Angelic babies

The reverend and his church group were protesting against abortion when an angel appeared. It faded into existence in a halo of warm light and stood in the middle of the sidewalk with its arms spread, palms open, as if presenting a patch of the sidewalk as a holy offering. The church group stopped their chanting and stood there not really knowing what to do. The reverend in particular was looking at the angel’s face and body and was trying to determine the sex. For the first time in his life he understood what non-binary meant.

The reverend was also the first to wake out of stupor. He took a step forward and said: “Oh, holy messenger of the Lord. Are you here to give us a sign? To relay His Holy Will to us? Blessed be!”

But the angel did not respond, only stood in the gesture of offering. And slowly, as if shyly, the glow around him begot tiny little babies. They lay on the sidewalk, each no bigger than a thumb, dozens of them, cute and glowing and beautiful, in heaps that resembled bunches of grapes. They were moving lazily, coyly, yawning and stretching, as if awakened from a deep sleep. They did not cry.

Slowly, the angel faded away, leaving only the babies behind.

The church group, being good Christians, of course eventually picked the babies up off of the ground to take care of them. They organized a nursery at the church for the tiny little babies. They marveled at the angelic beauty of each and every one of them. Their count was seventy-one, which was not a particularly meaningful number in any scriptural sense, but maybe the meaning of the number would be revealed eventually, along with the purpose of these babies.

It took the babies a few weeks to mature to a state where they could move around and speak. They were no bigger than the palm of one’s hand, but they spoke all sorts of languages, human languages from all over the planet and possibly angelic ones, or maybe just dead human languages. Who could know that? At any rate, they were not possible to be understood except for one who spoke English.

The little sexless baby spoke about things without consequence or weight. It spoke about things that it found interesting, and even the reverend could not infuse its words with deeper meaning. The baby spoke about the food it received, and things outside the window like kites and birds. It was also very fond of keys.

When asked about subjects of spiritual import, the baby seemed bored and never engaged beyond a few words. Some of the answers were quite distressing, like “Nothing” and “He doesn’t care about any of you”.

Of course there was the usual human drama around the babies. Some new cults split from the church, and a reasonably large number of people tried to shoot up the nursery, although those people were swiftly struck down by invisible forces. Forces too swift to be mistaken for random heart attacks. So the attacks stopped, and all the kidnappings etc. were unsuccessful too, so they all stopped as well.

They matured enough to look like children ready for their bar or bat mitzvah, and then they suddenly faded away. People who witnessed their fading away said they smelled almonds in the air. Felt a wisp of warmth. Heard an old-forgotten melody in their heads. But that was it. And the babies faded into the regular faulty human memory and rampant misinformation.

Posted by: Paweł Kowaluk