Witnessing a turn was always a mixed bag of emotions for Gabriel.

On the one hand, he looked forward to welcoming so many of the souls back to the guff.

It really was a reunion of sorts. And a celebration.

Yes, it was an epoch filled with subterfuge, but they really did accomplish a lot this go around. They left the planet, for goodness sake! That was, the Elohim all agreed, truly remarkable.

In the guff, souls would find one another and lifetimes would be discussed and debated, and everyone would learn how far they’d really come.

There’d be the food pageants and the costume pageants and the Epoch Awards… It was a joyous time of quiet reflections and regenerative revelry.

For those in the guff, that is.

It pained Gabriel to know those comparatively few who remained on earth would endure so much fear and pain in the coming months.

The Elohim knew that this was the true meaning of dying for the so-called “sins” of others. Those brave souls would bear for a time the weight of all humanity’s struggle to evolve.

They would see their magnificent cities crumble. Which ones, Gabriel did not yet know, but it could be any of them: London, Paris, St. Petersburg, Dubai, Venice, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver… they were all beautiful in their own ways, and he knew it was unlikely that all of them, if any, would survive. He was silently hoping the Great Wall of China would make it. That bit of human engineering still took his breath away.

The pyramids and Stonehenge survived the last turn, Gabriel thought optimistically, but humans just didn’t build things like that anymore.

It was, he admitted (if only to himself), easier in the earlier turns, back when humans were still finalizing their current forms and mastering walking upright. Watching them construct their first homes and taste their first berries was a delight. And until they learned to defend themselves, the guff was like a constantly revolving door. You didn’t have time to miss anyone before they were back again for another go.

But, in the last few hundred thousand years, watching the global Etch A Sketch get shaken like a rag doll had not come without some grief. They made such pretty things when they wanted to.

In truth, Gabriel knew, more of their accomplishments, their knowledge, would survive this turn in one form or another than in any previous epoch. In the last few years, nearly all they’d ever written had been copied onto their computers.

The “Ghouls” as Eve’s little group have taken to calling them, have already ensured their greatest works of art, their most significant documents, and much of their music and films will be protected to the best of their considerable ability. And, with shielded satellites and the gizmos they powered, it wouldn’t take long for them to flip the internet back on and reestablish communications with the survivors.

And it wasn’t just the Ghouls preserving human history. One radio host, Gabriel knew, had been for decades procuring and stashing some of America’s most iconic cultural knick-knacks in a vault he calls “Mercury.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Between vigilant caretakers, powerful rulers, and greedy collectors, much of this epoch’s journey would be saved. The question was, how much of it would be shared with future generations?

It was a disturbing thought.

Gabriel fervently believed that, even if those Ghouls succeeded in all he knew they had planned, ultimately, they would fail.

Ultimately, they would yearn for the warmth of God’s soul. They figured out how to banish that piece of His spirit to the deepest recesses of their subconscious minds, but they could never excise it, and one day they would reach for it again.

To do what they have done — to turn the natural arts inward and essentially imprison God’s light behind mental walls — would, eventually, prove untenable. Even if they ignore it in themselves, it requires too much energy to ignore God’s presence in everything and everyone they see. And Gabriel knew that, once you saw it, you wanted more of it. You hungered for it.

Ultimately, even the most hardened Ghoul would beg forgiveness for just a glimpse of God’s love. Everyone would. That, too, was part of human nature.

The old adage that God "knows the number of hairs on your head and every bird that falls" is grounded in a reality that few humans understand.

He knows when a bird dies and falls to earth because a piece of His soul resides in every soul He creates. He lives every life, every turn, every heartbreak, every triumph, every love, every quantum field possibility, and every single loss with all of them.

“God is with us” wasn’t just a name Isaiah dreamed up. “Immanuel” was a statement of fact.

The famed Trinity was and always has been the melding of God’s soul and a human soul in an earthly vessel: The Conscious mind; the Human body; and the shared spirit -- which, by its very existence is Holy -- that dwells within.

It is no more mysterious than Anatomy 101.

To deny the existence of His soul would be like denying you have a kidney or a lung. They remain whether you believe in them or not, and when ignored for too long, they make themselves impossible to ignore.

So, yes, eventually even the most stubborn of the stoics will tear down the walls they’ve built within themselves and turn to the light that never for a moment ceases to shine.

Eventually even the most sheltered of those they will try to control will throw off their shackles and embrace what they intuitively know they are: reflections of their Creator’s love.

But “eventually,” Gabriel knew, could take thousands and thousands of years. Turns could come and go before humanity wakes up to their oppression, finds the courage and strength to overthrow their oppressors, and relearns all they will have by then forgotten.

Paradise will never be truly lost, but it can be placed on pause for a very, very long time.

It would be one thing if humans had consciously chosen to crumple up the Ancient knowledge and toss it in the bin. Had they been given the facts available and chosen this path willingly, the Elohim would have let it play out, just as they did when a few of them started taking metaphysical scalpels to their souls.

That, arguably, could have gone a different way.

It still could, Gabriel thought wistfully.

They could, even now, realize the futility of their endeavor and abandon their quest. The darkness in their souls could fill with the Lord’s light at any moment.

They only have to want it to.

And, to want that, they have to know it’s an option.

That’s why Eve and her little group, like all the little groups Gabriel and his brethren have quietly nudged together, were so important.

And that’s why their current emotional state was so distressing to Gabriel.

He couldn’t blame the poor dears. They were waiting for their world to end. They were experiencing all five stages of grief at once, and they were struggling to see the point of it all.

They needed to remember they weren’t just preserving God’s light, it dwelled in them, too.

They needed to believe there was a much bigger picture, and it was glorious.

After the whole Lucifer fiasco, the Elohim had elected not to engage so directly with the humans in their care. Like parents who had become too friendly with their children, they decided they needed more formal boundaries. They couldn’t afford another smear campaign. The Satan spin was, in the truest sense of the word, epic, and another like it could do no ends of damage to their reputations.

But they were so close to the next turn, Gabriel reasoned. There wouldn’t be time to mount a serious campaign against them, and maybe, just maybe, a visit would lift the spirits of those who were now so burdened.

A pep talk, Gabriel decided, wouldn’t be too intrusive.

If he couldn’t comfort them, at least he could let them know they weren’t alone.

Gabriel was their angel. He existed for them.

And he needed them to know, he would never abandon them…