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Disposable Gabriel

by Brian D. Hinson

The lights illuminated a young Mary sitting alone, in a humble abode of wood on the stage of a church that more resembled a sports arena. The stadium screen behind her displayed the dusty streets of Nazareth: clusters of connected adobe brick structures beneath an orange sun blazing its last glory on the horizon.

The angel Gabriel swooped in from an aerial catwalk, huge feathered wings angled for a glide, and a collective gasp filled the auditorium. He alighted in front of Mary, folding wings that glowed in the spotlight. Mary leapt up and screamed, back pressed against the far wall.

Gabriel’s voice thundered. No mic pickup was necessary. “Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favor with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.”

The crowd cheered.

Pastor Anabel stood offstage, arms crossed. By her side, the play’s director, Pastor Jude, beamed as he scratched his beard, an old anxious habit. It was Christmas Eve, the final performance, and things were going perfectly.

Anabel still remembered the look on Jude’s face two months ago when Head Pastor Keene announced they had ordered an angel for the play. Exorbitantly expensive, but Keene was sure blessings would come flowing back in receipts and collections. Anabel, manager of charity operations, had been skeptical.

Mary said to the angel, voice quavering, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?”

Gabriel spread his wings as the lights intensified, giving his white robes and blonde locks more brilliance. “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy child which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”

More applause, louder.

Jude whispered, “Best Christmas ever.”

Anabel nodded. Jude got teary at this part every time. The charity budget for December had been slashed to rent that angel. She’d to cancel the Christmas Soup Kitchen Dinner, the church’s long-standing tradition for the homeless.

Since Gabriel had been so expensive, Jude had worked him into the play far more than the gospel narrative implied. The archangel watched over Joseph and Mary on their trek to Bethlehem, the wind from his wings blowing Mary’s hair as they walked on an embedded treadmill. He not only made the announcement to the shepherds, but also became the star that guided the wise men, holding aloft a bright, flickering torch of hologram flame. And after the newborn Jesus’ first cry in the manger, Gabriel stood atop the thatched roof of the barn and blew his curved horn to announce the birth of the Savior.

After the play’s conclusion, after the collection totals had soared to a new holiday record on that huge screen, after the final song by the church band and the closing prayer by an enthusiastic Pastor Keene, the church emptied into the cold streets of a clear night.

Tired, Anabel retreated backstage to check on everything. The animals–four sheep, two goats, the donkey, the cow, and the three camels of the wise men–all slept on a comfortable pile of hay. This was their final sleep. Tonight, as programmed, the biological props would die peacefully as they slumbered, their work complete.

Gabriel also slept: on his side, sunk deeply into the oversized bed provided by Unlimited Biologicals. Anabel wanted to sleep, too. She turned out the lights and left security to lock up.

The next morning was Christmas Day. Anabel arrived early for the holiday service, and found Jude waiting for her as she came through the rear entrance doors.

“We have a problem,” he said, nervous hands in knots. “Gabriel is still alive.”

---

After the conclusion of the morning service, Anabel went backstage to find the angel sitting up on his bed, talking with Jude, his unnaturally loud voice making her flinch. “I don’t understand.”

“The animals were supposed to die,” Jude explained. “It’s not a problem. They were made this way.”

Two deacons carried a goat by her legs out into the hall. A special lab dumpster stood in the parking lot, scheduled to be carted away by Unlimited the next morning.

Gabriel swept his arms at the remaining corpses, all peaceful, eyes closed, in natural sleeping poses. “All of them? In the same night?” The angel had delighted in petting all the animals first thing every morning.

Jude was clearly uncomfortable, as was Anabel. Everything had died like clockwork…except for the angel. She’d have to call Unlimited. But it was Christmas Day. Would anyone answer?

“They’re not real,” explained Jude. “They were manufactured. For the play.”

“Oh. So they are to be eaten?”

“No, no…”

“Gabriel!” Anabel cut in, adding her practiced, beaming smile, “I forgot to thank you for the wonderful job you did in the play last night. Merry Christmas!”

“Thank you. Merry Christmas to you.” His returned smile was sad, nothing like the smile that shone during the play.

“Are you tired? Perhaps a nap is in order?”

“No. I feel fine. Strong. Ready to defend the Savior.”

Anabel and Jude shared a look. “All right, Gabriel, that was the play last night,” said Anabel. “That’s all over now. We all must rest.”

Gabriel’s wings stretched wide and flapped twice, startling both pastors. Anabel stepped back, out of the breeze. A small grimace crossed Gabriel’s face. “If the performances are over I need to go home.”

“So…soon?” asked Jude, eyebrows raised.

“Yes. It was gracious of God to allow me a sojourn to earth to participate in your play. It warms my heart that I helped give earthly mortals something memorable and inspirational.”

