THE ANGEL KING|5/5|MADNESS

After an angel serves his time as God, he is free to do as he chooses...

some serve in Heaven, some rule in Hell, some roam the Earth.

--

BOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!! -- a bright light from above...

"What is that?" Cassiel asks, shields his eyes.

Azrael peers into the light, his blue eyes exploding as the light refracts throughout his eye's complex crystalline structure. He smirks. "This must be... FATHER?"

Coughing, from behind the light and smoke. "Sorry." A deep voice reverberates out from the unseen. "That's a lot of smoke." More coughing.

Azrael squints in confusion, turns to Cassiel for answers. He has none.

"Hello?" Azrael asks.

"Yeah?" The smoke clears, the image of a man, older, gray, bearded, a gourd of what smells like God's wine sits clumsily in his hand. He steps out, squinting and clearing the smoke. 

"Who are you?" Azrael asks with an authoritative tone. 

Cassiel snorts ridicule. "Do you not recognize your maker?!"

"Whoa!" The old man's voice cuts in, reverberates to the point of pain. "No one said anything about that. I'm just Terry, from up above." He points up above casually. "I'm one of the guys watching you all."

Azrael turns his head in disbelief. "ONE of you?"

"Yeah, there's a bunch of guys up there watching you all." Terry responds, licks his lips like a boy might, sips his wine. "It's crazy down here..." He shakes his head.

"Why do you come now, of all times?" Azrael asks.

Terry coughs a few staccato chuckles. "We generally just let you guys handle shit, but this got out of hand. That dead guy was supposed to rule for a while." Terry points to the Nakir, the dead guy.

"Who says he supposed to rule? I took the throne, this is MY crown." Azrael thrusts the gold crown in Terry's face.

"OK, ah, actually guy was supposed to rule." Terry again points Nakir, the dead guy.

"Azrael, calm yourself." Cassiel speaks under his breath.

"No, it's cool." Terry replies. "I get it. Ah, we do gotta go to Earth though."

Terry twitches his head forward, grunts -- a drunk uncle version of the "I Dream of Jeannie" head nod -- the three appear over water, the Atlantic ocean. They float mid-air, watch as sharks, octopus, giant squids gather beneath them.

"WHAT IS THIS?!" Azrael screams, trying to break out of unseen bonds that hold him in place. 

"Oh, we're going to hold a trial for you killing all those people and stuff. And trying to take the crown." Terry responds. He grunts, head nods -- the world's population appears around them, suspended in the air as if they're locked into invisible roller coaster seats.

They look around, horrified at their abruptly new surroundings. They begin to SCREAM and PANIC! Several have HEART ATTACKS and-.

"OH-RELAX!" Terry yells out, his voice reverberates through their skulls like the voice of God, an instant antidote to their panic. They calmly face and listen to Terry, look to the three otherworldly men floating above them blankly.

"OK!" Terry speaks like a boss beginning his work day. "My name's Terry, I'm one of the guys from up above." 

The people look to each other not sure what to think. "I'm kind of like a God or something." Terry struggles with how to say it. "Anyways, this isn't about me... So, ah, basically, this is Azrael and Cassiel." He gestures to them. "They're two, like angels, and I'm going to put them on trial for you all today..."

A giant shark jumps out of the water, chomps a couple of people from the sky, they scream in horror.

"Aw shit!" Terry winces at the sight. The shark splashes back down into the ocean, blood dripping and flowing into saltwater waves. "Sorry about that."

Terry nod-grunts twice -- everyone floats a few feet higher, the men killed by the shark reappear uninjured. "OK, so, anyways, ah... basically you guys decide what should happen, you're the jury. As for like the details, Azrael was kinda going around killing, you know, quite a few people, and a lot of that kind of stuff..."

The people look at Terry blankly.

"Did you guys see that, did you hear about it?" Terry ask everyone. "Raise your hand if you heard about this guy killing a bunch of people."

Most of the world's population raises their hand. "OK, good, that speeds it up atleast. So, ah, yeah he was basically killing these people who he said were-" Terry makes air quotes. "-'agents of Lucifer'. I'm pretty sure that's not even a thing."

