The Infinite Harvest

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Jumi

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December 31st. 11:02 PM
The Sidestreet Pub, Fargo North Dakota

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The air was thick with acrid cigarette smoke, and the floating aftertaste of Irish whiskey. The mumblings of couples, drunkards, college students, and the lonely echoed against the old wooden walls, and gave a humble alternative when compared to the bitter winds outside. The temperature outside measured in at negative sixty with the wind. It wasn't often one could spit, and watch it bounce when it hit the ground... but these were the winters in North Dakota.

It was nearly a no man's land compared to the rest of North America. Rivaling Canada on it's worst days. It was exactly why Isaiah had picked it. Far enough away from people, but still close enough to be lost in a small crowd.

Sitting at the bar, Isaiah swirled his glass gently, and watched the brown liquid churn with a consistency he admired. Whiskey never changed. It was always the same. He often wondered why more things couldn't be like whiskey. Things would be much simpler. The idea of comparing the world, life, and heaven to alcohol was rather laughable, but these past years hadn't been deserving of a higher grading system.

"If only..." the young man said softly, as he took another drink from his glass, letting it's contents coat his throat with a creeping warmth. The sensation tugged at his cheeks, and subconsciously made him smile. The old man who'd found him wandering I29 in the middle of winter four years ago, had shown him a lot about humans, but in Isaiah's opinion... Whiskey had been the best. Everyone had a brand they called a "Smiling Whiskey."

It had seemed that, the renegade angel had found his.

"Yo, Isaiah! Set time is coming up. You going to sing us into the new year or what, dawg?"

Lifting his eyes from the bar counter, the large fat form of Mike leaned against the counter. Which protested with an audible groan.

"Plenty of ass to be had tonight. Never seen such a den of skank or vixenry!" Mike then laughed. Proud of his spin on a famous Star Wars quote.

Isaiah set his glass down, and took a deep breath. Writing had always been his passion. Singing however was doing a great deal to comfort his creative outlets. Jacob Destor, the failing musician who'd welcomed Isaiah into him, granting him a vessel was truly talented though he lacked the confidence to truly succeed. It could have been viewed as a symbiotic relationship, but both were truly living through each other. Living for the first time.

"Yeah, Mike. It's definitely going to be a night to remember. I'll get set up." Isaiah answered, and stood up from his bar stool. Not knowing the irony of the words he'd just spoke.

But who would have known?

Only God.​
 
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|| Alice Roe // Chicago, Illinois // December 31st ||

"No, no, nononono!"

Laughter erupted from the little group of odd-looking people. One of them was dressed as a plump lady Orc, with large, fake-teeth to match her heavy armor costume. Another was a gawky Elf, obviously a mage from his robes and staff. Alice herself was wearing a more elaborate outfit- a full dress , with various layers of green silk, and a wonderfully crafted belt and a circlet that decorated her head. A proper Elvin Lady. She popped open the
champagne, just as the first of the many fireworks that would follow went off. The LARPING grounds always had a celebration on New Years. Everyone who didn't exactly have anything better to do, or anyone to celebrate New Years with would come over, dressed as their characters, and some major events were held. At noon, Guilds would battle each other to determine whose Guild Leader would be crowned the new King or Queen of their respective lands. (Orc Guilds battled each other, and same with the Elves, and the Human Guilds). Around 7 or so was the Hunt. Everyone grouped up in teams of three and went in search of the Fae (three secret LARPers) and earn their Magic Rings from them. The group that collected all three would receive a secret prize. And so on, with different activities being held throughout the day. It was really rather charming. The community was great too- out of character, everyone got along. It was 11 pm now, and the fireworks show would go on till midnight. Groups of friends and even entire guilds sat together in the grass, chatting or eating. Farther away towards the camps and forests, some other LARPing events were being held (smaller ones, for fun prizes). It was the closest Alice had felt to home in a long time.

She turned to her Orc friend- Frai- and poured her some champagne, doing the same for Eric, the Elf. Frai removed her teeth( a real nuisance when you were trying to talk normally) and raised her glass. "I would like to say something. This has been the greatest year ever. I honestly wouldn't have ever thought I'd be doing such a stupid sounding thing as LARPing." Eric shot her a look. "Sorry, but it's true." Alice laughed at this, and punched Eric on the side of his arm playfully. "I wouldn't have it any other way." Frai finished. Eric smiled sympathetically. "Same here." Alice's shoulders slumped. She would have had it another way. Similar to this. With her brother here, smiling like he would have been. "And here." she lied.

