Now love has gotten quite the sensational reputation.

Of stopping heartbeats.

The grandiose declarations.

The kiss at the finale of performance pieces.

Bear with me children, I am a slow typer. I am quite the aged and worn woman. So do mind me with some respect-- and I'll do the same. I find the idea of a diary across the Interweb fascinating.

What an amazing idea!

Well first off, I am an Angel.

Yes, one of those in Heaven. And yes, we have certain rigid rules.

However we are not servile to any God. There is no bundle of molecules that forms a singularly human figure to represent "God" as you on Earth can comprehend.

And secondly, Guardian Angels, is actually one of our lower positions of hierarchy. The highest of course, being the Angels of Vengeance and for the war of Rapture.

Oh but that isn't for a long time yet. So don't worry. Well okay, worry a little, your world as streamlined and constantly revolutionary as it is-- it is still quite the moral and dramaturgical mess!

I believe you humans may need to get those feet back on the ground and to appreciate the Earth under your feet.

It was not made as a plaything and while it may be yours, it is no vanity project to paint in whatever way you wish.

But of course, this isn't that entry.

Not yet. I do apologize for my ramble and I hope you may be patient with me.

This is about Cupid.

This concerns myself, a Guardian Angel.

And love. In all the forms it takes.

You see, what you first must know is that there is reason for every myth. You humans were always startlingly intelligent. Your eyes had stunning clarity. I would dare say they had much more clarity in the past. You-- humans-- were more willing to trust yourselves.

Humans you see, had quite good reason to construct every myth and moral that they did.

Because they are morals to live by to respect the creatures you share this Earth with.

You are quite distinct beings, you humans quite intelligent and controlled, well I will give you this, other creatures-- Angels included-- act with much more abandon. We act more on our instincts and the emotions that we feel.

Other times we do have more fluid, vastly far-reaching intelligence of the dust in stars or the last breath of a nebula. Concepts, that thought of too deeply is simply beyond what you humans were programmed for.

As a result, creatures are much less compatible to intermingle than you humans are. Another one of your virtues.

While an ill suited congregation of creatures would either eat each other or suck them dry of all that makes them up, from their bones to their very soul. So that not even what would be granted entrance to eternal rest is left behind. Too mangled to constitute a once thinking, existing trace of a presence on this world.

Angels are, to remain objective, absent of many negative emotions. For all the rules we do have, we simply do not judge. We do not persecute. Angels as a general rules, accept that with light, goodness, and Order, there must be its singular and opposite darkness, rot, evil, and Chaos.

As an unexpected result, even the positive emotions we feel, are blunted.

But that especially helps a Guardian Angel human.

For you see, once they are assigned a human, a Guardian is cast down. To live and walk upon the Earth and appreciate it. To see its working parts from the eyes of you humans.

A Guardian Angel is per request.

Whenever a human genuinely asks to the sky for assistance. There are certain procedures but that is very select knowledge and can yield better, integrative service but as long as the request is of genuine intention-- than you have a Guardian Angel.

Mine was Aya.

Who had asked for my help when she was a teenager of fifteen years old. Of a low-income family and who didn't have a prayer otherwise of paying for business school. She wouldn't have even been able to scrape together to pay for the license she'd need in a few years to sell food.

And so, I was sent to provide my assistance. In a small, intimately tight-knit seaside town with a city twenty miles away where she would attend one of its older public universities. I found my services quite popular when she had moved there.

I have taken many forms in Aya's life, sometimes even in the lives of those around sweet red-haired Aya. Including her brash and doting husband-- well, before they'd been husband and wife. I stayed in the distance when they'd married.

Watching such naked adoration in their eyes as they made those vows before an appointed agent of that being you humans call God.

Such a look, that is so fundamentally human.

That is one love my little humans. The one you know so well with that Angel called Cupid. Well humans, Cupid is quite the character, much more conniving than you would realize. And Cupid has far more arrows than the red ones.

He has pink and white and yellow and even black.

He also has, a color for that love between a mother and her child.

