Nighty-Night Sleep Tight [FICTOID]

The patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahelo Church carefully tucked each angel into bed.

The angels had a long but productive day guiding / blessing / protecting the people of Ethiopia.  They’d been on duty for millennia and the least the patriarch felt he could do was see that they got a good ninety minutes sleep before going back on duty.

Angels sleep differently from humans and differently from God.  Angels need only ninety minutes sleep to arise fully refreshed.

They don’t sleep in human style beds, either.  Their beds are like chairs only they sit in them backwards, resting their chest and head on the inclined board since their wings would get in the way if they lay on their backs and sides.

The patriarch tucks them in by draping a light cloth over them; when he finished the dorm looked like a resort closed for the season, its furniture draped to keep clean.

Do angels dream?  That is hard to say.  Unlike humans, angels have no memory.  Human dreams are memory fragments filtered and reassembled by their subconsciousness into some form of narrative.

Angels, lacking memory, can dredge up nothing in the past but as spiritual beings may glimpse the future.  Angels smile in their sleep, imagining opportunities to serve.  If an angel ever suffers a nightmare, be terrified.  Be very, very terrified.

After the patriarch finishes tucking in the last of the 73 angels assigned to Ethiopia, he silently closes the door.  The dorm is windowless but a soft glow emits from each angel, making the cloth draped over them glow as well.

It is night and the angels sleep.  The patriarch never says exactly when the angels go to sleep, for if he did those of evil intent would use those ninety minutes to commit crimes and carnage.

Bad enough such things occur when the angels are awake, imagine the horror that would ensue if the rich and powerful knew when they slumbered.

Humans sleep, animals sleep, angels sleep, even God sleeps.  In fact, God is sleeping right now and every particle of matter, every pulse of energy, every minute moment of time in all the infinite myriad multiverses are but figments of God’s imagination.

The time will come when God awakens and sets to the tasks that God is meant to do, and in that instant we shall all cease to exist just as our dreams cease to exist when we awaken, but until that time, God dreams and we are.

© Buzz Dixon