Michigan Avenue, past humans bundling up in their bulbous coats, slipping, cursing, squinting in the blizzard. Why here, why now, why Artiya’il, why Saadah? Was this man some sort of an unaware messiah, bearing the burden of humanity?

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Artiya’il chuckled at the thought. Sounds of a distant choir made her look up across the heavy traffic at a group of Christmas carolers, huddled by The Wrigley Building. The sight of those pigeon-like youngsters singing, out of sync and out of tune, against the biting, howling blizzard and the roaring, blaring traffic, in a decaying city, in a decaying country, sliced through Artiya’il with the force of Azrael’s scythe. She stumbled back, almost slipped into the traffic. A young man caught her.

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“Miss? Are you okay?” A concerned but kind smile, a mouthful of teeth.

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“Yes. Yes, thank you.” Artiya’il watched the man nod and walk off. Perhaps there was hope for humanity yet. But if so, why did Artiya’il feel so troubled? Why was it that she felt angry at those carolers, and their stupid, pointless songs, and this stupid, pointless city?

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Where was all the bliss and compassion?

Saadah lived humbly but he wasn’t poor.

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Artiya’il found him deep asleep in his apartment, thirty-six stories above ground. Nothing remarkable, no embellishments. He lived alone but wasn’t lonely. It smelled mildly of mildew and cinnamon. She wondered if she should switch gender but quickly dismissed the thought –men were less prone to overreact to the sight of a woman suddenly appearing in their home at night.

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The Master’s words haunted Artiya’il. Coupled with the twinges of anxiety, it all felt like she was doomed, like a Grand Execution awaited her. If so, perhaps she would try a different approach.

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Artiya’il gently nudged the sleeping man. Saadah woke up and sat up, as if he were expecting this. Nary a trace of sleep in his eyes.

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He reached over and turned the light on, slid his glasses off the bedside table and onto his face. His top half was naked; though concealed by sheets, Artiya’il knew that the bottom half was also unclad.

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Their eyes met. His were pale brown, almost colorless. No distinct defining features. Round face. Balding. Short. A tad overweight. He had a good thirty years in him, maybe more if he quit the bad habits.

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“You can smoke if you like,” Artiya’il said in her soft, practiced, pleasant manner.

Saadah nodded, got up slowly, wrapping himself up in blankets.

“Feel free to put some clothes on,” Artiya’il added. “I won’t look.”

She listened to Saadah fumbling. He came back into view, jeans and shirt on, sat on the bed, lit a cigarette.

“Are you Death?” he asked.

Artiya’il smiled. “I get that a lot.” She paused for dramatic effect. “I am not Death.”

Saadah didn’t seem fazed. He took a deep drag.

“Who are you?” he said, averting her gaze. Artiya’il knew it was her emerald- green eyes. No man, or woman for that matter, could resist their allure. Even one as devoid of emotion as Saadah seemed to be.

“I was sent here on a task,” she said. “I was told that you, Saadah, felt an existential apathy that tore through you and left you disassembled. My task is to reassemble you.”

At this, he grinned.

“Reassemble me? Like I’m some sort of a machine?” He sucked on the cigarette, and the sound annoyed Artiya’il, but she didn’t show it.

“Not exactly. Do you pray, Saadah?” She knew the answer, she just wanted to hear him say it.

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Instead, he stubbed out his Marlboro, eyebrows furrowing. “My family didn’t die in a car crash. I have money. I don’t understand why you’re here.”

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Neither do I, Artiya’il thought. Out loud, she said, “I think you do.”

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Oddly, that seemed to do the trick. Saadah sat there, hunched over, his twisted shadow hovering above him on the colorless wall. After a long pause, he said, “Don’t you have wars to end? People to save?”

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“I do.”

“That must mean I’m pretty important.”

“It must.”

He finally met her emerald gaze.

“So what now?” he said.

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The air, electric and mute. Artiya’il marveled at the man’s lack of confusion. Perhaps the Master was onto something. No human had ever reacted to Artiya’il’s appearance in such a nonchalant manner, much less to simultaneous time-travel and teleportation. Most vomited, others screamed, some ran, many cried, a few laughed maniacally. But none just… stood there. For the second time, Artiya’il felt angry at the man. How dare he not buckle at such divine grandeur! Again, she held it back, aghast at how much she was feeling.