But that color, is quite the elusive one. It isn't one that can be pronounced by the human tongue.

But is always, without fail, the color of that child's eyes. And the nettle of their soul is its wood.

An Angel is naturally charged to help all whom they come across.

Including, a human girl with fiery dark eyes that burned like a ravaging forest fire.

Who had had relations with a monster.

The alluring thrall of a dark, tempestuous love eater.

Yes, they are primarily women. Men are almost a species all their own in their rarity. But a succubus mother, does in fact produce a succubus child. Boy or girl.

And that torrid affair, produced a lovely green eyed boy and his human Mother's thick dark hair fluttering and curling gently to cover his ears, whose hands from the start grabbed for any source of love it could find.

Love that currently, only a Mother could provide and goodness did that girl give so selflessly.

"That baby will kill you," I told her.

And she had been told that before.

Injuriously been told before that the baby was a mistake, a curse, that the baby was better off in the ground or on one of those-- well that may be a bit too far for public consumption. So we'll leave such language there and in the smog of hateful air.

In all fairness and grace of the universe, she'd had every right to scratch at my unfeeling fixture shadowing her sadness with the claws of a harpy.

I got down to my feet, hands settled on my knees as she flinched away on the street bench she sat on.

"That baby--"

"Marcel."

"Marcel," I accepted which rolled off my tongue and a giggle-- a giggle my children!-- bubbled in my chest, "Marcel--"

Marcel. Marcel.

"Was made by unnatural means, you know this. Much as you hate yourself to think it. You know."

And I held my hand in her warm one. That was somehow still warm in the cold as the ocean at this close-knit, selective little town's edge turned grey.

"I love him," she warbled, voice hushed and fractured as the harsh winter wind. But no less strong, so admirably strong.

And the slight tightness of my hand seemed to wrest something out of her.

"Would you like lodging in a single woman's home? It is nothing fancy but is near the hospital and the neighbors have been nothing but lovely to me as well," I said with a teasing smile, "for all my lack of a man or in any interest of such thing."

I am what humans call... "an asexual." Love in that manner is foreign and I believe, simply outside an Angel's purview.

"They also bring large amounts of kugel and uncalled for questions about my mood on any given day."

Which coaxed a laugh from her which was so beautiful.

And which the baby lapped up as fiercely as he would his mothers' milk.

As I said, love like that, it is so fundamentally human.

Still, I could love a human.

I could love a harsh, burning, startling woman whom never ceased loving. Never ceased fighting the world for the bundle in her arms.

An Angel's love is infinite. For it is the love of The One, of life itself, of each and every grain of dust and in the perfect formulation of flowers or of chaos in the forms of storms or of fae now limited to the farthest flung wilds of Scotland or Old York or of vampires and werewolves who turn humans wrong and deformed. Members of a wholly different pack. Members, of a Holy Balance.

So Marcel could eat, he could live.

Marcel in consequence of being raised by an Angel and a human, could learn.

Learn that love was just as much giving. It was about pleasure and pain in equal measures, for equal parties.

As an Angel it was a moral duty to temper the succubi Marcel so he did not eat his way through the coming high school class of 20XX.

As his Mother, it was with all the love in my heart that my son Marcel have the life no succubus has ever been allowed, a life in the open where shame and subterfuge are foreign concepts and that the taste of a kiss or the warmth of an embrace-- those things linger and write upon their heart beneath their skin.

A heart that turns out, was swollen when on a doctor's medical picture.

And another note, yes I know, but much as an Angel could give love-- something like a blood transfusion, a marvelous use of alchemy by the way-- and an Angel's infinite love could also be made into an infinite battery in the shape of a green charm on his choker, when he was young did I learn that an Angel's love is diluted. It isn't the pure form that his species feeds on.

So he was consequentially always going to be a little thin. That is what I will forever regret.

And as the town grew around us over the years, so did its distance from the ocean it originated from.

