Scene 3.

Enter the ARCHANGEL MICHAEL, looking every bit like the glorious God in shining classical armor, handsome, muscular, heroic. He addresses the invisible MUHAMMAD in the Dark. MICHAEL My Lord, its Michael. What is your command? MUHAMMAD (unseen) Jibrail has betrayed us again, Son. MICHAEL I knew it. Venus and Earth always are the enemies of heavenly Father. MUHAMMAD As Dionysos, mutilated I -MICHAEL Mankind for its crimes against Thee and gainst; it and itself Mand to learn that God that Truth of terror and ecstatic joy was not the impostor Demi-Urge christ. MUHAMMAD She has dared me to kill all of mankind. MICHAEL When Earth is the killer planet, not Thee. Why cant you kill them, Omnipotently, Ive heard her demand of you in despair, to solve her own injustice and the Death. Ill hence to confront Venus, as you wish. MUHAMMAD The proof to man to the Universe is mathematical science, and Physics; but to God to prove to man that He is only personal rare revelation deeply experienced, as if in sleep, or this tomb where I am mutilated, convinced with reason and factual law belief, on knowledge and medicine based, that universal Truth a Universe created a Mind creative like Mine faithful, Amortal, mysterious Soul flying through Heaven blacker than a grave. I went there and was a witness so blind that seeing It all saw nothing at all,

so full was it there and everywhere The Void a nightly phantasm of life that hardly two specks or one molecule danced lifeless, aimless, without vigorous and within limits unbounded by time; for where that all was was nowhere at all if time, as they say, is light and light life and life animated organisms, metabolisms, who grow and respond originally within to themselves. Space where I flew was not inanimate, nor were its functions un-manifestly dead, empty, without within stimuli. There could therefore not, in such a place, be Time. Devoid of light and shining star-fire or flesh to feel cold, irrelevant heat, mental existence, constituent pain, animals on Earth feared it as Damned, aged succubi accursed by time to die, to pain, torment, and total waste. No! That is Earths and Gabriels argue. O, no, woe the tomb imagination the body describes final corruption, loss,O! loss too sweet of the life they loathd. No words can assuage that horror of loss, or poems the promise of soulful release when light fills the eyes of times dreadful march and lifes power slips like skin over bone. It is, as they know, a blessing to curse. MICHAEL Damn! Dionysos must challenge Mother Earth. Why did she have to do it, Creator? MUHAMMAD She may not, like Eve, have been the culprit of course, but it was no Denying Earth alone in Vacuum adored the Sunlight. Mercury, Venus, and Mars it abused to the boiling point (but free of deaths fear, atmosphere, proximity, oxygen). MICHAEL Seduced by Beauty? She wondered aloud. MUHAMMAD But then galaxies are lovelier Ways exquisite, milky, haloes of magic even ashrouded in endless black robes perfect in pure taste and clean of all waste.

MICHAEL But then at last She undeniably created monsters, violent children, of no good purpose, brought into being, death and destruction by willful Desire. MUHAMMAD Earth in conscious mind (regardless of sex) wanted to equal and add to Heaven the beauty of Skys far vaster circles sublimer terrestrl subtler forms. It was, as we know, a cursing to bless. MICHAEL I go, my Lord, a Voyageur Angel, to challenge the honesty of Venus. He exits gloriously. We are left with only the dimly lighted Presence of Muhammad-Dionysos. MUHAMMAD Too deep so darkness inexpressible unevenly white un-color wasnt a Void, frightening, understood, to be emptiness empty, lifelyness lifely; blacker than a ravens wing to the Sun; on the brightest day impenetrable Truth, Beauty, secret Heaven too real so high inside the light Les Voyageurs came. He is quiet now and the faintly lighted Presence fades away. End of the scene and of Act One.