Powerful Men with Powerful Guns

Note: Contains religious and political satire.

The Angel sat looking dispassionately out from the top of Papoose Mountain across the sandy desert and mountain ranges. He could just make out the lights of Las Vegas in the pre-dawn gloom where, without doubt, the revellers were having the time of their lives. It was bitterly cold, but the Angel did not shiver. The light breeze carried the faint aroma of juniper and, the even fainter, sweet scent of cactus flowers making, ironically, one last effort at reproduction.

Without his wings he had been unable to leave when the rest of The Heavenly Host had deserted humanity, so eventually they had locked him away in Area 51, where he had languished, alone, for the last thirty, or so, years. Being the only none human in captivity, he had been kept under heavy guard but had remained aloof from his captures. He had been contemptuous of all the, often cruel, attempts to interrogate him but, in a final show of compassion one of his guards had released him just before they all dashed off to Vegas to join the party. With nothing better to do, he had made his way to the top of the closest mountain to watch the sun rise.

Sitting in the the murky half light the Angel recalled the turn of events that had lead to his current predicament. 

Half way through the then US president’s third term, with wars raging across the globe and the divide between the rich and powerful and the common man increasing exponentially God had said. “To hell with this. Where’s the respect? I’m going to sort this lot out.” And yes, He had the deep booming voice that you might expect. 

The heavenly Host, as usual murmured sycophantic agreement but I said. Hey God, do you think they are worth it? And don’t forget, they have come a long way with their weapons and tech since your last visit.”

God dismissed my comment saying “They are my Children. I created them, I am all powerful and they need to fear me. I will sort them out.”

So off we all set and, in little more than the blink of an eye, we had arrived. And what a spectacular arrival it was. Dark clouds formed, thunder and lighting, like you’ve never seen, clapped and bolted. The clouds parted over Jerusalem and God, with Heavenly Host in tow was revealed to the earth. God, resplendent in his flowing robes, trademark angry glare and sporting a magnificent, slightly greying, main of thick hair and beard really was majestically aw-inspiring. On his right was The Archangel Gabriel taking the place of Jesus, the son of God (who, remembering last time, had decided not to come) also cut a very fine dash. The chief angel was over twelve foot tall, dressed in elegant white robes with a golden aura around his head and an admirable wingspan over thirty feet. Anybody would be impressed. All this was backed up by over a thousand angels not to mention numerous cherubim and seraphim blowing trumpets and playing harps. All in all, it was a truly stupendous entrance. The Muslims and the Jews were so impressed that they stopped firing missiles at one another and started bickering about whose God had just arrived.

God came down to talk with the people to tell them that if they didn’t stop all this fighting, he would rain hell on them but they just shrugged their shoulders and said. “You’re talking to the wrong people here. You need to go to America and tell The Great Satan.”

God was taken aback. “What do you mean Great Satan? I forgave Satan ages ago. He’s just over there next to Raphael.”

“No. We’ve got our own Satan now. He’s a man, and he’s in his third term. And he’s a full on cult leader.”

So off we all traipsed to Washington DC to make a similar entrance, but the Great Satan was waiting for us.

In an impressive show of power, as we all emerged from the clouds, was a flyby of hundreds of jet fighters, bombers and drones, followed by missiles fired, albeit harmlessly, across our bows from multiple battleships and then, on the ground, thousands of armoured vehicles and hundreds of thousands of troops all marching from National Monument to Capitol Hill and back.

The President, a large old man with his strange fly-away hair blowing in the gusty air, was standing alone, waiting, as God slowly descended to meet him.

The shook hands and The President said to God. “Nice to meet you God. I hope you liked our welcome for such and esteemed guest. But I am very disappointed that you and your Heavenly Host did not come straight here to me first. Very disappointed.”

