The year is two thousand and twenty four (2024). God told me, the author, to “pull a Dante Alighieri” by taking a trip through time and space to explore how our modern religious system came to be, all while making it ridiculous, gay, and horny.
Now, in order to do this, God has tasked me to do some betting in His fancy casino up in Heaven. “It’s a wager that you’ll turn out exactly as I see it,” He reminds me before He sends me down to go gamble for a few months while I try to write all of this. “And that I’ll see you up here again when it’s time to pick your patron angel because you have already made a determination on who you will follow! Er, besides Me, of course.”
Off I go to gamble. Realizing my destiny is to write a homoerotic as fuck Biblical thinkpiece, I needed help channeling the divine energy of gay smut through an angel. But which one?
The answer is right as rain, the smack of Providence upon my cheek. I was not to serve Auriel or Azrael or Raphael or Jophiel,
Nor Zadikiel, Haniel, Phanuel, or Gabriel,
And no, not even Lucifer, sweet Lucifer who has done his best so far to pretend this was his project (although he will claim it was at least his idea), can lay claim to my soul.
In humanity’s final hour, I know who to call. It is the divine Seraphim/Archangel of protection, justice, nature, chaos: Michael!
“You know who I am.” He is dressed right as rain in a blood red blazer that sinches his form (which is hard to ignore because he’s as burly as a mountain and as tall as a skyscraper), complimented with wide-flared pants and square-toe platform boots
I swallow hard, nod, then cut to the chase and tell Michael I need help with this Goddamn project because I may and or may not have gotten real excited to share this idea with the world, which is why I tested out an idea by swapping Lucifer and Michael’s roles in Heaven and Hell to see if I could both solve ‘The Fall’ problem while also explaining that good and evil are relative on a spectrum and the difference is razor thin.
“Oh, Jesus Christ.” Michael laughs for a second and shakes his head. Right now, his hair is a long, wavy river of curly blonde just like God’s. “So what you are telling me is that you are trying to tell a story that loops forever by using the Bible as your vehicle and I as your narrator, yes?”
I nod.
“And, you are trying to explain complex religious, philosophical and sociopolitical ideas to your readers by creating a massive blender of cross-referenced media, all with a lot of homoerotic pornography, yes?”
I nod again. Michael rolls his eyes, waves his hand.
“Amateur hour. All of this is doable, it just sounds like you are seeking a way to loop back what you have written so far in a way that does not violate your newfound direction for this tale.”
I sigh and nod a third time. He was too good!
“Well, I shall do it then. I will tell as many stories as I need to in order to demonstrate the point that all of creation is one massive loop that repeats forever, and that our shared divinity is in the joy of living and creating despite the harrowing trials we all face.”
I perk up with big, bright eyes. “You mean that?”
“I do not lie,” Michael begins with a smile again, tilting his head to a side, “except for when I don’t feel like telling the truth.”
I smile but a bead of sweat collects on my forehead. Am I supposed to know what that means?
“What? Don’t look at me like that, obscurification is half of telling a story! Now then,” And Michael turns to God for a second, “Do you mind, Father? It’s my turn to play God.”
God shrugs with a smile. “Is it time for the Michelian age again already?[1] Oh in the name of me, let’s see what kind of renaissance you can pull out of your ass this time.” Then, with a sigh as He rubs his temples, “Just please, no literal Armageddon of Earth unless I say so, we’re trying to prove to the humans they have one more chance here!”
Michael snorts. “I promise nothing. They look overdue.”
God rolls His eyes but does not respond, simply holding out His hand in a peace sign before slowly fading away. Then, Michael appears to me like he is falling backwards, which he is, not at all alarmed that his back will hit the floor for he re-emerges in God’s chair looking so close to God I wonder if it was him all along.
“Now then, little trinket, I need you to take a seat in the crowd for a second. I’ve your readers to address so that we can all be on the same page about what they’re getting into.” Which I do; the entire gambling house is rearranged thusly so that we are all criss-cross apple sauce on the floor like a group of children at story time, all of us at Michael’s feet as he prepares his sermon. He would look, however, not at his captive crowd beneath him but you who is reading this, smiling something nice at you as he opens his mouth to begin:
“Greetings, observers!
My name is Michael. I am many things, but you often refer to me as the Heavenly Host of God. I do a lot of fun things up there in Heaven, you see: I maintain order by any means necessary, I crush undeserving souls trying to pass our pearly gates, and I cause natural disasters any time I feel like my trinkets are acting a little too out of control. How else do you think Pompeii happened, darlings?
Anyway, I am going to tell you a story. Well, a lot of stories, you see, because angels work in metaphors to get our point across. My goal here is to “renew your faith in God” even if you choose not to call Him that because, believe it or not, I do truly wish for you to experience inner peace and joy knowing you are guided by the divine. Let me tell you what it will be about and warn you thusly:
First, a reminder: I strongly encourage the watchers of their cherubs not to let this fall into their hands as this is not suitable for anybody under the human age of 18.
Next, I am an unreliable narrator. I lie and change my mind all the time. My stories want to say a lot of things but they don’t have a singular point. You will sit here and hope to find an explanation that makes all of this make sense.. Resist that urge, dear observer. No story I tell you will ever be the story because there never is just one.
Now, I will be unpacking a lot of complex political, religious, and philosophical questions by making them a big joke and simplifying the Inferno out of them. I will be quite cruel, here; I will say and do violent things that reveal my own prejudices and biases just as any one of us are prejudiced and biased. The point of this is to show you trinkets how you end up in the situation you’re in now. This does not reflect the beliefs of the author or any who are in their company for the production of this story.
Of course, you should expect much raunchiness with content like this as well. It will be graphic, explicit, intense, but definitely not straight and often not cisgendered, either, regardless of what pronoun or genitalia usage you see. I mean, come on: do you think a bunch of supernatural beings like us have such attachments to arbitrary labels?
And last, but not least, I warn you now that while this is one trinket’s attempt to understand the long and complex history of The Bible and how religion came to be, it is just that: an attempt. The trinket offers their best foot forward in terms of cultural sensitivity while trying to weave multiple historical realities together but the range is vast.
Therefore, the trinket wishes to convey that their primary goal of this story is to show you that God is everything and everything is a paradox. Embrace being the paradox. God knows you trinkets are boring when you all conform like sheep!
Now, let’s begin with one story and see if we can’t untangle this mess. I call it “Still Alive, After Paradise: The Epic of Me.”
[1] “The Michelian Age” is a reference to Spiritual Scientist and author Rudolph Steiner. Steiner’s argument is that each angel (angeloi) ‘oversees’ different epochs of human history and right now it is ‘Michael’s era,’ signifying intense psychospiritual development as we transition into a new way of life.
Real Gods Require Blood 
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