Chapter 75: Enoch
As the poisonous mists of Hell spread silently, weaving illusions of dreams, they enticed ancient humanity to harbor dark thoughts.
Hollow hopes permeated the land; unbridled desires swelled ever larger; arrogance and hubris became commonplace in the mortal realm—and amidst this, a child was born.
It was, at first, just an ordinary, joyous day.
After losing their second son, Abel, Adam and Eve had begotten another son, whom they named Seth.
He took the place of both Cain and Abel, becoming the foremost among Adam's sons; sons begot grandsons, and grandsons begot great-grandsons. As humanity began to multiply across the earth, by the time Enoch was born, the progenitors of mankind already boasted countless descendants.
The lineage of Seth was merely a humble branch of ordinary herdsmen—a community of some twenty households led by a patriarch. They dwelt in tents and spent the greater part of their days tending their flocks upon the low, rolling hillsides.
The patriarch, Jared, was a man so taciturn as to seem almost dour; yet, in contrast to his reserved nature, he conducted his affairs with a steadfast and prudent reliability. However, as he cradled his only son in his arms, a rare smile—one seldom seen—graced his face.
He had been wed for many years, yet his wife had shown no signs of pregnancy until now; indeed, men of his own generation were already seeing their own sons beget sons of their own.
At long last, his heart's desire had been fulfilled.
"What name shall you give the child?" the woman asked, gazing upon the harmonious scene between father and son with a tender smile.
Jared was still deep in thought when a sudden gust of wind swept in from behind him, followed by a procession of people filing into the tent.
He frowned almost imperceptibly, positioning his tall frame protectively before his wife, who was still recovering from childbirth. Yet, as his eyes fell upon the faces of the newcomers, he started in surprise; immediately, he bowed his head and offered a respectful salutation.
"Most Revered Priest."
"Mm." The white-robed priest gave a brief, simple acknowledgment before turning his gaze toward the infant cradled in Jared's arms. "Let me see the child."
The sacred bond between humanity and the Divine was first forged in the days of Enosh, the son of Seth.
It was said that Enosh had called upon the name of God—whether this was mere legend or truth, none could say for certain. Yet, when he truly uttered that Sacred Name, the progenitors of mankind—Adam and Eve—were so overcome with emotion that they did not close their eyes in sleep for three days and three nights. Since that time, the authority to converse with God has remained exclusively in the hands of the lineage of Enosh; the office of High Priest has been passed down through generations—a position none could challenge.
At the very least, Jared could not refuse the High Priest's request to look after the child.
The High Priest smeared a layer of oil upon the child's forehead; the slick liquid trickled down, and the unfamiliar sensation caused the child discomfort. He squirmed his tiny body, recoiling from the High Priest's touch.
The High Priest frowned, clearly displeased by this resistance—even though it came from a mere infant.
"He got it in the child's eyes," a voice suddenly rang out.
Yet, the humans remained wholly absorbed in performing their exclusive anointing ritual, evidently oblivious to—or perhaps simply unable to hear—the words spoken by that voice.
"Let me blow on it for him," a gentle female voice softly chimed in.
The incorporeal angel leaned down, bringing her face level with the infant. Her long silver hair cascaded down, brushing against the child's face like feathers; as she breathed a light, ethereal puff of air, the child began to giggle, delighted by the refreshing sensation.
"What a truly lovely child," the angel murmured, gazing at the infant's innocent, smiling face. She paused for a moment, then turned to her companion and said, "I doubt there is a single child born in this vicinity more beautiful than he."
As if he had heard her praise, the adorable child reached out and firmly grasped one of the angel's fingers—though in the eyes of the humans, it appeared merely as if he had suddenly extended his hand to clutch at thin air.
"He's grabbed me!" Edna felt a flicker of bewilderment and cast a pleading glance at her companion. She feared that if she struggled too hard to pull away, she might inadvertently harm the fragile human infant; yet, her companion remained utterly oblivious to her plight.
He simply watched the scene unfold, his mind seemingly drifting elsewhere.
"This is Enoch. I entrust him to your care, Edna," Raziel said.
"Oh—wait!" Edna began to protest. The practice of angels acting as guardians for humans was, after all, a long-standing custom.
However, it was also an undeniable truth that many angels eventually succumbed to temptation and committed errors—though this trend had begun to shift somewhat since Edna had assumed leadership of the Order of Powers. In the eyes of many angels, the newly appointed Archangel—their superior—resembled what humans would call a "wicked old witch." She had instituted a host of draconian regulations, strictly curtailing any contact between the Powers and the human race.