Ignoring the insult God replied. “Look I won’t beat about the burning bush here as you seem to be in charge.” God smiled at his little joke. “I’m very unhappy with the direction that humanity is taking. All this killing on a grand scale? There are wars everywhere and the ones getting killed are increasingly innocent civilians. Plus, most countries now have a major portion of their population's seriously poor and disenfranchised. Not to mention those dying from the effects of what you are doing to the climate. And amidst all of this, a relatively tiny number of men are becoming obscenely rich off the back of everything I have just mentioned. It must stop and you’re the man to make it happen. Therefore, I command you to stop this atrocious cruelty and corruption and make the world a better place again”

To God’s surprise The President seemed outraged. “Look, I know you are God, but I am, and will continue to be, The President of the United States of America and you need to show some respect. I am the Commander-in-Chief here and the decisions and commands that I make and issue to the world have made American and the world a very great place to live. Very Great. And It’s all thanks to me. I don’t take orders from you or anybody. How would it look if I let my Americans down by letting you boss me around. So now, if you’d like to get off my lawn I have an important game of golf that I need to play.”

God knew what to do and how this would play out. He called down His heavenly Host, and we all floated down and hovered behind him trying to look as menacing as possible. God said. “These are my celestial warriors, And if you do not obey me, your all powerful Lord and Master, I will smite you and your followers down.” The heavenly throng, me included, nodded enthusiastically and continued to look menacing in an angelic sort of way.

The President did not seem impressed or intimidated. He raised his hand and, from the building behind, out streamed House Representatives, Senators, Governors and a sprinkling of judges all flanked by what looked like an assortment of, just as many, mean looking bikers and weirdly dressed, mostly bearded individuals carrying guns and axes. Many had the Stars and Stripes draped around their shoulders. They numbered many hundreds, and it took a while as many of the Senators and judges were quite old.

The self satisfied President said. These, and many more, follow my every command because they love me. They do not fear me. They love me. And together we rule the world. Not you. Your day is done. Your time is over.” And the President called over his shoulder. What do we say to God?”

The House Representatives, Senators, Governors and the sprinkling of judges shuffled their feet, looked down and mumbled something that may have been “Your day is done. Your time is over.” 

But it was drowned out by the mean bikers and weirdly dressed, mostly bearded individuals shaking their guns and axes above their heads and shouting “Build the wall. Build the wall.”

The President finally had to shout them down himself repeating. "Stand down. Just stand down for now. I love you all, but stand down” When the hubbub and died away he continued. “Take care Mr God. You think you have a fine Host but my Host is bigger.”

Poor God, no one, not even The Devil, had ever spoken to Him like this before and He didn’t really know how to respond. So He spread His arms wide and in his well practised signature booming Hollywood voice all He could manage was. “We’ll see about that little man.” And off He floated. We were left speechless and still floating in front of The President. It got a little awkward until Gabriel took the initiative. He jerked his thumb upwards and we all hurriedly floated off to catch up to God.

While the Heavenly Host was abuzz with the impudence of this man, the news media gave various reports of the two’s interaction. 

“God descends from Heaven and orders humanity to clean up its act.”

“Will God save us from the, so called, Great Satan?”

But then there was.

“President refuses to kow-tow even to God”

“Only our President. Only our Saviour knows what’s best for us. Not God.”

The next day, we’re all trying to work out what to do next. God (still apoplectic), The Devil and Gabriel were all for unleashing famine and pestilence on them together with a few Pillars of Fire and flaming arrows. “That’ll put The President and his rabble in their place.” suggested Gabriel. I try to point out that nukes are far more potent than flaming arrows or pillars of fire and, because of Climate Change, they seem pretty comfortable with famine and pestilence. But I’m just an Angel of The Throng and nobody paid me much attention. But I livened things up a bit when I said. “Well that looks like the end of democracy down there.” God bristled. “I don’t give a fig leaf for democracy. That’s just a passing fad that the humans invented. What’s important is the ‘Word of The Lord’. My Word and that must be obeyed.” Everyone agreed, but then the next day it got even worse.

