The fabric of space and time ripped open. A peal of trumpets and a blindingly divine wash of light announced the angel’s presence as she stepped through the portal into the den of a well-apportioned penthouse in Upper Manhattan.
“BEHOLD, SINNER—YOUR LONG ATONEMENT IS COMPLETE. THE GATES OF HEAVEN STAND OPEN TO–“
“Hold that thought a moment, yeah Feathers?” the woman on the couch mumbled around the spent cigarette butt dangling from her lips. She looked to be in her late thirties, rail-thin, with vantablack hair cut short above the nape of her olive-skinned neck.
“DID YOU NOT HEAR ME? THE GATES OF—”
“Kinda in the middle of something!” the woman snipped without peeling her eyes away from a table-sized television mounted to the wall in front of the couch. She held a small gray rectangle, which she jabbed rapidly with her thumbs. On the massive screen, a little green man jumped back and forth beneath a hovering blue entity that looked not altogether unlike the true form of the angel reflected in the glass. “I’m moments away from completing a no-damage, 100% speed run of Zelda 2, and I can’t have any—”
A spinning mote of light dropped from above onto the green man, who blinked red and bounced to the side.
“—distractions.” The woman sighed and tossed the controller aside, then flumped backward into the couch cushions. She craned her neck to fix the angel with piercing black eyes—eyes that whispered of lifetimes far beyond her apparent age. “Now I’ll have to start all over again. You were saying?”
The angel snapped her gaping mouth shut and regathered her sense of poise and regality. “LADY BAI HE. YOUR LONG ATONEMENT IS COMPLETE. THE GATES OF HEAVEN STAND OPEN TO WELCOME YOU HOME. PLEASE, COME WITH ME.”
“Nah, I’ll pass.”
“YOU—I’m sorry, what?”
“I said I’ll pass, Feathers. Thanks for the offer, but no thanks.”
“I don’t—What do you… okay, I’m confused.”
“I can see that.” She flipped open a cardboard box on the coffee table marked Gino’s and retrieved a slice of pizza.
“Lady Bai He, you can’t possibly mean to turn down admittance to Heaven—”
“I go by Lily now,” Lily said around a mouthful of pizza. “It’s been four or five centuries since anyone called me Bai He—and many more before that since anyone called me a Lady. Anyway, I don’t know if you noticed, but I’ve got it pretty good here,” Lily waved a tattooed arm at the apartment around her. “I own this penthouse, not to mention the rest of the building beneath it; I’ve got damn near every piece of entertainment media the human race has created available at my fingertips; I’ve got more friends than I can count to spend time with; I’ve got Gino’s Pizzeria right downstairs.“
“None of that can possibly compare to Bliss Everlasting! To the Eternal Reward!”
“I don’t know, Feathers.” Lily finished off the last bite of crust. “Gino’s is pretty fucking good. Anyway, what gives? It’s been what, twelve, thirteen millennia? Why now?”
“Your charitable work this past century has improved the lives of millions of humans across several generations. You have leveraged power and wealth for the betterment of mankind, and in doing so have atoned for your crimes in the eyes of the Creator.”
“So it’s just a matter of scale, then, is it? I’ve been helping people for a lot longer than the last hundred years, but it certainly became a lot easier once they started making pretend money on their computers.”
An awkward silence hung between them. Lily let it dangle excruciatingly until it was clear the angel had no reply or rebuttal to offer.
“Well. Yes, you’re right—my charitable foundations have done a lot of good for underprivileged women around the globe. You care to guess what happens to them if I disappear?”
“The kind-hearted people in charge of daily operations keep everything running like it already does?” The angel offered hopefully.
“Sure, until fucking Steven embezzles all the money and runs off to some tropical paradise with no extradition treaty.”
The angel frowned. “I don’t think I quite follow. Why would someone so unscrupulous be involved in charitable endeavors?”
“Because money is money, Feathers, and Steven knows international tax law like the Inuit know snow. If you want to beat the system, sometimes you have to wallow in the muck with the cockroaches.” Lily smiled, though the expression stopped short of her narrowed eyes. “But I’m sure you’re well aware of that, no? You do know what I did to earn this punishment?”
The angel squirmed under her gaze and looked away. “Let us not dwell on what once was. Your sin has been forgiven.”
“I’ve sinned quite a bit more in the time I’ve been here.”