“If you would indulge us for a few more minutes, Gabriel, I have a gift for you. Please wait a moment.” Anabel jerked her head toward the wardrobe door and Jude followed. Once in the dressing room, Anabel said, “Tell me what’s going on.”

Jude nervously cleared his throat. “That’s the way he was sent to us, with memories of Heaven. That was all wonderful for his Sunday school lecture to the children. But now it’s…a problem.”

“Okay. Does he plan on flying straight up to the clouds?” Anabel pointed up.

“I’m afraid this might be the case.”

“As long as we have him, he’s our responsibility. That’s in the contract. If he dies while flying around the city and lands on a house, we’ll get sued. Or someone could get hurt.”

“He took direction perfectly, without question. Maybe I could just tell him to sit tight. Something.”

“Yeah, something,” said Anabel as she shooed him back out with her hand. Anabel sighed and grasped her hair in frustration. She should be at home with her husband and daughter and brother and nephews for Christmas festivities. Was this angel snafu going to foul the whole day? And now she had promised Gabriel a gift, so she needed to find something appropriate for a citizen of Heaven. A highly respected archangel, at that.

What was she thinking? He should be dead any moment. Anything would do.

---

“Ma’am, I am so sorry,” said the Unlimited manager Lynn to Anabel on the phone half an hour later. “This is extremely rare, I assure you. We will come out there and pick up the rogue biological.”

Anabel took the opportunity to reverse the damage to the charity coffers by the production’s extravagance. “Not only that, I need a refund.”

“I can offer you a discount for the next ti-”

“No! It’s Christmas Day and I’m not with my family because of you!”

“I understand your regrettable situation, and we apologize, but the biological performed its duties extraordinarily well, according to the review of Pastor Jude—”

Anabel groaned loudly, looking heavenward for help. “When can you get here?”

There was a pause. “Umm…not for another four hours.”

“Pardon me?”

“There’s been a couple of other instances today, of all days.”

“You just told me this was extremely rare.”

“Apparently there were some issues with our Christmas batch, we’re having to retrieve a few today.”

“I’m demanding some money back, Lynn.”

“Pastor Anabel, I understand and hopefully we can work this out next week. I have another call. You can bring him back to the lab yourself if you like. I can return the delivery fee.”

“Him and his wings won’t fit in a car.”

---

Anabel took a detour to Pastor Keene’s office, and stole the ten-inch white marble replica of Cristoforo Stati’s Samson and the Lion. There was often friction between her and Keene: in private, Anabel often referred to the founder of the huge and vastly successful Joy in Christ church as the Pastor in the Mansion. She had to fight for every pittance of the budget that went to the addiction, homeless, and food bank programs.

Backstage, Anabel found Jude and Gabriel sitting on the edge of the angel’s bed. “Merry Christmas,” she said, handing the sculpture to Gabriel.

“Thank you,” he said with a smile. “This is much too kind.” If he recognized the Biblical tale wrought in stone, he made no comment.

“Gabriel was filling me in on some details of Heaven while you were occupied,” Jude said.

The past week Anabel had noticed Jude looking starry-eyed at the chiseled features of the angel, but now, anxiety tensed his face. Anabel was glad he had found a way to stall Gabriel, and said, “Would love to hear all about it.”

In the time she had been away, almost an hour, there had been a change in Gabriel’s pallor and demeanor. He had become a touch gray, and the corners of his mouth now deepened in either sadness or pain. His string voice had dropped a few decibels. The way he slowly stood told her he was weakening. Maybe it was happening.

“I need to go,” Gabriel announced. “My time here is done.” The marble Samson disappeared into the folds of his robes and he picked up his horn. He stretched his wings, grimaced. The left twitched before it retracted.

“Are you all right?” asked Jude.

“Of course. Infinitely so. But…” He stopped, puzzled. “The Earthly Sphere is harsh to angels, so far from the Light of God.”

“Maybe I should get you something to drink? Or eat?” offered Anabel.

“Immortals have no need,” he replied, smiling at her ignorance.

Anabel had forgotten that the short-term biologicals had no nutritional requirements. No feeding or watering necessary. Neither did they excrete. Things were different for constructs that lasted over a week.

“I bid you farewell, Pastor Anabel, Pastor Jude. It was a pleasure. And many thanks for the gift.”

“But Gabriel—” started Anabel, as the angel strode out into the hall toward the double doors that led outside.

Anabel and Jude followed his sandaled heels nervously.

“Gabriel, let’s do another play tomorrow,” said Jude, his firm director voice returning. “We need to rehearse now.”

