It's hard to deal with pain.
Well, that came out as trite, no? That's one of the
things that I - well, not hate; I stopped hating a
while back - it's one of the things that frustrates me
about corporeal tongues. There are some things that
just can't be said in them, and a whole lot more
things that can only sound completely stupid and
clumsy. There isn't a language on Earth that is
better at expressing pain than in describing it. I
wish that there were.
It's not for me, you understand; it's for them. The
humans. They hurt so easily, so brutally, and the
worst part for them is that trying to express it
invariably causes more hurt. Even the cultures that
let them show pain fall down completely when it comes
to letting them verbalize it. Humans don't like to
even think about suffering, pain and grief too much:
they seem such insoluble problems that there's no
point to trying to overcome them. The humans make do
instead with clumsy makeshifts and nonverbal cues.
It's, pardon my Infernal, a Hell of a way to run a
civilization.
And the worst bit is, it's all so bloody unnecessary.
There's a guy in Heaven - one of the clever ones, and
one that knew fear like a lover - that said once that
the worst fear, the most primal fear of all, was the
fear of the unknown. That's the source of their pain:
they have to go through daily Hells on Earth because
they don't know what's going to happen to them, and it
scares them more than anything else that the corporeal
plane can throw at them. That fear gnaws and bites at
even the saintliest and confident of them; it colors
everything that they do. They can't be sure. They
can't help but think, late at night when alone, that
maybe it's meaningless, all of it. That, maybe, when
it's over it's over, with nothing at the end except
for a fall into endless nothingness and silence. It
eats at them, even when they don't consciously think
about it. Actually, it eats at them especially when
they don't consciously think about it.
And I, who have the one piece of knowledge that they
all crave beyond food, water and even air - the
knowledge that there is something beyond the silence
of their last heartbeat - cannot give it to them. I
could so easily show them... but I may not. I have to
watch while they grapple with pain, fear and
unfairness, and usually the best that I can offer is
the metaphorical equivalent of a Band-Aid for a gut
wound. I do not even get to have the satisfaction of
hating the reason why I have to do this: I can do
nothing but approve of it. Free will may be a stone
cold bitch, but the alternative is too hideous to
contemplate.
You would think that our Soldiers would thus be a
comfort to us, and you would be right, but even then
the pain is not removed, only lessened. If it were
not for the War, we would not reveal the nature of
their future past vitality to any human: partially
because each recruiting of a new mortal to the cause s
u b verts their right to find their path on their own
(and each act of subversion rips into every angel
in a pain that never lessens, or becomes Truly
familiar) - but mostly because to become a Soldier is
to trade pain wished upon you by the universe for
voluntary, self-inflicted pain. They cannot give
others the same essential comfort that we have gifted
them with, you understand. No matter how much they
might love those others, or how stabbing the pain
might be to see others suffering when the right words
could irrevocably end that suffering, our Soldiers
must keep silent, lest they wreck the paths of others.
Most of them meet the challenge bravely, so bravely -
but I have heard too many tears in the darkness to
delude myself.
And so, I hope that now you know why some angels
volunteer for the honorable and ancient task of easing
the last moments of a human's lifespan. Understand,
the fact that we embrace such a task as if it were an
eager lover does not mean that we loathe them, or
enjoy the feel of their final breaths. We would not
have any man, woman or child die, if we could help
it... but they will, and so we do what we can (and
there are never enough to do the task properly) to
make that passing easy, when we are not denied even
that service by mechanisms that are only dimly
understood, even by us. Believe us, we love them. We
love them so. Please believe me when I tell you this.
This is the only way that I may deal with their pain.
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