Chapter 10: Memories and Monsters

                                    

                                          
11:57 P.M.
Still my apartment
There are several available options when you are confronted with something as absurd as what Azerath had just told me.
You can shake your head. 
You can laugh disbelievingly. 
Or you can put as much distance between you and your opponent as possible.
I chose option #4, which was to do all three of these things at once. Being the graceful, coordinated angel that I am, this did not go well. The back of my knees collided with the coffee table, and I overbalanced and fell, somehow managing to hurl the sewing kit into the air.
For the second time that evening, pins exploded across the floor. The carpet looked like a pack of porcupines had gotten into Azerath's apartment and thrown a rave. 
Azerath struggled to his feet, concern scrawled across his features. 
"Stay back!" I warned. "There are pins!" 
He paused in the middle of pushing himself off the couch and cast an incredulous glance in my direction. "I've just been stabbed with a knife. What are a few pins at this point?"
"I don't want you to get hurt further." I scrambled about, scooping up the pins scattered across his plush oriental rug. "You've been hurt enough, and I couldn't bear it if you had to suffer any more today. Why don't I clean these pins up, then go home? Let you get some rest..."
Azerath did not reply. 
I averted my gaze and busied myself gathering pins. I had just swept up the last pin and was snapping the sewing kit closed when Azerath's hand landed on my shoulder.
"Nirael." He settled down beside me on the carpet, wincing. "I'm sorry if that was too much information—information you probably didn't want to hear. But I had to tell you."
I made a non-committal noise in the back of my throat, somewhere between a 'hm' and an 'eh'.
His brows drew together, concern mixed with uncertainty. "You don't believe what I told you," he said. "Is that it?"
I stared down at the kit in my lap. "I do believe you. I believe you personally have been memory-wiped, and that's awful, and I'm sorry."
"But..." His lips twisted as he caught what I'd left unsaid. "I see," he said, frowning down at his hands. "You believe that it happened to me, but you don't think it happened to you."
"I know for sure that Heaven would never have memory wiped me."
He stared at me, bewilderment and frustration crossing his features. 
I couldn't blame him for his confusion. He'd grown up in Hell, among uglier standards. All he knew was lies and cruelty and deceit. But that just wasn't how we did things in Heaven. Hell might act this way, but that just wasn't how Heaven worked. 
"When angels mess up," I said gently, "we get helped, Azerath. There are so many ways the other angels try to help us see the light—ways that don't involve evil actions like what you're describing. There are remedial classes, there's counseling, there's special meditation in the isolation pods—"
"Remedial classes and isolation?" His voice was calm, but there was an undercurrent of disgust that made me bristle. "Sounds a lot like brainwashing to me."
It's funny, Diary, because I've often been... shall we say, a little bit frustrated with some of the classes that Archangel Ramiel has made me take. But hearing my superior's many attempts to help me dismissed with such derogatory scorn—and not just Archangel Ramiel's attempts, but those of my Remedial Goodness Counselor, and the other angel mentors of the program who devoted their lives to helping us—made my heart pound with a most un-angelic sort of ire.