Azrael shakes his head, sighs... monsters of the sea circle beneath him.

"So, yeah, what do you guys think? What's his punishment?" Terry asks them.

A young girl, maybe 9, raises her hand. "Yes, little girl. I think your name's Rebekah or something." Terry points to her.

"My name's Caitlin." She replies.

"Sorry." 

"Maybe he should die like how he killed them?" The little girl proposes innocently.

"Cool, yeah, not a bad idea. Anyone else?" Terry looks to point to someone else in the crowd.

A Catholic priest raises his hand. "What will happen after he dies?"

"You mean like, what's his after-life?" Terry asks.

"Yeah."

"OK, good question. What do you guys think?" Terry asks everyone.

"What is it now?" The priest asks, embarrassed to show doubt in his faith.

"Ah, well... It's basically a sorting machine. My man Keith tries to get everyone where they think they should go, like kind of a make-a-wish thing." Terry replies.

"So he could end up back in Heaven?" The priest asks.

"Not unless you guys don't want him to. What do you think, like Hell, or purgatory, or Mormon Hell, or just black-nothing-atheist stuff? What do you guys think?" Terry asks.

The people are quiet, not sure what to say. A man stands near the front, a working class joe speaks. "What if he just goes to prison... and he's like gotta make signs and stuff like all the rest of the prisoners so he's giving something back to society... but he's still mortal and stuff so he'll die some day... and his sentence is so long that he eventually dies in prison." 

"That's cool. What do you guys think?" Terry looks to the masses, his thumb wavering between up or down... "Everyone in favor raise your hand."

Maybe half the people raise their hands. "Hm, OK, that looks like more with their hand up probably. Sorry Az."

Azrael is slowly lowered from the sky towards the hungry sea monsters below, he screams out for mercy, tries to wiggle away from his slow descent...

"TERRY!" Cassiel screams.

"Shit, sorry, that's right, you're right. I got mixed and thought we were going to do the sea monster thing." Terry nod-grunts -- Azrael's body flails, comes to a stop, not far from chomping distance. "Alright Az, this is it buddy... Anything you want to say before you go?"

Azrael squints off into the distance... the setting sun paints his bronze skin purple-orange. He raises his mouth to speak... "I  wa-." -- Terry nod-grunts -- Azrael disappears mid sentence. The masses explode into juvenile laughter, Terry looks around, proud at his joke.

"Alright, thanks you guys, you're great." Terry drinks more wine from his gourd. "OK, so... Cassiel. What do you want to do with this guy?"

The masses are silent. A young mom raises her hand. "Who's he?"

"Ah, well, he's kinda like a timeless counsel to the God-king type angels who rule over all this." Terry struggles to word it right.

A rabbi raises his hand. "Has he lived a good life? Was he just? Was he fair?"

Terry shrugs, squeaks out an answer. "Yeah."

"Ah... let him go free?" The rabbi doesn't know what to say. "If he didn't do anything."

"Alright. You guys cool with that?" Terry asks the people, they nod yes.

"Cool, alright Cass. You're free to go man." Terry smirks at him.

"Wait, what about the-." Terry head nod-grunts -- Cassiel disappears mid sentence -- everyone again explodes into laughter.

"Well, thanks everyone. That's about it for me, I'm going to back up there and stuff. Good luck with the starvation and war and everything. Hope it gets sorted out! Alright, see ya!" Terry nod-grunts --  a FLASH -- everyone appears back where they were in the world before all that happened...

--

A pizza delivery guy stands awkwardly at the front door of an older woman in Aurora, Illinois. "Ah... did you... whaaa...?" The delivery guy asks.

"The guy named Terry and everything? You saw that too?" The older woman asks.

"Yeah, I mean... I guess I did..." The delivery guy asks. 

Neither of them know what to say.

"Hmm. Well..." He checks the receipt. "If you still want the food it's 26.92 for everything."

She shrugs. "Ah.  Sure." She fishes around in her purse for cash...