Another firework went off.

 
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He hated the world. Azrael never could have understood why the Father had created humans. He hated the smell of them, the feel of them, even the look of them. Too much like the Father. And yet the heavenly were not blessed as such. But he had a host (a boy named Jack Harper, close to suicide, who Azrael had forced to accept him with threats of an afterlife in Hell) for the sake of stealth on Earth. Bodies surrounded him, bodies that had at one time been possessed by the enemy. He had tracked Isaiah this far to Grand Forks, North Dakota, only to run into a trap set up by a band of amateur demons. That was rather ineffective. Sheathing his scythes (causing them to vanish into the air), Azrael looked up to the sky, which was exploding with what the humans called "fireworks". A horrible waste of resources. The last words that he'd managed to force out of one of the monster's mouth was "Sidestreet" and "Fargo". He took off into the air on his wings, adding another boom to the exploding rockets in the sky.
 
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A cigarette gleamed, microcosmic embers. Smoke danced in passing headlights. The cancer-stick bobbed up and down in motion with the jaw. The trucker was on a roll.

"Been happening for years, man. Poles on the sun have switched over - full magnetic reversal, y'know? Won't be long till our satellites go down. They say the Earth's ready for a switch too. North and South poles'll flip right over. Then we'll all be fucked. You think we've seen snow? We ain't seen nothing yet. Swear to God, man, one time I took a run over the border to Ontario: goddam Northern Lights, right there in the sky! I shit you not. And it's gonna get a hell of a lot worse. You hear about the flooding in Europe? Damn Frenchies better build some Arks, they know what's good for 'em. Shit's all out of order."

Across from the smoker, the old man was still, contrasting ice to the trucker's fire. Yet on his features, groomed and sharp, was ill-hidden distress at this tirade. "I'm sure it won't be so bad."

The driver glanced at his passenger. Ash dropped from his cigarette into the footwell. "Yeah? Is that what you told yourself when you were walking on the side of the highway? Shit, old timer, I been running trucks across the border for ten years and I ain't never seen a hitchhiker on these roads that weren't crazy or dead from hypothermia. You're a lucky man I came by when I did."

"I'm grateful."

"You're stupid, more like. Walking in the snow like that! And you say you're looking for your friend?"

"Yes."

"And he's in Fargo? Well shit, he's stupid too."

"And lucky."

"Stupid and lucky."

"No greater state there is."

Neon flashed red and orange through the cab. The first diners at the edge of town were lighting up for the night. A dozen cigarettes driven into frozen snow. "You talk funny, old timer. Where you from?"

"Across the border."

"No shit. Any family?"

"No." Abdiel's eyes drifted to the side-window, staring past the mirror at the whirl of snowflakes. Milliard white upon fabric darkness. "I left them."

"Got tired of the old lady, huh?"

"No." Those same eyes moved back, staring across the cab at the cigarette in the trucker's hand. "Lung cancer."

The driver stared back in silence, then flicked more ash into the footwell. "That's rough, man."

"It's quite alright." For the first time since he was picked up, the hitchhiker gave a half-smile. "I was cured."

"Mhmm..." The driver continued watching the old man as his other arm flopped across the wheel. "And now you're looking for your friend."

"And now I'm looking for my friend."

The trucker laughed, took another drag, and turned his attention back to the road. "Shit, man, you're headed to the right place. Fargo; Far Gone. You're all the same."

"I dearly hope so," answered the angel Abdiel. He sat back in his seat and looked ahead, through the snow-smeared windscreen, as the lights of the city came into view on the frozen horizon.
 
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It had been several minutes since, Mike had reminded Isaiah of his set time. As he ran the cables, and prepared the small stage, he noted the hungry gazes from a few women in the crowd. New Years was often a cauldron of the lonely, and most basted themselves in the thoughts of forgetting the fact with a night of wild drunken passion.

They would be mistaken if they had plans for this night.

After tuning the piano, the bar's lights dimmed, and Isaiah began his performance. A show ranging from cover songs of the latest bands, to soft ballads of the nineties, eighties, and earlier. After each song, there was a grand chorus of applause, along with the various individuals jokingly calling out for "Free Bird." Though he looked at the crowd from a self inflicted distance, Isaiah could feel that slowly building sense of accomplishment.

