Bang - Trudie Shannon

There was an angel
She was small and insignificant
Dressed scantily in an old spotted nighty.
Her wings cygnet coloured
Her voice not good enough for the heavenly choir.
She spent a lot of time on the move
Criss crossing continents in the blink of a humans eye.
The first time, she just lifted a missile and hid it, under his throne.
She didn’t ask, just waited till he was required elsewhere
He was all seeing and everything so she guessed that if he’d minded
He’d have said.
After the first thousand, seeing as there was still loads of room
She became bolder, lifting whole nuclear missile installations.
She scrambled after submarines and aircraft, swept beneath the ground,
Gathering, gathering, even the chemical and biological stuff.
After that it was the small stuff, the mortars, mines, grenades
And then every kind of gun and knife.
Soon she’d managed to lift every kind of weapon known to man
Out of human harms way and stashed it carefully with all the rest
Under his throne.
She was amused at her own cheek.
He’d said nothing, though lately she’d noticed
He couldn’t rest his feet upon the ground,
His throne having lifted a little.
Obviously on earth the disappearance of life’s essentials was noticed

And the people were suspicious, each suspecting the other and fist fights broke out.
In the meantime, from where our angel stood, things were looking up for humanity.
That’s when he summoned her.
She flew as fast as cygnet wings can fly
And stood before him, head bowed at his majesty.
I’ve watched over your collection long enough, he said.
Now it is your turn to do something with it.
That flummoxed her, as far as she was concerned, it had been sorted.
He wasn’t angry or anything, just offering her an opportunity, he said.
Okay, she said, I’m on it.
So from beneath his throne she started lifting, carefully,
So he wouldn’t come down with a bump,
Every piece of weaponry that she had stashed.
It took a few trips.
Where to now she wondered?
Then remembered the black hole just outside of nowhere
And she took everything there, throwing it in recklessly
And then something she hadn’t considered happened.
There was the most enormous bang.
The biggest bang since last time, things exploding imploding
Clouds and gas and colours she’d forgotten she remembered.
This whole thing lasting forever and she watching the whole time.
And when time stood still and the flashing was over
She saw a sphere floating where once there had been a black hole
And she guessed that may be she’d inadvertently used her opportunity
To a worthwhile end.
On the earth, several scientists marvelled at the new star

And wondered if it were a portent, beyond scientific explanation.

Trudie Shannon