Edna felt that her sole duty lay in the administration of the angelic host; she had never served as a guardian to humans before. Her presence here today was merely a matter of protocol: a high-ranking celestial official had descended from Heaven, and—given her own high rank—she was the only one qualified to offer a reception befitting such an occasion.
However, the Archangel would not entertain her protestations. He simply uttered a single sentence: "Do not let him go to the East. This is God's command."
Having spoken these words, he vanished—departing for parts unknown. For a long time thereafter, Edna would not see him again.
"What am I supposed to do now?" The angel hovered in mid-air, gazing down with exasperation at the chubby, fair-skinned infant below.
"Do I really have to be your guardian angel?" she murmured, as if speaking only to herself.
The child opened his eyes, and the interior of the tent was instantly bathed in light—as if illuminated by the sun itself.
His clear, limpid eyes fixed steadily upon the angel hovering above him, and a smile—brighter even than the sun—spread across his face.
"A miracle! It is a miracle!"
The entourage accompanying the priest—a motley crowd—dropped to their knees in unison, their faces contorted with a mixture of uncontrollable terror and ecstatic awe.
The white-robed priest, being a man of vast experience, maintained his customary composure. He turned to Jareth—who stood looking utterly bewildered—and offered an explanation, though his voice was now far gentler than usual.
"The Progenitor of Man had a dream some time ago; the birth of this child is the very fulfillment of that dream."
The priest did not reveal the nature of the dream, nor did Jareth press him for details. Instead, he simply heeded the priest's instruction and bestowed upon the child the name "Enoch."
The name signifies "The Consecrated One."
"Do not let this name be in vain; raise him well, and guide him toward greatness."
Cradling his son in his arms, Jareth expressed his gratitude for the priest's kindness and blessings, then respectfully escorted him to the exit.
"This matter does not concern any of you. Once we return, keep your mouths shut; I will personally explain the situation to the Progenitor."
Having departed from the site, the priest issued these instructions to the junior priests accompanying him.
Seeing them nod in dutiful assent, the priest suppressed the complex emotions swirling within his eyes and slowly began his journey back in the direction from which he had come. He had originally believed that the name "Enoch" could belong to his own grandson; unexpectedly, however, the Ancestor—who was usually so accommodating—refused.
"Only one chosen by God may bear that name," the Ancestor told him. "Zerubbabel is Zerubbabel; he cannot be Enoch."
"Zerubbabel"—it meant simply "one born in Babylon." Compared to the "Consecrated Ones," it seemed so utterly mediocre—hardly a name befitting the descendant of a noble priest.
Yet, the Ancestor's word was law; the priest had no choice but to revert his grandson's name to its original form, though a seed of resentment was inevitably sown in his heart.
He dared not openly defy God's will by naming the child Enoch; nevertheless, he concealed from Adam the fact that the son of Jared had been born amidst celestial portents, reporting him merely as the ordinary son of a tribal patriarch.
The Ancestor had descendants beyond counting—so many, in fact, that a great number of them would live out their entire lives without ever once laying eyes upon him.
"If you are truly a Consecrated One, you may become a righteous man even without bearing that specific name."
After all, what great destiny could possibly await a mere rustic named Enoch?
All the people of the world were Adam's direct descendants; in principle, Adam held no bias toward any particular branch. He had assumed that by simply making his stance clear, his descendants would dutifully carry out his wishes.
Yet, he had failed to foresee that the hearts of some men would only grow narrower and more petty—even those who wore the most outwardly pious and virtuous guises.
And so, Adam's long search for the "Enoch" foretold in his angelic dreams—the one destined to soon descend upon the mortal realm—yielded no results. Concluding that the time appointed by God had simply not yet arrived, he gradually let the matter fade from his mind, shifting his focus instead to another momentous event the angels had foretold.
The mortal world had indeed grown more chaotic than in days gone by; yet, when he sought signs of the great calamity the angels had warned of, Adam searched high and low but could find no clue—no thread to guide him.
Until, one night, he had a dream.
In that dream appeared his four children of old; they thrashed and struggled within a sea of blood—rising and falling beneath the crimson waves, screaming in agony.
When he awoke, a lingering trace of terror still haunted his eyes. He looked down to find that Eve's pillow, too, was wet with tears.
Did this dream portend the coming disaster?
Adam did not know. Meanwhile, on the other side, the Power Angel Edna had been pressed into temporary service, her wings—quite literally—tangled up by a human infant.