Aya obtained her diploma and a license to sell food. Her husband's friends knew the developers for new expansions such as a state of the art hospital, a mental health clinic, a stretch of new suburb housing, and an entertainment district. Which necessitated restaurants with that kindly, little tight-knit community charm.

She had never expected to run a fully functioning cafe with eight employees under her from the word 'GO.'

But a visit from an elderly woman who wished for a simple cup of coffee and of course congratulated her on the coming arrival, settled her nerves a bit. And that old woman, and a young college aged worker just moved to town, became regular customers. Who appreciated the sense of home much more than any material product or how big the sign was.

Her son had flowing red hair and slightly purple tinted eyes, he sat in the cafe, and marveled the customers with his portraits.

And some of his landscape sketches were framed and hung on the walls with the family booths.

And at the same time, where I, a human Mother, and Marcel lived in what had once been a bare, lifeless little chamber that passed for a house-- I peeled away different figures with different hair colors or facial structures the way other women unzipped business skirts.

Marcel always had a kiss for his working Mother.

That is, until he became a teenager.

When he became a teenager, there was much more fingering of the choker that contained a piece of an Angel's love.

"Is someone bullying you?"

Marcel's birth mother still had eyes that bore through you with fire.

Marcel jolted, "of course-- Absolutely NOT!"

She never flinched at the fangs in Marcel's mouth. And in fact, they'd been received with almost reverence and certainly morbid fascination at school.

It was on quite the casual day when Aya dropped the news.

To the old woman who'd never had grandchildren of her own. Or, so she knew. Her girl-- and yes, Aya was something like my adult daughter-- "my Newton's finally found someone."

In that moment, well I was taken aback. Even stuttered to a stop in taking a sip of my latte.

You see, Newton Burberry had quite the interesting string to Cupid. One lined black.

Lined, as an accent to one of the most evocative reds I'd ever seen as an Angel.

__________________________

Newton Burberry.

Is the name that was on his sketchbook.

He liked the smell of salt, the sound of the fishing boats.

His mother had talked about what was once just a quiet beach when she'd been twenty.

Newton couldn't imagine it.

At the ocean, was always a noisy, sailor's harbor. It was how he knew it. A fact as fundamental as his own hair was red and Vampire Marcel who wore chokers and lace fingerless gloves ordered online absolutely knew what he was doing when he batted those lashes! And released the power of his round, doe-like eyes too green and too delicate to be human!

He breathed in more of the salty air and turned to a new page. Coming to half of his sketchbook. Marcel, like a sleek feathered Magpie had presented Newton with a black decorative ribbon to be a bookmark.

The scratch of his pencil louder at the moment than the sway of the ocean water or how it foamed and then crashed into the bridge.

Light steps slowed his hand until he stopped.

Marcel just seemed to glide. His smile seemed to skirt just over your head in the tone of a joke with a riddle as a punchline.

The joke seemed to be the look on your face.

"Hey there," Marcel said a purr always at the back of his throat.

"Hi," he said back, with a smile.

"You must have had-- some day. You-- you are rocking right now. Did you-- are those contacts? No wait your eyes are always like pearls--"

And then he did that and blushed scarlet at the slightest smile.

And still, Marcel stopped his heart just about every time.

One of his mothers was a poet, or she spoke as if she were in a Jane Austin novel which did have that kind of poetry.

"What are you drawing?"

They sat beside each other.

Newton noticed the way his thick black hair, just like the feathers of that Magpie, framed his face and that cat-like smile that lightly stroked on his features.

"I wanted to focus on Chupacabra this time, the really big, freaky types of legends this time."

Marcel edged closer so he could have a better look.

"I'm writing about a sailor."

It was some more chatter like that, about their hobbies and trading ideas, before they rounded back to why Marcel had requested to meet here of all places.

He'd wanted the ambiance he'd said, because he loved Newton he'd said, and since he did he needed to tell him this secret.

_______________________________

I'd put on a nice blouse and long skirt for this particular Sunday brunch.

We did it at least twice in a month.