They absolutely loved him for that hour. If the angel had ever had a drug of choice, it would be the attention he got when performing. This... had never happened in Heaven. None there had ever appreciated his work, and in general despised him for his proximity to the Holy Father.

But not here... not in Fargo, backwoods North Dakota.

"I want to thank you all for this wonderful night. I've got just one more for you all, and then Sahl can get to counting down for us. I know he's been practicing up to ten all year for this moment." Smiling, Isaiah held back a laugh as Sahl gave him a friendly middle finger. The man had owned this bar for nearly twenty years, but he acted as old as the majority of the patrons. Isaiah was happy that the man would never get old.

"Well, let's begin shall we?"

"FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE BIIRRRRRRRRD!" came the callouts.

"Lynard Skynard sucks, folks. Anyways..."

Running his fingers along the piano keys, the angel began to warm his hands up, and then cracked his knuckles. Taking a sip from his glass, and igniting a cigarette, he inhaled deeply, and softly exhaled. Watching the smoke wisp through the air a moment, he collected himself, and began singing.

~
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere





And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you,
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles its a very, very
Mad world, mad world, mad world
Mad world mad world
~


Letting the last note fall, Isaiah slowly turned in his stool, and looked out at the wide eyed patrons who'd all gone deathly silent. A few were wiping tears from their eyes, while others were turned to their significant others, and smiling. He could feel their energies in the room, and in his eye, saw these energies trailing the room as they weaved amongst one another, all of which came to him, and flowed through his veins.

Nothing compared to the tingle he got after performing. The attention resonating in him.

"Sahl... will you count us down?" Isaiah said softly into the microphone, having managed to time it perfectly to the clock over the bar counter.

""​
 
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The screeching blasphemy. Noise, unbearable noise. Perhaps it was best for Isaiah to rot in this hell-hole if this is what the humans called music. Nothing compared to the Choir. The exile looked so different from when he'd resided in his true home. He partook in the sins of humans (drinking and smoking), he dressed so casual, and he clearly enjoyed. Oh brother. You've gone thoroughly native. Azrael had managed to stalk into the mud pit without the exile noticing, and had slowly moved through the crowd, the elderly humans cringing as he passed by them. They know the touch of death. The music was reaching its climax, he could tell from how Isaiah's expression changed, and how the clock slowly ticked towards the mark of twelve. The strange celebrations of humans. Why celebrate a new "year", when one could simply prepare for it? A waste of time and resources.

"When people run in circles its a very, very
Mad world, mad world, mad world
Mad world mad world"
And with those painful notes, the song was finally over. Azrael glanced towards a television near the back, where the shining orb began it's descent in New York, almost 1,500 miles away. As the crowd began their chant, he advanced to the stage. Isaiah had yet to spot him. "10, 9, 8, 7..." Halfway there. Azrael's false heart was pumping. "....6, 5, 4...." He was at the stage. "....3, 2, 1! HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

"Isaiah. Lost, and found at last."
 
"Don't worry - you'll catch it."

Abdiel had landed, his knees bending, the force of the drop dissipating through joint and muscle. He straightened and looked back, up at the cab of the truck he had hopped down from. The driver was there, outlined in cigarette smoke. "Excuse me?"

The trucker took another drag. "The New Year countdown. Get yourself to a bar and you'll catch it."

Was it God who drove him in an empty truck across the border, couched in smoke and darkness? Perhaps in no way; perhaps in every way. The angel looked up at his ferryman and gave his second smile of the night. There was music that rang through the human, from the staccato chaos of his rambling to the adagio quiet of his eventual demise. Lung cancer. The driver would pass the same way as Abdiel's host might have, were it not for Providence.

"I wish you the very best, Mister Fisker."

The trucker adjusted his ballcap and reached across the seats. "No more wandering on the roadside, y'hear?" And with these nuances he pulled the door shut and the vehicle belched twin exhausts. With a throaty racket the truck drove onwards, and Abdiel was left buttoning his coat at the edge of Fargo.

'Don't wait until you're sick to get well' exclaimed the billboard above him. He stood between a pharmacy and a Dairy Queen, at the intersection of Center and Main. A church was luminous up ahead, peeking over leafless trees and gas stations. The Church of St John the Divine. Synchronicity could be read in all things, as the ear might pick the elements of orchestra. The ringing chime of the railroad crossing behind him broke him from his reverie. He started forward.

