Kingdom of the Red Rose
(Episode 13 of 62)
Chapter Five: A Need to Disobey
(Part 2 of 3)

Griffin quietly sat next to him and the Archangel acknowledged his presence with a brief glance and a nod of the head. Griffin mirrored the gesture and they both stared at the Dusk Sea in silence, listening to the rhythmic, soothing, and hypnotic waves washing ashore.

“What can you see, Griffin?” Michael asked after nearly fifteen minutes of silence.

“I’m sorry, what?” Griffin’s wandering mind was pulled back to reality.

“Looking far into the distance, what can you see?” the Archangel asked.

“Divine beauty, proof of God’s glory, one of the many gifts given to us?”

“This is not a test Griffin. Your loyalty is not in question here. There is no right or wrong answer, so don’t reply with what you think you must. Don’t use your eyes. Use your emotions and see beyond the physical existence of the sea. Tell me what you really see. How do you really feel when you stare into the vastness of the sea?”

Griffin crossed his ankles, curled his legs close and locked his arms around them. He lowered his head and took a moment, thinking how to reply.

“Do not overthink or over analyse your answer. If you do, you will lose the meaning of my question, just let the words come out as they wish. Don’t try to correct them, for they are what is true for you.”

“I see a challenge, a journey I would very much like to take. I feel as if the sea is calling me to sail its waters; to search for what exists beyond it. Something unknown is calling out to me. It is inviting me to look for some sort of treasure at the other end. I don’t mean gold, or some form of material--”

“You are overanalyzing your thoughts Griffin. There is no need to explain them to me. I understand them, but even if I didn’t, as long as you know what you mean then that is good enough. But why Griffin, why are you so willing to abandon what you have and embark on this voyage?”

“I…I don’t know,” Griffin’s voice trembled.

“Fear,” Michael replied, “There is fear in you because you don’t know why.”

“Yes. I feel as if something is missing, a void exists somewhere inside me and I am unable to fill it, and that scares me. I fear where it will lead me.”

“Then maybe that is why you feel so passionately about embarking on a journey. Why you never know when to stop. You’re always pushing boundaries, as if you are punishing yourself for something.”

“What, like a past deed or wish? Something I failed to fulfil?”

“Maybe, I cannot know the answer to that for sure, only you can. But to me it sounds as if there’s a reason you torture yourself by constantly pushing forward. You’re trying to avoid feeling what you felt once before at some unknown point in your past. There must be something you haven’t chased, or at least you feel you didn’t try as hard as you ought to, and this emptiness inside you has been created, forcing you to keep going, to never repeat the same mistake again, whatever that was.”

“But I don’t know what that is.”

“And that is why you keep disobeying orders. I’ve studied all these moments in your past and I have observed a pattern in your behaviour.”

Griffin turned and looked at Archangel Michael, but Michael kept staring forward to the Dusk Sea. His arms back, his hands buried in the sand, supporting him up.

“You always disobey orders that limit you, that prevent you from achieving something you believe is worth doing, whether it is right or wrong. You have an unnatural curiosity for a Grim Reaper.”

“As far as I have seen, Angels are not especially curious either. Maybe when it comes to gossip they are, but not when it comes to rules and regulations.”

Michael replied with a chuckle, “And that drives you crazy, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, I just don’t get it. How can they not be curious, even a little bit? I’ve tried talking with other Grim Reapers about the rules in the manual, about some things that I believe are not clearly explained. And they all react as if I’m out of my mind for even asking why some rules are there in the first place. They all say the same thing before cutting the conversation short and walking away.”

“And what’s that?”

“That the rules are there to ensure we do our job right. They are there to guide us as we do our part to maintain peace between Heaven and Hell.”

“That sounds about right,” Michael smiled ironically as he expected Griffin’s reaction.

“But why?” Griffin replied, raising his voice slightly.

“You already know the answer to that.”

“See? See what I mean?” Griffin jerked both hands outwards towards Michael. “Some of the rules limit us in ways that…oh never mind. What’s the point anyway,” Griffin turned and stared at the sea once again.

“Maybe there is no point to your question but there was a point to mine, Griffin. We got a bit off track here. Back to this embarking-on-a-journey need you seem to have, the one that results in you constantly disobeying orders.”

“The one that led to me getting suspended,” Griffin complained.

“Yes, that one.”

“Well, what about it?”

“I will use the Dusk Sea as an example, a metaphor to show you where I am going with this. What do you know about the Dusk Sea?”

“It’s called the Dusk Sea because it is always dusk here, because of the way the light reaches this part of the world. And the four rivers of Heaven, one of which is Pishon on whose delta we are sitting on right now, flow into the Dusk Sea.”

“Correct. Now let’s say that your need to always push through, to follow things to the end, is like this river’s water. And you want to discover the entire journey of this water, to find out where it goes after it merges with the Dusk Sea.”

“Meaning how I never stop when I should, and I keep going, breaking the rules.”

“Exactly. Now then, where would this journey take you? Where would this journey lead?”

Griffin looked at Michael and shrugged.

“You don’t know what happens to the water of the Dusk Sea at the other end?” Michael pressed on.

“Oh, I see,” Griffin paused for a moment, “Yeah, ok, I get where you are going with this. I see your point.”

“But we still need to talk about it, and to do that I need to hear you say it. What happens at the other end Griffin?”

“Underground the Dusk Sea spills down into Hell, and at one point or another it becomes part of one of the five rivers of Hell: Styx, Acheron, Phlegethon, Cocytus and Lethe. You’re saying that if I continue down this path, it will only lead me to Hell, or more suffering anyway.”

“Yes, it will. It has already cost you a lot, Griffin. What will it take before you understand how dangerous this path is? There is no salvation at the end of this journey.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Fight it. Realize that it’s only an obsession and nothing good can, or ever will, come from it.”

“But I can think of nothing in my past that could have created such an obsession. And I have been going over my past missions a lot ever since I returned from the Anthills.”

“You’re once again missing the point Griffin. Even if you could locate the events in your past that have had this effect on you, what good would that do?”

“I would be able to face them.”

“I will agree with you on that, being able to pinpoint and identify the cause of all this would make it easier for you to deal with it. But you can achieve the same result without discovering what that situation was.”

“You also went over my past missions and didn’t find anything. Didn’t you?” Griffin’s voice was filled with disappointment.

“Yes, I did. We obviously can’t deal with this problem at its source, it seems to have no beginning, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t another way around it.”

“To start dealing with the problem I can easily spot. To go against these urges of mine and stick to following orders.”

“It’s a start,” the Archangel smiled at Griffin.

“All you said is good and well Archangel, but there is something else that compelled me to follow that soul into Hell.”

The story continues in:
Kingdom of the Red Rose
(Episode 14 of 62)
Chapter Five: A Need to Disobey
(Part 3 of 3)

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