Make a to-do about breakfast with adorned waffles, some arranged fruit bowls, and cold juice.

Though on this occasion, Marcel had decided Sunday brunch would be just the casual environment to introduce the boy he was seeing.

There'd been nothing but hugs when Marcel had admitted he liked boys. He'd cried a bit just a little bit nervous. That there would be disappointment or that his mothers would be offended that he was so nervous.

But what really mattered is they both supported Marcel.

He leapt to answer the door, grinning ear to ear.

And gently led the boy on their doorstep along by the hand.

"Mama, Mother, this is my boyfriend," and he twined an arm around him, laying his head on the red-haired boy's shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world. To mark one's territory.

The tinge of pink in the black of his eyes exposed just how deeply that love went.

And perhaps, that went to explain the black lining the string around Aya's son.

I think you'll agree with me, Cupid, had a lot to answer for.

Once he stopped laughing.

Not sure if the challenge is supposed to be about the occult or a cult, so I'll mix it up.

I am just so tired of the stereotyping! Look folks. Wiccans aren't wicked, evil, spawns of Satan! We don't fly around on broomsticks wearing ruby slippers harassing members of the Lullaby League and Lollipop Guild! We're being religiously profiled!

So, to all those members of the Manson Family, STOP leaving your kids on our doorsteps to be raised as spawns of the devil! If you want your kids to be raised to be evil, drop them at the Scientology headquarters, the RNC offices, DMV, or an NRA convention!

Oh, and to whatever motherfucker keeps trying to drop a Kansas farmhouse on my head and hitting me with buckets of water...Try it again and you'll be hearing from my lawyer!

They called him Mother Spoopy. It was derisive at first.

It wasn't on account of how he dressed, though the ambiguity of the oversized bags, aprons, and the unkempt hair that covered body and face, contributed to the effect. All of this had grayed over the years as well, along with the porch he sat on, dragging heavily on a perpetually half cigar. We could smell it down the at the corner, sweet cherrywood, and knew he'd be out, and always nursing some wounded bat.

If it wasn't a bat, it was a pygmy owl, or an ermine weasel, white as death and he would say to us: "Lor' knows if she'll make it thru' though, devil be damned we're goin' to try maties!" and we weren't ever to sure who was "we" and which side anybody stood on: us, or him, or God, or Lucifer, for that matter, any living creature.

What we saw was tubes, and sometimes white translucent stuff, and sometimes a thing looking a lot like blood. What we could figure for sure was, was it going in or going out? And why not just take it to the vet?

Bobbie Sue would snicker and say, "Why, he is a Vet!" and giggle. We thought that must be the effect of his peg leg on her imagination, cuz we all knew he'd descended from pirates. He routinely said in passing: "Been to Hell and back, boys! to Hell with it all!" waving his hands like he saw the parting of the red sea or something, his fingers stained with substances we'd never seen. Sometimes orangish red, sometimes green.

Our folks though they tried to steer us clear. Something between, "Don't go meddling," and "Doing the Angel's work!" out in the fresh air. We found in time respectable people would bring him their pets sometimes, like when the Mayor's terrier was struck in hit and run, and so badly mangled. There were a few eyebrows over her choice of "witch doctor" over clinic. But when Bartlet turned a corner, the local paper declared Mother Spoopy a healer, and said we had so much to learn from Nature and the compassion of man, dedication, love, patience and separation from unwieldly machinery.

We started thinking differently about war, and science, and magic. Life.

10.15.2024

Crazies Raising Crazies challenge @AJAY9979

Victor, now standing ankle-deep in freshly disturbed grave dirt, glanced at the relic in his hand—the Claw of Skilbognar. The claw seemed to wiggle a bit, its googly eyes shaking in the wind. "Why do these things always have googly eyes?" he muttered to no one in particular.

**Narrator:** *Good question, Victor. It’s the only way to make eldritch horrors less horrifying. You’re welcome.*

Victor blinked and looked around. "Wait, did someone just—? Nah, never mind. Focus. I’m raising a high priestess from a rival cult. No time for distractions."

