The First Sacrifice: A Witness of Cain and Abel

Castiel watches Cain and Abel.

They are far from the ocean but Castiel can see it in them. Can see it bead on Cain’s forehead as he kneels in the dirt, palms rough and hard, nails brown. Can see it in the sweat that pearls his skin, drips in his eyes, stinging them with salt from the sea. Mud tracks his face.

Abel is near…is always near his brother. His clothes are green from the grass. Sheep bleat around him. Sometimes, after the hard labor of tilling the ground, Cain goes to his brother and they lay down amidst the sheep, their faces pointed towards the stars, fingers tracing images and patterns, silvering their skin under the bright face of the moon. They take turns using a rock green with moss as a resting place. Sometimes the lambs will come and bleat with them, nestle in close, heads on their chests, eyes half closed.

They think that God has told them to sacrifice to Him. They think that God has told them this, whispered it in their heart as the wind whispered against their skin, silked with sweat and tears.

Castiel hears just the wind. Father is silent.

But He will speak again. He will because He is their Father, Father of all.

Abel brings lambs, Cain the first growth of his plants. The lamb is silent, leans against Cain, nuzzles the palms of his hand. Cain swallows hard and Castiel sees the words bubbling like foam to his mouth then the slip and slide of the tide as he turns away from his brother, silent.

But Cain looks upon Abel’s slaughtered lambs when he sees the pride etched in Adam’s face, when he hears his father praise Abel’s sacrifice, says to all that God has found it well and good and Cain wonders why because he hears no such whispers and Adam looks upon Cain’s offerings, green and lush but yet slowly wilting without the firm arms of the ground to hold them safe and well, without the kisses of the sun to bring them life, and turns away and the ocean crashes upon the flinty edges of Cain’s heart and Castiel wonders at the knot that has disturbed the calm of grace and being, edging forward to see more closely as the days blend and blur together, sacrifice after sacrifice, the rock stained brown with the dried blood of lambs that Cain had held in his arms, not washed away with Adam’s wet saliva slicked words.

The brothers lie upon the grass together but no longer quite so close, the tips of their fingers no longer murmuring against each other. Don’t sacrifice the lamb tomorrow, Cain whispers, the waters in him still and frozen.

It pleases God, Abel says, eyes half lidded. He has spoken to me.

Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul? Cain says and because they are brothers, Abel nods. God hasn’t spoken to me.

He hasn’t spoken for a long time, Castiel says but the brothers’ ears are too big and clumsy to hear.

Maybe you’re just not listening hard enough, Abel says.

The lamb butts his head against Cain’s leg, bleating softly as his soft pink tongue tangles around Cain’s fingers. Cain reaches over for the rock fuzzed green with moss from under his brother’s head.

He raises his hands and Castiel sees the storm within him, within that fragile shore of body and skin, soul heated to splintering glass, and surges forward, but then Gabriel is there, stopping Castiel in the space between promise and action and, before Castiel can protest, Cain crashes the rock down on his brother’s head, red water gushing from Abel’s split skull.

Don’t step on that fish, Castiel.

The grass is red instead of green. The flock circle, bleating, smelling blood instead of the evening. The waters in Abel are silent. He does not sweat or bleed or weep or breathe. Cain grips Abel’s ankles and draws the carcass of his brother away.

Big plans for that fish.