The President called one of his famous rallies. Leaning on a majestic eagle shaped lectern, on an enormous stage flanked by all the nation’s flags of the world with maybe 30 American flags at the fore. And in front of a tumultuously cheering banner waving audience, The president gave a three hour long speech that went something like this. “This God has come down to Earth giving orders and telling me, ME, what I should do when I’ve already made America and the World we all love great again. Great again…” Huge applause. “Do you know? I wonder if he really is God? Maybe it’s what’s left of the Democrats come to stamp you down again. Take away your freedom. Take away your rights and make you all poor again, so they can once more enjoy the riches and corruption that I have removed from the world.” Chants of “Hang the democrats”. “I am the only one standing in their way. If you let them go through me. If you let Him steal my authority, they will come straight for you and your heaven on earth will become hell on earth.” Even louder applause and chanting ‘Heaven on earth. Heaven on earth”.

If that wasn’t bad enough none of us knew anything anything about “social media” until the hate hit us like one of God’s own thunderbolts. Many people around the world had welcomed God and his cohort saying that the world will be saved but suddenly, after The President’s speech, we were cast as alien lizards, baby eaters and communists. We were called anti-Semite, anti-Muslim, anti-Russian, anti-Asian, anti-Christian and despoilers of the American dream. Everybody ate it up and we had no response. 

Well. God was really pissed and with no consultation he unleashed everything at humanity. The lot… Pillars of fire, thunderbolts, countless flaming arrows, locusts. You name it. Even haemorrhoids (They had proved very effective in subduing the Philistines).

But humanity was ready. They had insecticides for the locusts and effective treatments for the haemorrhoids and other pestilence. Plus, the frogs were welcomed as they had all recently become extinct. Under The President’s influence all the superpowers banded together and unleashed “targeted "nuclear strikes at The Almighty and his Heavenly Host against which the flaming arrows were more than useless. So, we had no choice but to retreat to Heaven. It was a total humiliation. Even more so for God. He had always been the one in charge. His was “The Word” He was to be feared and worshipped but now He had been eclipsed through lies and hate. He was a broken god.

It was worse for me. Just as we were about to leave, with me bringing up the rear, one of the more powerful missiles exploded with, what felt like, the force of Armageddon right behind me. Now I am immortal but it still knocked me out cold, and I fluttered down to the ground unconscious. Before I could recover, they pounced and, can you believe it, cut off my beautiful wings. They paraded me round in handcuffs. The Fallen Angel they called me. One of Gods evil brethren. Eventually the media tired of me and I was incarcerated in Area 51 and tortured in the hope of finding out God’s plan. “How would I know?” I told them. “He moves in mysterious ways.” I said. It was all a pointless exercise as I don’t feel pain. Not as they know it, anyway.

Eventually The President died, as all men do, but his son, even worse, replaced him and the entire episode was quickly forgotten. As was I. And that’s where it might have ended except for the asteroid.

About two years ago, my guards told me about it just after it was first detected. It was nearly two hundred miles across, which is big enough to destroy all life on earth in a matter of minutes, and it was headed on a direct collision course with earth. NASA sent up a rocket with a nuclear device to hit and, hopefully nudge it of course but it didn’t. Then, in desperation at the last minute, they sent another loaded with many bombs attached but it failed to even detonate. So now; I was glad to note. Humanity's end was nigh.

As the Angel sat there contemplating these past events, the dawn slowly broke over the mountains. He could just feel the warmth of the sun on his now regrown skin. The bony stumps on his back flapped slightly as if trying to stretch his long gone wings. He sat. He waited. And he looked directly at the sun. He saw that a dark speck on it was rapidly getting bigger. The speck became a large dark stain that blocked out the sun. With its silhouette, more rectangular than round, it started to cast a shadow on the ground around the Angel. Then, as it entered the earth’s atmosphere it first glowed red and then burned a bright white light. The angel could now see that the asteroid was in fact the shape of a massive chariot. The angel smiled to himself. Powerful men with powerful guns always win while the innocent die, but his was a Powerful God and He will always trump a powerful man and all will die. He saw the Chariot had a Charioteer. As it closed in rapidly for impact, he could see the long grey hair and robes flowing wildly. He could see those familiar angry eyes but the face was laughing hysterically and God, to the backdrop of Vera Lynn singing We'll Meet Again, screamed and the world listened. 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,' sayeth the Lord."