The Claw glowed, or at least tried to—it looked more like it was sparking from bad wiring. Regardless, Victor began chanting, pouring the ceremonial glitter over Darla Flimbledygg’s grave.

"By the power of the stars, by the… oh god, that smells awful… by the ancient rites of… hold on, what even is ‘Flimbledygg’? Did someone make that up just to mess with me?"

**Narrator:** *I can neither confirm nor deny that. But let’s just say names are hard, okay?*

Victor rolled his eyes but kept going. The ground shook, the dirt split, and from the cracks, a strange gelatinous hand emerged. Darla—or at least something resembling Darla—oozed up from the grave, her rainbow spaghetti hair flailing in the breeze.

Victor’s face went pale. "What the… she’s covered in Jell-O! This isn’t in the necromancy manual!"

**Narrator:** *To be fair, Victor, you skipped half the instructions. Remember the footnote about ‘never mix sects that worship desserts’?*

"Wait, what footnote?" Victor whipped out the crumpled ritual guide from his robe pocket. He squinted at the bottom of the page, where in minuscule print, it read: *WARNING: Do not attempt to summon from rival dessert-based cults. May result in abominations of confectionery and chaos. Side effects include spontaneous gelatinous lifeforms, unpredictable flavors, and existential dread.*

"Are you kidding me?! Who even prints that in size 2 font?!" Victor threw the paper down in frustration as Darla—no, **The Slime Empress**—wobbled to full height, her googly eyes spinning like slot machines.

"**I AM REBORN!**" she gurgled, her voice sounding like someone had stuffed an old-timey radio into a vat of jellybeans. She glanced at her new form, poking one of her spaghetti noodle fingers. "Wait… am I… am I Jell-O? Again?! **Again?** Oh, for the love of—"

Victor threw up his hands. "Okay, can someone please explain what’s happening? I just wanted to summon some powerful spirit, not end up in some bizarre food fight!"

**Narrator:** *Well, Victor, the thing is—when you dabble in rival occult practices, you accidentally opened a gateway to the "Absurd Realms," where laws of logic and physics are about as stable as a toddler on roller skates. Congratulations.*

"Great. Just great." Victor sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "And now she’s covered in spaghetti and Jell-O. I’m never going to live this down, am I?"

**Narrator:** *Not even a little bit.*

Meanwhile, The Slime Empress was busy inspecting her new form. "Seriously, why is it always Jell-O? Do I look like a cafeteria dessert to you people?! And these googly eyes? What am I, a craft project?!"

Victor shrugged. "Honestly, I thought you’d be a lot scarier."

The Slime Empress groaned, tentacles of gelatin slapping the ground. "Do you know how hard it is to terrorize someone when you jiggle every time you move? Look at me! I’m a walking snack pack!"

**Narrator:** *Hey, don’t knock it. Jell-O monsters are a classic. At least you’re not made of cottage cheese.*

She wobbled threateningly toward Victor. "Fine! You summoned me, and now I’m going to… uh… what’s the word? Oh yeah, **destroy you!**" She lifted her spaghetti tentacle dramatically, though one of the googly eyes fell off mid-swing.

Victor dodged the limp noodle attack with ease. "That’s it? You’re gonna ‘destroy’ me? With **noodles**?"

"I’m working with what I’ve got!" The Slime Empress shot back, her voice crackling with frustration. She slung a glob of lime Jell-O at him, which hit a nearby tombstone and… melted it into a pile of rubber ducks.

Victor stared. "Okay, I didn’t expect that."

**Narrator:** *Plot twist. But hey, at least the ducks are cute.*

The Slime Empress glared up at the sky. "Who is that? Why do they sound like they’re enjoying this?"

"Right?!" Victor threw his hands up. "They keep narrating everything I do! It’s incredibly distracting!"

**Narrator:** *Sorry, but you signed up for this when you started messing with forbidden rituals. Gotta keep things spicy.*

Victor groaned. "Next time, I’m summoning something normal. Like a ghost. Or a demon that just wants to negotiate for my soul instead of hurling Jell-O at me."