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“We’re in a field,” she said, stating the obvious.

He didn’t bat an eyelid. Artiya’il motioned towards the darkening horizon.

“You’ve most likely seen this on the news.”

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“Seen wha…?” Saadah trailed off, as the answer manifested itself in the reflection of his bespectacled eyes. Several sub-vortices slithered down from the charcoal heavens, kissing the ground. They danced around then joined forces, morphing into one gargantuan vortex that annihilated a highway it crossed. It was during moments like this that Artiya’il felt most connected with home while wearing flesh and bone. Not her feathered chambers. Storms evoked an intense nostalgia for a place Artiya’il couldn’t quite remember but for which she felt a powerful longing.

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To her surprise, Saadah remained indifferent.

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“It’s huge,” he said.

Artiya’il nodded. “It’s coming straight at us,” she added pointedly.

Something seemed to dawn on Saadah. “Are we in Oklahoma?”

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Sharp cookie.

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“The widest tornado ever recorded,” Artiya’il said. “There’ve been wider, and bigger, but I figured this would… resonate. Because it happened recently.”

“This is supposed to cheer me up?”

“I’m not here to cheer you up.”

“Then why are you here?”

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Artiya’il didn’t answer, faced the fluctuating black wall of chaos instead. The tornado’s roar blasted through the air, as if a sound barrier violently shattered. Debris swiveled around its expanding edges.

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Saadah stared at it blankly. Not a hint of turmoil, fear, awe. Artiya’il considered leaving the man here, in the path of this all-consuming vortex, and going home. Instead, she formed her protective shield around the two of them, moments before branches and small bicycles and needle-like grass and shards of glass and – wait, was that a little human? – and animals, and rocks, and screeching two-hundred- miles-an-hour winds shredded their sight. Large objects smashed into the translucent shield, bouncing back off into the mayhem.

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Soon: silence. The tornado’s eye.

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Artiya’il raised her arms, looking up at the shifting, oscillating walls of wind and debris. She’d done this before, once, alone, but she’d forgotten just how vitalizing this was. Then she glimpsed Saadah, out of the corner of her eye, and her arms dropped involuntarily.

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He was searching through the pocket of his jeans. Not frantically, just patting his pockets, then shrugging it off.

“Lost something?”

“My phone,” Saadah said.

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***

After the experience of being inside a three-mile-wide tornado failed to thrill, or surprise, or illicit any semblance of emotion from Saadah, Artiya’il took him on a tour of the devastation left in its wake. Overturned, smashed cars. Ripped-out trees. A medical center stripped off its skin to reveal a mangled skeleton. Mothers crying outside flattened houses. Children picking up soaking toys. Bodies pulled out of rubble.

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“Look!” Artiya’il gestured, as they glided in their invisible sphere. “This is grief.

Does this not put your own anguish to shame? Do you not love these people?”

Saadah’s colorless, deadpan eyes challenged her emerald gaze.

“And where were you?” he asked.

At this, Artiya’il hesitated. “Pardon?”

Apparently, it was Saadah’s turn to gesture. “During all this. Where were you? Isn’t this your job?”

“I don’t have a job.”

“You normally show up like this, in person?”

Again, Artiya’il was caught off-guard. She didn’t like the way this was heading.

“No,” she said. “Normally, I am a manifestation of light, a gust of wind, a dream.

I’m a whisper in your ear, a déjà vu, a premonition.”

“So why are you human with me?”

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Artiya’il paused, that gnawing, all-too-human sense of anxiety returning with fierce vengeance.

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***

Later, as they soared over Indonesia towards Mount Tambora in the spring of 1815, Artiya’il felt the sudden need to justify herself to Saadah, despite the self-loathing that came along with it.

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“I am where I am most needed,” she said. “Devastation on a mass scale. Humans are prone to destruction.”

“Are you omnipresent?”

“No. Only the Master is.” She paused. “I can’t help but wonder…”

“What makes me so special?” Saadah finished.

Artiya’il nodded. “Can you tell me?”

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He said nothing as he flew.