Gabriel’s pace did not slow. He pushed open both doors, ducked beneath the transom and walked into the cold sun. He took a deep breath of the crisp air and unfurled his wings. This creature was engineered to fly: hollow bones to save on weight and powerful pectorals to power the wings. But also, a lattice-work of purely photogenic cartilage sculpted to look like muscle for the legs and arms. Gabriel had to look as if he had leapt from a Raphael painting.

Anabel and Jude joined the angel outside squinting in the sun, neither knowing what to do.

Gabriel flapped his wings, generating lift, enough to get his feet off the ground. But the grace of his aerobatics was gone. He foundered as his wings twitched. Gabriel’s expression slid from confidence to fear as he failed to gain more than ten feet of altitude.

He cried out, returned hard to the blacktop parking lot in a heap, limbs and wings painfully jumbled.

---

Even short-term biologicals needed warning when something was wrong—an alarm demanding action. Pain could not be skipped in the engineering.

Gabriel’s ankles were swelling and discoloring to purple. Jude had helped him remove his sandals to allow the swelling free rein. An angry bleeding scrape on his left elbow was wrapped tightly with a dish towel.

Anabel came in with two flexible cold packs for Gabriel’s ankles. She fretted as she sat beside the angel, this thinking, feeling prop that miserably brooded on the bed.

Anabel took his expansive right hand in both of hers to offer the poor creature comfort. The hand tremored.

Gabriel’s pallor had become more ashen.

It was still over two hours before any help would arrive. Anabel sent her husband a text with details. He offered to come by, but she told him to manage the festivities at home. He informed her that her brother Scotty had rented two of Santa’s elves to entertain their daughter Ella and her three cousins, all between seven and ten. She inwardly groaned. Hopefully nothing would go wrong.

Anabel watched Gabriel. His confused expression told of his rudimentary mind churning for answers, for solutions. What had they done, she thought. He was supposed to fall asleep and never wake up. And now he suffered. For what? For a few more collection dollars?

She patted his hand. “I’ll be right back. I’m sure you’re healing quickly. Just rest.”

“Much gratitude for the assistance.”

In wardrobe, she called Lynn at Unlimited, the weary manager’s voice clicking in: “Pastor Anabel? Has Gabriel expired?”

The choice of term gave her a brief shudder. “No. And now he’s injured. He tried to fly and it didn’t work.”

“Terrible,” she clucked. “You say he’s getting weaker? Have you noticed any trembling of limbs or digits?”

“Yes. And his movements…lack grace.”

“All right. His expiration is happening, just at a radically reduced rate. We program a flood of melatonin to get them to sleep, followed by autoimmune limbic encephalitis. Antibodies are produced rapidly to attack the brain, specifically the medulla, the lower brainstem that controls the heart and lungs. Either a genetic programming error or a mutation occurred during synthesis—so we have a slower rate of antibody production.”

Anabel grimaced. Gabriel would endure a slow, conscious death.

---

Anabel and Jude removed three rows of seats from a church van and padded the floor with sofa cushions from the lounge. Gingerly they carried Gabriel and loaded him in along with his curved horn. He was much lighter than expected. His darkened face spasmed now and again with what Anabel assumed were jolts of pain. Yet he made no complaint. But perhaps it wasn’t painful, just a wounded nervous system giving him tremors.

Jude drove. Anabel reclined next to the injured angel. She held his hand.

“I can’t reach heaven like this. I’ve been thinking. Have I been exiled? Did God curse me? Or is this some bedevilment from Lucifer?”

To ease the angel’s torment, Anabel played along. “Whatever this is, it must be temporary. You have a task set in the future. You sound the horn as a prelude to Judgement Day.”

“This is true.”

“So, you will get through this.”

Gabriel nodded, slowly. “But I am so weak. I have never felt like this. Never. I fear I am dying.”

“Do angels die?”

“Yes. There was a war in Heaven once, long ago.”

“I never understood that. What happens to angels when they die?”

“We are no more. Our souls and bodies are inseparable.”

They sat in silence as the van hummed along through the light Christmas Day traffic.

“Is it cold in here?” asked Gabriel, his voice now a weak rasp.

“Turn the heat up,” Anabel told Jude.

“Someone else can blow the horn.” Gabriel shook his head, blonde locks swaying limply. “I’m not that important.”

“It’s Scripture. You will blow that horn.”

After a few beats of silence, he added, “Someone else can take my name.”

“You brought everyone a lot of hope and cheer, you know.” The cliché felt weak. “Three nights we had a packed house. Nine thousand people every performance. The net broadcast reached double that. You were the star.”

“You are kind.” A small smile grew, and quickly vanished in a pitiful groan. “That’s it. The sin of pride. The same that exiled Lucifer. I was not the star. The Savior was. But I thought otherwise. God has cursed me, and I am to die.”