The angel gathered up her regality again and pointed a finger at Lily’s core. “YOU HAVE BEEN WEIGHED AND FOUND WORTHY!”
Lily laughed. “So you really think I’m heaven material, even after what once was? That’s wild.”
The angel deflated with a sigh. “Look, I’m not here to debate the Creator’s decisions with you, all right? I’m just supposed to collect you and go home. Can we do that please?” She gestured to the divine gate pulsating gently behind her.
“No,” Lily replied from behind her Mona Lisa smile. “This really isn’t going at all how you planned, is it?”
The angel stamped her foot. “In the vastness of my knowledge, no soul has ever turned down an invitation to Heaven before now—so no, I don’t think there’s any way I could have planned for this travesty!”
“Ooh, the angel’s getting snippy—you know Feathers, you’re kind of cute when you’re flustered.”
“Stop calling me that,” the angel grumbled.
Lily tucked her hands behind her head on the armrest and kicked her bare feet up onto the couch. “Well. If I’m supposed to come along with you, you gotta sell it. Convince me. What kind of music do they play in heaven these days?”
The angel’s lips parted in a glowing smile. “Lo, The Choir Angelic sings without cease, its melodies so beautiful you can lose yourself for eons in their tones!”
“Okay, but have you heard the new Chappell Roan album? That shit is fire.“
The angel cocked her head. “I, uh, have not learned of any chapel in Rome that is on fire…”
“No, ‘Roan,’ not—y’know what, never mind. What do you eat up there?”
“Lo, we do not need to eat, our very sustenance is provided by the light and love of the Creator!”
“Look Feathers, I don’t need to eat either since your kind cursed me with immortality. But if you’ve never tried Gino’s, you don’t know what you’re missing.” Lily grabbed a second slice of pizza and stood, swinging her long legs over the back of the couch to face the angel. “You had to substantiate a real human body to come down here, that’s how it works, right? You’ve got actual biology going on in there, yeah?”
“Um, yes, the construct I am inhabiting is technically human in all ways but spiritual—what are you—”
“Open up.” Lily maneuvered the slice of pizza toward the angel’s face as she awkwardly leaned away.
“Excuse me, this is very—mmfh!”
The angel stood in shocked stillness for a moment, connected to Lily by the slice of pizza pie shoved halfway into her mouth. Then, cautiously, she bit down.
“Mmfh? MMFH!”
Sensation exploded across her tongue: the tanginess of fresh tomato sauce; the creaminess of the mozzarella; the subtle, spicy bite of thick-sliced pepperoni.
“This is wonderful!” she mumbled around the food. She forced the rest of the slice into her mouth.
Lily laughed. “It’s okay, slow down. Oh, you poor creature.”
“This sensation—it’s so… unique! So different. Is this what humans experience all the time?”
“Not at all. So much of human life is bland, drab, and boring. But that’s the problem with Eternal Bliss, you see? There’s no variation, nothing to compare against. If you just feel good all the time, then you can never feel anything truly great.”
“Amazing! What else is ‘truly great’ to experience as a human?”
Lily stepped closer to the angel, and wiped a dollop of red sauce off her lips with a finger. Something felt aflutter inside her at the touch—as though her wings were beating within, rather than around her. The feeling grew as she watched Lily lick her finger clean.
“I can think of a few things to show you, Feathers,” Lily said in a low voice. She lifted the angel’s hand and wrapped her lips around the index finger. Blood rushed beneath the angel’s skin, pulsing hard within her as all of her consciousness focused into the sensation of Lily’s tongue gliding against the pad of her finger.
Lily laughed as the angel let out a small whimper. “It would be a shame to let this temporary body of yours go to waste without proper… exploration,” she whispered into her ear. “Let’s start this magic lesson nice and slow, and work our way up to the wand and the rabbit.”
As mentioned in the title, this is sort of an inadvertent song short inspired by Chappel Roan’s Red Wine Supernova; but it’s also a response to a recent writing prompt on Reddit:
You were given immortality to atone for your horrific crimes against humanity. You wander the earth for millennium. Finally, you are given the option to revoke your immortality and end your suffering. You deny it.
I had a number of thoughts as to what direction to take this one, but in the end, “sort of silly with a side of thirstiness” was just the most fun. What’s not to like about Lilith, the Mother of Demons, seducing an innocent little angel into some mortal sin?
Photo by Designecologist from Pexels
The Literary Diversions of K.T. Lazarus 
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