A Seraph in Amber

Copyright 2013 by James Hampton Belton

A Seraph named Zamis decided to incarnate itself as human. Seraphs often incarnated in human form when they interacted with the race of man, a species living on a planet orbiting a star which was one of billions in a galaxy which was one of billions in the universe that Yahweh had created. But incarnating as a human form and incarnating as a human are very different propositions. A Seraph in human form is still a Seraph, it merely has the limitations of a human, and not even all of those. But a Seraph that incarnates as a human is, well, human. Zamis incarnated as a young man, because it wasn't interested in the experiences it would have as an infant, or as a child. It wanted to understand how humans experienced love. The young man appeared on a bus. No one on the bus noticed that a young man suddenly appear in the first seat on the aisle next to the girl with the straight dark hair because the Seraph didn't want them to. Despite incarnating as a human, the Seraph retained its consciousness, experiencing the oddness of three dimensional space and unidirectional time as it had in previous incarnations. But now, he was a young man. He was riding the bus to look for work in the small city that lay to the south of the larger city that he lived in. In his culture, men who would have come of age and become kings, warriors, farmers, or slaves in years past where able to attend schools, payed for by all the people. He had recently completed his schooling, and was to begin his life, but he was still carefree. He noticed the hair of the girl sitting beside him. All he could see was the back of her head, because she was looking out the window. Her hair was not short, but not long either. It was almost black, and very straight. He did not know whether she was of his race or not. Then the girl with the dark hair turned to him. Maybe she subconsciously sensed his Seraphic nature (though even he did not). Perhaps it was love at first sight. But none of these thoughts went through his head. She turned to him and then they were kissing each other passionately. The next thing the Seraph knew, he was coming out of her house. He felt naked and helpless. Her family were there in the yard. He ran past them, across the street, and down a trail that led into the woods. He felt that he was being pursued, so he turned himself into a beast. His claws dug in to the surface of the trail, and he was able to outrun his pursuer. When he returned to the girl's house, no one was there. He wandered the neighbourhood until he saw her walking up a hill. He ran to catch up with her, but she was frightened of him, and ran away. He chased her and caught up with her, but she pretended she didn't know who he was a ran from him again. Finally, he cornered her, and pinned her against a building with his paws. I gave up everything for you! he cried. He wanted to tear her throat out. The girl in the black hair had taken everything, his whole life, away from him. Zamis shed the beast form, and made the girl forget that she had seen it. She walked on up the hill, and Zamis followed her. Since Zamis was a Seraph once more, she could no longer see it. She came to a church and entered, and Zamis followed her inside. The girl with the black hair walked up the aisle between rows of pews filled with people, friends and family. At the front of the

church, she went and stood next to an old woman, and hugged her. There was an open casket at the front of the church, and Zamis went up and looked in and saw that the body was the body of the young man that it had been, but the young man was no longer young. He was old, and had lived his whole life. Then Zamis turned and looked at the two women in the front row, the girl with the dark hair comforting her grandmother, who had been the young man's girl with the dark hair when he was a young man. Suddenly Zamis's memories of its lifetime spent as a man with the only woman he ever loved returned to it, and it understood that the girl with the dark hair had not taken anything from the young man. Rather, she had given him everything.