The Slime Empress, wobbling uncontrollably, tried to give him a menacing stare, but one of her spaghetti limbs tangled with another, causing her to faceplant into the dirt.

Victor winced. "Oof, that’s gotta hurt."

**Narrator:** *I mean, she’s mostly Jell-O. I doubt she even felt it.*

The Slime Empress slowly reformed herself, a spaghetti noodle dangling from her forehead. "You know what? Screw this. I’m done. I’m going back to the underworld, or wherever the heck I came from, and I’m filing a formal complaint about these resurrection rituals."

Victor sighed in relief. "Oh, thank god."

"Not so fast, mortal!" She reared up one last time. "Before I go, I shall curse you with… uh… I dunno. **Uncomfortable socks!**"

Victor stared at her. "Seriously?"

"Yup." She raised a wobbly limb. "For the rest of your days, every time you put on socks, they’ll either be slightly damp or inexplicably too tight. **You’ll never be comfortable again.**"

Victor’s jaw dropped. "You’re the worst."

**Narrator:** *Honestly? That’s a pretty solid curse. Diabolical, really.*

The Slime Empress, clearly satisfied with her absurd curse, wobbled back into the grave, which promptly swallowed her up. The earth sealed over with a plop, leaving nothing but a faint smell of lime Jell-O.

Victor stood in the silent cemetery, his shoes squelching in the aftermath. "Well," he muttered, glancing around at the rubber ducks, spaghetti strands, and inexplicable piles of goo, "at least it wasn’t cottage cheese."

Under a moon as red as spilled wine, Gerard knelt within a circle of salt and bones, whispering the incantation to raise a fallen disciple. His robes fluttered in the night breeze, and his eyes gleamed with mad devotion as he called upon the Moon of Eternal Madness.

But something went wrong.

The ground trembled, and a foul, scorching heat radiated from the summoning circle. A figure burst forth, not in the expected shroud of lunar shadows but in a blaze of golden light. Gerard stumbled back, eyes wide as a man draped in ancient, sun-marked robes emerged, his eyes glowing like twin suns.

"Who dares disturb my slumber?" the figure bellowed, his voice echoing with the arrogance of centuries. "I am Timothee, High Priest of the Forgotten Sun. Who are you to call me from the ashes?"

Gerard blinked. "The... Moon’s light brought you here," he stammered. "I sought to raise my brother in the Lunatic Order."

Timothee sneered, flicking a wrist as if brushing away the words. "Your moon magic is laughable. You summoned me—Timothee the Unyielding, devout worshiper of the Day of Reckoning!" He glanced around at the circle of bones and scoffed. "You use such petty tools for rituals?"

Gerard’s lips curled into a defiant grin. "And what of your relics? I see none but your ridiculous sun motifs. What good is a ‘Day of Reckoning’ when you’ve been buried for centuries?"

The two stared each other down, both itching to prove their cult’s superiority. Gerard raised his hands, muttering a chant that made the air shimmer with ethereal darkness. Timothee retaliated with a flicker of sunlight that carved through the night. The air crackled with clashing energies—madness and radiance, shadow and flame.

With each spell cast, reality twisted and warped; trees bent like melted wax, stars spiraled out of the sky, and time itself seemed to hiccup. As the chaos grew, the lines between their magics blurred, creating something new—something neither cult had ever imagined.

Amid the madness, they found themselves laughing—first in spite, then in genuine glee. It seemed the more they fought, the closer their magics merged, forming a swirling dance of dark and light.

Timothee smirked as the ground beneath their feet cracked open. “Perhaps this Lunatic Order is not as hopeless as I thought.”

Gerard grinned back, eyes gleaming with newfound madness. “And perhaps the Forgotten Sun has its uses after all.”

And so, from that night onward, the world knew of a new cult: the Order of the Twisted Eclipse.

© 2024 A.M. Roberts. All rights reserved.