I watched him.

Retrieving books from the endless row of shelves, poring over them with the mind of a scholar, and settling them down on the red mahogany tables when his arm muscles ached from holding a book too close. His almond brown eyes travelled the width of the paper; they were sunk beneath two jet black eyebrows that flicked up ever so slightly when he stumbled upon something of interest. He smiled, crunching a juicy red apple while he began on the next volume. His youthful passion was unparalleled.

A countless number of suns and moons travelled their arc overhead, but he was always there within his growing library. I became a sole eye in the darkness focusing my energies on him from behind a sheet of glass. He no longer noticed or bothered to answer me.

I took the time to gaze over the grand library. Elizabethan style furniture peppered the massive room with its elegant curves and intricate etchings. Gazing up at the ceiling, I felt a sense of pettiness as the glass chandeliers loomed overhead reflecting and refracting the light so as to create a myriad shimmering rainbows. The bookshelves arranged themselves haphazardly so that in some places they formed a labyrinth of wood. Carpets from Persia, Azerbaijan and as far away as India adorned the dust-layered stones; artefacts from Arabia - mostly khanjars of varying size and shape, but all borne in a sheath of silver and embedded with a multitude of gleaming red and green gems - hung from the walls; to the Empire of the East he paid homage with statuettes of dragons, snakes, ships with almost triangular sails, all in dazzling jade that he placed upon the tables, the intensity of their green colour contrasting gently with the dullness of the red wood; African tribal masks, long and short, wide-eyed and squinting, puffy-cheeked and starved, were set high up on the walls near the ceiling and ran both the length and breadth of the room; looking at them created an eerie feeling of unease in my stomach, a feeling that although my former friend wasn’t watching me, these beings were.

The beautiful décor belied the fact that it was to become both his home and hell.

The rustling of pages and the continual sound of shallow breathing were all that could be heard. An occasional raspy cough interrupted this flow. Worn fingers twiddled the corners of the never-ending pages.

The books he became engrossed in were an assortment of colours, but they shared a single attribute - their dark shades. They were bound in board, leather, and in a few cases, human skin. Some were merely pamphlets of paper or parchment that he treated with the utmost care due to their fragile state. Most were academic studies of Anatomy, Physics, Mathematics and the like illustrated with confusing diagrams of scattered letters and numbers. Each one had some knowledge to convey to its master and he whipped them until they grew tame and tired of resisting and spilt their secrets.

An alcove in the corner of the building served as storage for a few private belongings of his youth, belongings he had probably long forgotten the true value of. Oddly, I noticed him glancing towards the stained glass windows more often than usual. In fact, I often found myself gazing at them. They depicted scenes of lush landscapes. The biggest of these was a forest of amber trees, detailed with tiny sparrows flocking to their nests against a translucent backdrop of snow-capped mountains. Copper leaves fell and dotted the grassy terrain. A lonesome gravel path twisted into and lost itself in the beauty of it all. Beneath the path, a banner displayed the word Salus proudly. The windows were positioned in such a way that every morning at sunrise, when the rays of sunlight heaved themselves over the grassy knolls to pour out into the world, the coloured windows would glow with an angelic aura lighting up the alcove with bright hues of red, green, yellow and blue.

At night, candlelight suffused the air, and the world became a dance of flames as they flickered in twilight. A cloud of mist seeped through the porous rock like an inverted waterfall creating a wispy waist-high layer to complete the surreal atmosphere. The greyness of the mist melded agreeably with his now silver hair. A fit of coughing ensued echoing off the distant walls and ceiling.

I spied a twinkle in the man’s eyes that I had seen long ago. I searched deeply into those eyes and discovered a streak of fear and astonishment hidden within them. He had discovered something that all the knowledge of the scientific world could not provide him with.

The vigour with which he once attacked his studies halted sharply. Sensing his deteriorated state, the jumble of letters, sentences and paragraphs leaped out from their paper prisons. They lunged at him, taunting him, circling him, and then striking like a spitting cobra. They filled his head with voices, whispering loudly in his mind. The old man bolted up from his chair, grasping the sides of his forehead. The creases protruded from his face, now contorted with terror. He shook from side to side trying to drive the evil away. His black robe thrashed wildly on his frail frame. Compartmentalising his fears, he struggled towards an open tome on his desk. The cover had the pattern of black marble splattered with specks of grey. It sneered at his futile attempt - the words chained his hands and bound his feet - and watched him crumble to his knees. With the little strength he had left ebbing from his skeletal body, he swiped a mad claw over the table. The book lay still. And a candelabrum swayed, first to the left, then to the right, building up momentum. Then it tumbled over the front of the table throwing its candles on to a Persian rug below.

It ignited with a fiery blast, and seared across the whole of the carpet as if petrol had been poured over it. From there a stray flame licked at the edge of a bookcase. It caught fire and went up in flames burning other bookcases beside which burnt those beside them similar to the domino effect. I flew to the exit dodging debris which came whistling down from the ceiling like fireballs from the sky. At the door I looked back. Within minutes all was a swirling fireball amongst a frightened mist which dissolved into the air, and at the centre of it a charred body lay prostrate.

Perhaps it was a mirage of the heat, but in the shimmering fields of fire I saw the purest of angels, stout and proud. I looked again - indeed, his were eyes as blue as the azure sky of dawn outside partially hidden behind golden locks of flowing hair. As was my job, I delved deep into those two pools and found myself facing a wall of iron will, a testament to the discipline with which he followed his path. He wore a tight-fitting white toga beneath a breastplate of beaten silver which surely came from the forge of Hephaestus himself. A matching pair of greaves and bracers of unsurpassed workmanship adorned his bare legs and hands. His wings spanned twice his height, and arched over his head in smooth curves. They beat furiously as he descended upon his target - another angel, but one whose wings were as charred as the body he sought. Sharp talons on the tips of his wings served as extra limbs. The streaks of black and grey that ran across his body seemed to give the impression that he was shrouded with pestilence. Bloodshot eyes filled with all the hate and anger they could muster fixed their gaze on the graceful figure that came swooping down. Above, his bald head was witness to the cursed life he now led. Nevertheless, a dormant beauty existed behind this facade of evil that was forced upon him. His was a tragic tale. I knew well of it. We all did. But it was not my right to take sides.

I sat there on the edge of a circular window of stained glass at the front of the building above the wooden double door gazing down at the epic battle of the two titans below. I watched as they flew from one burning bookcase to another immune to the flames that tickled their feet. I watched as their swords crossed one another, the loud clang of metal only barely audible above the roar of the blaze. And I watched until all three blurry figures were consumed by the fire…

* Note: I apologise for having not written anything for quite some time, but I’ve been rather ‘consumed’ myself with various projects such as making short movie clips. I hope you enjoyed this tale, and that it makes up for my temporary absence. I also hope you’ve read it with a keen and open mind.