“No, Gabriel. Don’t think like that.”

With both hands Gabriel lifted his horn and held it out to Anabel. “Take this. It is a Christmas gift.”

“This is too much…I can’t.”

“You have given me the fine sculpture of…the man and the lion. You have given me comfort through my last moments. I have no need of it anymore. Please.”

Anabel took the horn and said, “You are too gracious, Archangel. But I still think you will be needing it.”

The feeble smile he gave her shuddered with increasing loss of motor control.

With Gabriel’s hand in hers, she wanted to give him hope and pleaded, “Ask God for forgiveness. Pray. Pray with me.”

“Angels don’t pray. We speak with God when we see Him, when He calls for us.”

“But He’s everywhere! He can hear you!”

Gabriel’s eyes became slits, the lids too heavy. He looked out the window at the clear day and the passing trees beyond the freeway, to his trembling hand in Anabel’s. “He is not here.”

Anabel felt the tremors cease, the hand relax.

“Tell everyone that the play was a highlight of my life,” Gabriel whispered. “And to have a good Christmas.”

His eyes closed as he fell to his side on the cushions.

Gabriel’s wings spasmed before laying still behind him.

Anabel wiped away tears with the collar of her jacket. Gabriel had suffered and died. He had figured out he was dying, and discovered all was hopeless.

And the Christmas Soup Kitchen Dinner had been canceled.

Merry Christmas.

---

Back at the church, Jude and Anabel sat in the lounge after replacing the couch cushions and returning the Samson sculpture to Keene’s office. The late afternoon light slanting through the windows would have been cheery, had the day turned out differently. “I think this is the worst Christmas of my life,” she told Jude.

“That was really…I don’t know.”

“Sad. Just sad.”

With a half-wave and a morose frown Jude stood and left.

Anabel’s finger hovered over the Uber call switch on her watch, but stopped. Instead, she accessed the van’s internal dashcam. A quick edit of Gabriel’s last moments and it was shared on the nets titled, “Angels Die on Christmas.” She tagged Unlimited Biologicals and her church’s main account.

Why not get fired on Christmas? Make it a full house of disasters.

The Uber dropped her off at home, and with slumped shoulders she made her way in, carrying the horn. Her husband, updated through text and tears on the way over, hugged her fiercely.

Ella, still bouncing with Christmas joy, dragged her to the living room to show off the bounty from Santa. Uncle Scotty, the nephews, and the elves had left for another Christmas gathering at Aunt Jessie’s.

Anabel remarked animatedly at the Ella’s haul, but her heart wasn’t behind the cheer.

“What’s that?” asked Ella, pointing at the horn.

Anabel didn’t realize she still clutched it. Gabriel’s final moments played once again behind her eyes, bringing a shake to her voice. “A gift from a friend.”

“Oh. Wanna see the video of the elves that came from the North Pole?”

“Not tonight, sweetheart.” Anabel sat heavily on the sofa. “Mommy’s exhausted.” There she slipped into a dream of homeless angels wandering the litter-strewn streets with plucked wings and oozing wounds. One of them begged her for help, and she told him through tears that the shelter was closed indefinitely.

She awoke to morning light behind the curtains and a blanket draped about her. Three messages had been missed.

Pastor Keene text-fired her in the middle of the night, saying Unlimited Biologicals was threatening a lawsuit over the video. Another enraged note added that she had ruined countless childrens’ Christmas.

The last text must have been the waking chime. A local church needed someone to head up their addiction program. Curious, she called for an audio contact.

Pastor Sadie’s voice grated, reflecting several decades of smoking. “Word’s already out, Anabel. You sound like a good soul. We can’t pay much and there’s long hours here. I thought this was a long shot, but I’d try anyway.”

“How big’s your house?” asked Anabel.

“Pardon?”

“Where do you live?”

“In an apartment attached to the church.”

“I’m in.”

---

Host Commentary

This story is delightfully brutal in its skewering of the commercialisation of Christmas, and religion in general, and its exposure of hypocrisy. It’s also deeply believable – well, bioengineered donkeys and angels aside. I love the character voices, all of which are so well realised, but mostly how the protagonist is placed in a position where she gets to re-evaluate her own choices, and what matters most to her in how she lives her life from there onwards. It’s also utterly heartbreaking, to witness not just Gabriel’s death, but his loss of innocence, and faith. It’s a cruel, bleak end, but even within that, there’s a bright note of something magical. Gabriel has no god, no soul, no future… but he brought joy to the world in spite of that. That, perhaps, is the greatest gift we can all offer: being virtuous and good to each other not because our faiths expect it of us, if we have one… just doing so for absolutely no reason at all.