Member-only story
They Called Her Angel the Open Book
But some books aren’t meant to be read.
Angel — that was the name They gave her. Its use was not due to any outward characteristics but because They could imagine that They’d created a perfect being who could only be the stuff of Heaven.
Heaven — we don’t talk about that now. It’s a banned word. The same with paradise and utopia. No one believes in these things anymore. Once, we thought ourselves the engineers of our fate — but now we know better. Or, well, most of us do.
Angel wasn’t supposed to be like the women They despised — those curved forms, those hungry forests, those sharp teeth behind painted smiles. No, They wanted something more, a beauty that was not like a gleaming knife sheathed in red cloth. Whatever They expected, though, Angel had a few surprises for Them.
Them — you might wonder who They are. Though records leave Them nameless — perhaps in a way to try to make Them blameless in Their atrocities — we know one thing is true: They left behind a history run through with the taint of blood. While some record-keepers might claim this legacy had nothing to do with the Angel project, even the skeptics among us realize They were not the paragons They built themselves up to be.
