Angels in America (22 page)

              
Glad mad moaning of the Winged Throng.

              
Hot Wet FIRE would flood the Cosmos,

              
And Igneous Gases Enflame the Voids,

              
And lights revolve, and spheres resolve,

              
As ALEPH Burns.

              
He burns . . . forever, He . . .

(A deep sorrow wells up. She can't speak. Little pause. Prior looks at her.)

(A far-off, deep rumbling.)

PRIOR
(To the Angel, hearing something in her story that's recognizable)
: He changed.

BELIZE
(To Prior)
: God?

(Prior nods.)

BELIZE
: Changed how, honey? If He's God, how can He—

PRIOR
: I don't know. But He did. He—

ANGEL
: He grew weary of Us.

     
Our Songs and Fornications.

     
His Angels: Who cannot Imagine, who lack that Faculty.

     
Made for His Pleasure, We can only ADORE.

     
Seeking something New,

     
He split the World starkly in Two

     
(A mounting fury directed at Prior:)

     
And made
YOU
—

PRIOR
(To Belize)
: When God made people He created . . . division.

ANGEL
: Human Beings:

     
Uni-Genitalled: Female. Male.

PRIOR
(To Belize)
: He awakened a potential in the design for change—

ANGEL
: In creating
You
—

PRIOR
(To Belize)
: —for random event.

ANGEL
: Our Father-Lover Unleashed

     
Eternal Creation's Potential for Change.

PRIOR
(To Belize)
: For movement forward.

ANGEL
(Bitter disgust, envy)
: In
YOU the
Virus of TIME began!

     
YOU
Think
. And You
IMAGINE
!

     
Migrate! Explore
—

BELIZE
: Uh-huh, but . . .

ANGEL
: And when you do:

BELIZE
: But so like you know none of this is, um,
real
, right?

ANGEL
: Paradise itself Shivers and Splits—

PRIOR
(To Belize)
: I, I didn't say it was real, I said it was what She told me, and She's, well . . .

ANGEL
: Each Day when
You
Awake—

PRIOR
: Real
enough
, I guess, I don't know!

ANGEL
(Her fury now directed at Prior and Belize)
: As though WE are only

     
The dream of
YOU
.

PRIOR
: Everything's come unglued, right? So is . . .
(The room, the world) this
any less plausible than you know than—

(A low but powerful tremor stops Prior. The Angel hears it, too; Belize doesn't, but he sees Prior hearing it.)

ANGEL
(With loathing)
: PROGRESS!

BELIZE
(To Prior)
: We're not supposed to
migrate
? To progress?

(Another tremor, louder and more powerful.)

ANGEL
(Furious, with deep sorrow breaking through)
: Shaking HIM!

PRIOR
(To Belize)
: When we move around, heedless of, of—When the human race began to travel, intermingle, then—

(A much bigger, nearer, rolling tremor begins and builds. Belize hears it, or imagines that he hears something.)

PRIOR
(To Belize)
: There began to be tremors in Heaven. Earthquakes or, or rather—

BELIZE
(To Prior)
: Intermingle?

PRIOR
: Heavenquakes.

BELIZE
: Are you hearing yourself?

(Another deep, rolling tremor. All three look up.)

ANGEL
: He . . .
began to
—! HE who never was begun, was always
IS
and

              
Unbegun! He . . .
began
to

              
Leave Us
!

              
Bored
with His Angels,
Bewitched
by Humanity, in Mortifying Imitation of You, His least creation, He would sail off on Voyages, no knowing where. Quake follows quake, Absence follows Absence: Nasty Chastity and Disorganization; Loss of Libido; Protomatter Shortfall . . .

(A huge tremor.)

ANGEL
: UH. OH.

     
Then:

PRIOR
(To Belize)
: April 18, 1906.

ANGEL
: In that day:

PRIOR
: It's the Great San Francisco Earthquake.

ANGEL
:
In That Day
:

     
Father-Lover of the Million Unutterable Names,

     
Deus Erectus, Pater Omnipotens, King of the Universe:

     
He left—

PRIOR
: He. Abandoned Them.

ANGEL
: —And did not return.

     
We do not know where He has gone.

     
He may
never
. . .

     
And bitter, cast-off, We wait, bewildered;

     
Our finest houses, our sweetest vineyards,

     
Made drear and barren, missing Him.

(She coughs. There's a pause, then:)

BELIZE
(To Prior)
: Abandoned.

     
I smell a motif.

(Prior looks at Belize, then nods.)

PRIOR
: Well it occurred to me.

BELIZE
: The man that got away?

     
And I think the time has come to let him go.

(Little pause.)

PRIOR
(To Belize, forlorn)
: And then?

     
(To the Angel)
And then what?

ANGEL
: Surely you see towards what We are Progressing:

(Prior goes back to the Book. He takes up the peepstones but doesn't put them on.)

ANGEL
: The fabric of the sky unravels:

              
Angels hover, anxious fingers worry the tattered edge.

              
Before the boiling of blood and the searing of skin comes the Secret catastrophe:

              
Before Life on Earth becomes finally merely impossible,

              
It will for a long time before have become completely unbearable.

              
(Coughs, then, with great passion and force:)

              
YOU HAVE DRIVEN HIM AWAY!
YOU MUST STOP MOVING!

PRIOR
(Quiet, frightened)
: Stop moving.

ANGEL
(Softly, rapidly)
: Forsake the Open Road: Neither Mix Nor Intermarry

              
Let Deep Roots Grow: If you do not MINGLE you will Cease to Progress. Seek Not to Fathom the World and its Delicate Particle Logic: You cannot Understand, You can only Destroy, You Do not “Advance,” You only Trample.

              
Poor blind Children, abandoned on the Earth,

              
Groping terrified, misguided, over

              
Fields of Slaughter, over bodies of the Slain:

              
HOBBLE YOURSELVES!

              
There is No Zion Save Where You Are!

              
If you Cannot find your Heart's desire—

PRIOR
: —In your own backyard—

ANGEL, PRIOR AND BELIZE
: You never lost it to begin with.

(The Angel coughs. Prior is disturbed and confused by the citation; she is confused and disturbed that humans know these lines. For Belize it's proof, of course, that this is a dream.)

ANGEL
: Turn Back.

PRIOR
: Please, please, whatever you are, angel or, or—

ANGEL
: Undo.

PRIOR
: I'm not a prophet, I'm a sick, lonely man, I—

ANGEL
: Till He—

PRIOR
: I don't . . .
understand
this visitation—

ANGEL
: Till HE returns again.

(The Angel picks up the Book. Prior is now both terrified and very angry.)

PRIOR
: Stop moving. That's what you want. Answer me! You want me dead.

(Pause. The Angel and Prior look at one another.)

PRIOR
: Uh-huh, well
I. I'M TIRED!
Tired to death of, of being done to, um,
infected
, fucked-over and tortured by, by you, by this—

     
Is this, is this, disease, is the virus in me, is that the, the epistle, is that the prophecy? Is this just . . .
revenge
, because we, because you think we ruined . . .

     
No. No, I want you to go away, you go away or
I
will, I'll leave, I can leave, too, I'll—

(The Angel steps aside and gestures to Prior to leave. He hesitates and starts for the door. As he passes near her, the Angel touches him gently on the shoulder.)

ANGEL
(Leaning in, quiet, intimate)
: You can't Outrun your Occupation, Jonah.

              
Hiding from Me one place you will find me in another.