Raziel truly had a knack for picking the wrong assistants; Edna, for one, had absolutely no idea how to look after a child.
'How is one supposed to guard humanity without ever interacting with humans?'
Upon hearing that their commanding officer was also taking up the mantle of a Guardian Angel, the Power Angels—whom she had previously kept in line through sheer force—flocked in from every corner to watch the spectacle.
She was a commander parachuted in from above, one who had always relied on brute force to maintain order; consequently, she had no friends—nor did she feel the need for any.
Meeting their gazes—which were equal parts curious and openly provocative—Edna stoically shouldered the heavy burden, determined to demonstrate to them what the true duty of a Guardian entailed.
At first, she stood guard outside the tent day and night like a temple guardian, convinced that warding off evil spirits was the most effective method of protection she could devise. Yet, the child inside the tent wept ceaselessly; the crying frayed her nerves and made her so irritable that she longed to storm in and demand of the two novice parents: *Why are everyone else's children so well-behaved, while yours is so incredibly loud?!*
"Could he be hungry?" the child's father asked, looking deeply worried.
"I fed him just a short while ago."
After ruling out a whole host of potential causes for the crying—hunger, thirst, a soiled diaper, illness, and so on—the couple, the Yales, looked utterly despondent.
"Perhaps we should go see the priest?"
"Yes! The very first face he saw upon entering this world was that of the priest who performed his anointing ritual; surely the priest will know what to do!" The child's mother exclaimed, clutching her husband's hand as if she had just found a lifeline for her troubled spirit.
Edna frowned.
*That* priest?
With his tightly drawn brows and cold, piercing gaze, he certainly didn't possess a benevolent countenance; one would assume the child had been placed under the guardianship of an Angel of Vengeance from the moment of his birth.
Thinking this to herself, she passed effortlessly through the fabric of the tent and gazed down at the infant wailing in his swaddling clothes.
Miraculously, Enoch's crying ceased. He opened his large, grape-like eyes and reached out his tiny hands toward the angel, babbling softly.
The silver-haired angel met his gaze, and gradually, the fiery intensity that typically radiated from her began to subside.
'Don't expect me to hold you,' she seemed to say—yet, from that moment on, she never once left the child's side. She felt no concern that Enoch might see her; typically, children lose the ability to perceive angels once they pass the age of three.
For at that stage, the impurities of the mortal world thoroughly permeate human eyes. Unless an angel chooses to reveal themselves—and given that the children's tender minds have yet to form lasting memories—they soon forget that they ever beheld an angel at all.
And when that day inevitably arrived, she would, at most, offer a single wistful remark:
"A pearl, once sullied by dust, is reduced to nothing more than a fish's eye."
Three years flew by in a flash. Once the angel had stepped outside, "Fish-Eye" opened his eyes; he gazed at the angel standing guard just beyond the tent flap, his intelligent eyes gleaming with the clarity of crystal-clear water.
Edna returned to her post, resuming her role as the silent guardian at the threshold—unaware, all the while, that Enoch could see her perfectly.
Yet, almost as if out of spite, he chose to ignore the angel completely.
Little did she realize that even the most gentle and pure of natures could be stung into resentment by that single, dismissive label: "Fish-Eye."
Edna had stood guard over Enoch for three years, and for three years, Enoch had held her in high regard; then came a brief six-month period of holding a grudge, after which their relationship returned to its former harmony.
As time passed, he grew from a toddler just finding his footing to a boy old enough to drive a flock of sheep miles away to their grazing grounds.
While he tended the flock, Edna would keep watch from a short distance away, occasionally chatting with other angels who stopped by for a visit.
Aside from never having to worry about hunger, the lives of angels seemed to differ little from those of humans.
They would privately exchange notes on their guardianship techniques, grumbling about which human "cubs" were a handful, and boasting about which ones were clever and beautiful enough to bring them pride and prestige.
It was no different from how his own mother used to drag him along to visit neighbors, using him as a trophy to show off and compete against others.
The only difference was that the angels' patience with human cubs typically lasted only until the age of six; after that threshold was crossed, no child—no matter how exceptional—could command their attention any longer.
Before the age of six, Enoch was undoubtedly the child who brought his guardian the most pride; he could always spot the look of smug triumph on Edna's face whenever she managed to outshine the other guardian angels.
After the age of six, no matter how hard he tried, he rarely heard words of praise from the angel anymore; instead, what he heard most often were expressions of sheer astonishment.
"Why is Edna *still* watching over him?"