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Submersion into the magma depths of Mount Tambora left Saadah typically, infuriatingly insouciant. No human could or would ever experience this. Humanity would die off well before the technology for this kind of thermal suit could be invented. Yet here was Saadah, hands in pockets, gazing around.

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“Wishing for your phone?” Artiya’il said, unable to hide her contempt.

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Saadah shook his head.

“It’s way too bright for a picture,” he said. “Like the sun.”

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Molten rock bubbled and popped. They rose along with it, and out into the open. Above them, the sky became black, ink spreading through milk. They rode the lava, incinerating land and water, animal and human flesh, until there was nothing left to incinerate, yet smoke kept churning into the sky, layering black upon black.

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The year without summer followed. Artiya’il showed the worst of it to Saadah: the famine, the floods, the spreading of deadly diseases, the dead crops, the dead. He may as well have shrugged it off. Only he didn’t, for shrugging would be a reaction, a display of human emotion; instead he simply observed with his beady, pale eyes on his plain face on his balding head, and what made him so special, what gave him the right to such empyrean equanimity, what lay behind those stupid glasses, if only Artiya’il could –

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“Are you all right?” she heard Saadah ask.

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They stood in a crimson fog, the setting sun a blood-red disc. The air so thick it was like breathing liquid.

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“Yes, I’m okay,” she said, looking away.

She felt overexposed, like Saadah’s magma picture would’ve been, had he not forgotten his damn phone.

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And so it went.

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Artiya’il took Saadah to places terrible and spectacular, from the massacres of Rwanda to the peak of Everest, from the ISIS bloodshed of Syrian camps to the creation of the pyramids, from the worst of natural and human-made disasters to the miracles of Earth’s existence. Saadah touched a Plateosauraus. He met Jesus. He even assumed the body of a capuchin monkey, the most emotive of creatures. With him inside it, the monkey just sat there passively.

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Artiya’il contemplated the Master’s parting words – but also the image of Darda’il and Mikaaiyl, watching her sweat, exchanging questioning looks. She grew more and more agitated by what potentially awaited her back home. She’d seen the horrors of Auschwitz. She’d never been this agitated.

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***

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Finally, when all seemed futile, Artiya’il catapulted them to space at the speed of light. Reality warped, stars extended into stripes; galaxies flew by. Artiya’il didn’t even have to look to know that Saadah remained indifferent. She was almost past the point of caring. Almost. They slowed until they were floating in vacuum, several feet apart from each other, trillions of miles away from Saadah’s little home. That knowledge alone, not to mention the experience of light-speed followed by an abrupt suspension in a lifeless void, would crumple any human.

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“Is this it?” Saadah said, glancing up and down and left and right. “You’re showing me that this is all there is?”

“No.” Artiya’il sighed, gestured. “I’m showing you this.”

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In front of them: a blast. All-encompassing. Immediate. Silent, but not really, as itsent a guttural rupture through their bodies, an ear-splitting shriek within their skulls. So bright it seared their sight. Matter converted into antimatter. Artiya’il pulled Saadah through the black hole.

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Their bodies vaporized.

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“I give up.”

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Artiya’il didn’t care anymore how she sounded. The man’s body had been ripped apart then put back together, molecule-by-molecule, and here he was, using the bottom of his shirt to wipe the smudges off his glasses. She brought them back to Earth, to a meadow by a lake in Bavaria. An apricot dawn simmered over the distant snow-capped mountains. The lake was half-black, half-apricot, the bright ripples folding over the dim ones. Crystal-clear air filled their lungs. A gust of wind made the trees whisper, and birds sang their morning hymns.

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Artiya’il lay down on the plush grass, rubbed her face, looked up at the brightening heavens. She let her eyes adjust to the one dot blemishing a clear sky. An airplane. Carrying humans. To Los Angeles. It would get there safely. Humans would scatter like ants on top of steadily-rupturing tectonic plates.

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“I give up,” she repeated, then glanced at Saadah, on his back next to him. There was a smile on Saadah’s face.

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“Can we stay here awhile, you think?” he asked, and Artiya’il couldn’t find a reason to say no.

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Moments passed, then hours.

They are probably still there.