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When the angel Nataniel arrived in St. James' Park, he found The First of All Creation feeding the ducks.
To the average human, the notion of any divine being taking the time and effort to feed ducks would have seemed absurd. Nataniel, however, was neither average nor human, and he had known the divine being in question for millennia. Finding The First of All Creation feeding humans would have shocked him. Finding The First of All Creation feeding ducks was an average Tuesday.
Well above average, really.
"Where have you been?" Nataniel asked.
"Mishuut ba'aretz," the First replied, "uu'meyheet'haleykh ba."*
"That line was stale two thousand years ago."
"But it remains true."
They looked each other over like old friends—which, if Nataniel were being honest, they likely were. Possibly, at least. Friendship was a meaningless concept among angels, who all got along smoothly by design, but the First was something else. Something unpredictable. Not ineffable, per se—though Nataniel had never dared try to eff him—but eccentric, at the least. For all his many grand names and titles, the First refused to use any but the unremarkable common noun by which God had brought him into being: y'hee ohr.** It localized to the various human languages better than the fancy ones, he'd claimed, yet he had shown no such interest in localizing his appearance, beyond the obligatory top hat and frock coat favored by well-dressed Londoners of the period. Even in human shape, the metaphysical concept of light was radiant, with a youthful, gold-toned look quite at odds with both his ancient nature and his current locale.
"For being as furtive about meeting me as you are," said the angel, "you certainly do draw attention to yourself."
"How so? I'm just standing here."
"Your corporeal form. Japanese men are not a common sight in London."
"The truest test of men's nature is how they treat those they consider other or lesser than themselves. I get a more honest impression of them this way."
"More honest, or more uncharitable?" Nataniel toyed with the hair peeking out beneath the brim of his hat, grimacing. For all his time on earth, he'd never quite gotten the hang of hair. "Going out of your way to see them at their worst without also going out of your way to see them at their best isn't a fair assessment, you know."
"Ha. You sound like Her."
"I'm the embodiment of Her presence on earth. Speaking for Her is my job."
"And calling humanity to account for wrongdoing is mine. I don't tell you how to do your job."
"Yes, you do. Constantly."
"Only when you're doing it badly," said Light, his lips quirking upward. "Like the time you were sent to spread Her peace over Jerusalem, and instead—"
"Yes, well, we don't need to bring it back up."
"I'm only saying, you should listen to me sometimes."
"Your advice was to evict everyone in the city."
"It would have been peaceful."
Nataniel glared at him. "That," he said crisply, "is not the point."
"Then what is the point?"
"The point is people. I was instructed to make peace for them, not without them."
"Unconsciousness is the only state in which humans are peaceful. That, or death."
"Your hatred for humanity is getting rather boring."
"I don't hate them. Some of them are quite admirable, in a futile, hopelessly flawed kind of way. I'm merely calling it as I see it."
"Then the way I see it is that you're afraid to give them a fair shake, because you can't bear the risk of discovering you were wrong."
For a long moment, Light merely stared at him. Then he tossed his remaining hunk of bread into the water and crumpled up the bag. "When were you created, angel?"
"Sixth day."
"Before Adam, or after?"
"Before Adam, there was no need for me to Be."
"Has it ever occurred to you to question why that is?"
In the pond below, an overly ambitious duck was choking on Light's bread. Nataniel waved a hand at it absently, frowning, and it recovered. "I assume She had her reasons."
"When perfect, uninterrupted peace existed on earth, there was no need for peacemakers. I was there, Nataniel. You push peace, but you've never experienced it. Not perfect peace. I was nearer to the Beginning than anyone. If you had experienced what humans destroyed—"
"Not nearer than Her."
"Beg pardon?"
"You weren't nearer to the Beginning than Her. If She still wanted to create humans after you argued with her about it, She must know something you don't."
"She knows a great many things I don't," Light said wearily. "I'm not afraid to be wrong. In fact, I've come to believe the whole human experiment could be salvaged after all. If She willed it, of course."
"By killing them all off?"
"Only some of them. Remember how She used to get, back in the old times? Sodom, Amalek, that whole mess with the Midianites—"
"I remember," replied Nataniel, who really wished he didn't. "It was a nasty business."
"Nasty and ineffective. Slaughtering entire groups, down to the infants, in some isolated corner of the world, then stepping back completely from day-to-day affairs? Bit of a mixed, inadequate message, don't you think?"
"I think you think I enjoy the sound of your voice a lot more than I actually do. Do you have a point?"
"The point is that humanity, on the whole, is rotten. Give a bunch of glorified apes free will and only sporadic discipline, and of course they'll run wild. But if She were to strike down the guilty ones immediately—make good on all those threats She gave poor old Moses—the rest would notice. Given the choice between getting ahead at all costs and doing the right thing, most of them choose the former. But if the choice were doing the right thing or death..." Light trailed off, gesturing for effect. When Nataniel didn't finish his thought for him, he continued, "...well, their good deeds might finally start outweighing the evil. Perfection aside, I could see the value in that."
"What about free will?"
"They would still get to make choices."
"Not freely."
"They don't get to choose freely now. When Cain murdered Abel, he was making a free choice, but I very much doubt Abel chose to die."
"I never said it was perfect," Nataniel admitted grudgingly. "But free will must be very valuable, if She gave up perfection to have it."
"Free will already existed, or I couldn't have argued with Her in the first place."
"You're a special case. Angels don't have free will; we merely fulfill our intended purpose."
"Even you?"
"I may not always succeed, but I am true to my created purpose and Her instructions. Yes."
"So She instructed you to meet with me, then?"
Angels are incapable of blushing, but they can squirm nervously. Nataniel proved it. "It's not against my instructions."
"I see." Light looked him over, plainly amused. "Is it against your instructions to question God's reasoning? Not to disobey Her commands, mind you, just to consider whether you agree with them."
For a long moment, the only sounds were the chatter of passers-by and the quacking of well-fed ducks. "I suppose," Nataniel said at last, "that there's no explicit instruction against that, either."
"Then tell me something. If you could go back to the time before humanity—if, knowing everything you've seen of their behavior, you had the option to prevent them from ever existing—what would you do?"
This time, there was no hesitation. "I would create them."
"Why?"
"Because they've never seen perfection, either, but they work toward it all the same. Even if they go about it in the wrong ways, even if some of them don't try, they're trying to build something new and better. Like She did."
"She built perfection," said Light. "I was there."
"How do you know it was truly perfect? How do you know there isn't something even more perfect out there we could be working towards, if we had the same will that humans do? Have you ever tried?"
"You want me to imagine something more perfect than perfection?"
"Why not? They can imagine a future better than anything they've personally experienced. Angels don't—and even if we did, we couldn't pursue it. How do you know humans won't overtake us someday? Won't surpass us?"
Light considered that a moment, frowning. "You've put more thought into humanity than I would have guessed."
"Putting thought into humanity's potential is my purpose. As I told you, I always follow my instructions."
"Of course you do." There was a pause. "I'm thinking of heading down to Tasmania next week. You're welcome to come along...assuming your instructions allow it."
"If you think taking me on a tour of a penal colony will change my mind about humanity—"
"No such thought had crossed my mind," Light said, all innocence. "I would never try to turn you from your purpose."
Nataniel plucked at his hair again. "I suppose I don't have any instructions for next week."
"That's true."
"And if She does give me any, I can always come back."
"Also true."
"Then I suppose I might as well."
"And I suppose I'll book us a cabin. I'll be in touch."
"You had better."
The First of All Creation held out his hand, and the Angel of God's Presence took it.