"He's a big boy now; he doesn't need a guardian angel anymore. Just how long do you intend to stay by his side?" '
The air was filled with such exasperating remarks.
Enoch realized that the angels' companionship was finite—it had an expiration date. What pained him most was that Edna had never offered a promise.
To the other angels, she would always reply, "Wait a little longer," or "The time has not yet come."
But when, exactly, would that time arrive?
Involuntarily, whenever other angels were present, he would quietly slip away so he wouldn't have to listen to those heartbreaking words.
Edna remained oblivious to the fact that Enoch could see her; yet, despite her typically oblivious nature, she strangely noticed that whenever other angels came to seek her out, Enoch's spirits would sink.
Gradually, she began to receive those angels less and less often.
"Why are you always so melancholy?" Edna asked, looking puzzled as she plucked weeds beside Enoch.
"If Raziel returns and sees you like this, how am I supposed to explain it to him?"
And so, Enoch understood: until this "Raziel" figure appeared, Edna would remain by his side.
At that realization, his spirits visibly lifted once more—much like the weather in June, shifting from gloom to sunshine in an instant.
*Then I simply must ensure we never cross paths with Raziel,* he thought to himself, gazing at Edna bathed in the sunlight. Her pristine wings were whiter than the fleece of a three-month-old lamb, and the radiance that enveloped her as she hummed her hymns surpassed every other beauty in the mortal world.
Thus passed another three years, during which they remained utterly inseparable.
One day, Jared summoned his son back from the pastures and asked him:
"I've heard it said that you often practice writing up on the hillside?"
Before Enoch could answer, Jared continued: "As shepherds—and we shall remain shepherds our entire lives, tending to our flocks until our dying day—literacy and book learning are of little practical use to us."
The boy remained silent, as if waiting for something.
Sure enough, he did not have to wait long before a voice rang out right beside his ear.
"That's simply not true!" the angel exclaimed, glaring indignantly at his father, her expression one of righteous indignation.
Having descended from the heavens, and placing great value on learning and education, the angel could not comprehend why humans placed such excessive emphasis on manual labor.
Had Jared been able to hear the angel's words, he surely would have offered her an answer: for the sake of food, and for the sake of survival. m.X520xs.Com
Enoch was human; thus, he grasped the deeper significance behind his father's words, while simultaneously recognizing just how detached from the mundane world the Angel truly was.
"Enoch is a child chosen by God; he certainly won't spend his entire life herding sheep."
The Angel had uttered these words countless times, yet Enoch never felt as though he had been "chosen" by God for anything at all. He was just like any other child—nothing special—and grew up in the same ordinary, unremarkable way they did.
Perhaps the only difference between him and the others was that he never rolled around in the dirt and sheep droppings—for he could never bring himself to do anything undignified under Edna's watchful gaze.
He yearned to learn, for only then could he comprehend the meaning behind the verses the Angel so often hummed.
That was his sole motivation at the start—even if it only served to heighten his burdens and underscore the vast chasm that separated him from the Angel.
A chasm so immense that they were as incomparable as the clouds in the heavens and the soil beneath the earth.
A pair of pristine white wings brushed against his human arm; though they passed through him as intangibly as air, he felt—or perhaps imagined—the tangible comfort of being caressed by those soft, fluffy feathers.
Enoch could not help but turn his gaze toward the Angel.
Throughout the long passage of time, they had remained inseparable. No matter where he went, Edna would soon follow—hovering over him like a fiercely protective mother eagle, guarding him with an intimidating intensity.
In his childhood days, no one who dared to bully him ever made it safely to see the next dawn; time and again, Enoch would overhear Edna bickering with the angels assigned to watch over the other children.
Though he knew it was perhaps improper—and despite it having happened so very long ago—whenever the memory crossed his mind, the corners of his lips would invariably curl upward in a smile.
The Angel's unconscious indulgence filled his heart with joy, yet it also hastened his maturity. Inheriting his father Jared's honest and gentle nature, Enoch wished to spare Edna any undue worry on his behalf.
He rarely allowed himself to get angry with others, doing so solely to avoid causing trouble for Edna—and out of a lingering fear that such behavior might drive her away from him.
Little did he know, however, that this very conduct only served to make Edna worry about him all the more.
"Enoch is a softie." Gazing at his face—a countenance every bit as exquisite as an angel's own—Edna added this final remark. "At best, he's just a good-looking lump of dough."
Hearing her suddenly blurt this out completely out of the blue, Enoch felt somewhat bewildered.