Snow and ice had come in legion upon Fargo, till it seemed like white was the landscape itself and the city but a ruin half-exposed, jutting up from ancient slumber. Abdiel walked in empty streets, painted now and then in headlights as cars rolled by. Little notes, warm and sheltered. None would stop for him here. He was the vagrant by the shop fronts, the old drunk evicted, the homeless dead, still walking.

The Rourke Art Museum won a passing glance. It nestled between the blights of Main Avenue - the parking lots and plazas, the wide and paved wilderness. For as long as Abdiel had watched America he had watched a nation go insane in its spaces, its great distances, its abundance of land. Men were not as angels - they were not built for immensity. It was no wonder that so many here, in this country, went mad with just the wasteland around them and a Bible and a gun to clutch to their breasts. America was too much for them, ill-suited to their acoustics.

On the Red River Bridge the wind hit hardest, flying over Wood Lawn Park to batter railings and statues. For sure the bridge itself was iced, and the river soon would follow. Abdiel could feel his skin cells dying, stripped away by chill and dehydration. It was a killing cold, reaching to the bones. And only his angelic engine would renew this flesh.

2nd Street North: more gas stations, more plazas. More cars plowing snow in their haste, white wings either side of their bodies. He was spattered, now and then, but his coat was warm, and turned the white to sodden black. Shadows moved around the Public Library - shapes like him, old men in rags and gloves, doing what they could to stay warm. Perhaps there he would find a music of welcome, a whiskey bottle passed, a trashcan fire and slurring stories of the streets. Angels and vagrants, huddling together in the cities of man. Some in Heaven would call that mockery. For Abdiel it was oneness. All things were connected as golden chains. All things were beautiful.

As the parking lot ended, a single street was prelude to the neon sign. Sidestreet Grille and Pub. By the trucker's idle comments, and by the tutelage of instinct, the angel Abdiel had arrived.

"....Mad world..."

"TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN..."

The angel gave his third smile, this one purely for himself.

He was being counted in.
 
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The numbers rounded down with ever building anticipation. Anticipation that some could argue was unneeded as, the new year would surely come, whether some where there to witness it or not.

As the clock sounded with a chorus, the patrons all cheer.

"HAPPY NEW YEAR!"


"Isaiah. Lost, and found at last."

Looking towards the voice, Isaiah, gripped his glass tighter, and took another puff from the lit cigarette. Seeing the young man, it took the angel a moment to recall the feeling he got when a vessel's voice melded with it's heavenly vagabond. "Azrael... your selfishness knows no bounds, does it? You would endanger these people? These people in their moment of rebirth?" He said softly in response, having turned the microphone off.

Standing up, the exile set his glass down, and exhaled deeply. "How many times must I tell you, that I don't know where He is?" The tone he spoke with was laced heavily with irritation... and anger. This hadn't been the first time he'd been tracked, but Isaiah had learned how to hide his tracks better each time he slipped back off the radar. Though curing a man with terminal cancer that had taken residence in the entirety of his brain was probably not the smartest move... though he'd be damned to see the man die... that man being his vessel's father.

"Leave now, Azrael, or get yourself a drink. We will not be fighting here. Your blades won't be welcome here." Dragging his shoe, Isaiah's sole left a black streak, that now completed a series of other intricate lines just under his bench. A sigil. Known better as the Sigil of the Void. Angels could enter, and leave as much as they wished, though the sigil would always reverse any violence caused by them, and leave their attempts null, and void.

As the Sigil hummed to life, Isaiah's color began to drain away from his skin slightly. He knew that the next time his host would feel the effects, and more than likely be bed ridden. Forcing himself to go dormant in order to rejuvenate the young man who allowed him passage on earth.​
 
Azrael laughed to himself. "Partake in alcohol? How low do you think I've sunk Isaiah?" It was getting late. He had to end this. "And a Sigil will do you no good. A Void reflects violence. I don't need to be violent to pull you out of here, drag you into a back alley, and gut you like a pig for what I want to know. Or, we could settle this as brothers, and no violence would be necessary." He pointed out Isaiah's skin tone. "You've grown weak in your exile, brother." He advanced forward, into the sigil. A show of trust, what he did not have for the lesser angel. "Where is our father? Where is he who could end the infinite conflict we have struggled against for so long?"
 
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