Kosher Seraphim
Kevin Sweeney

Medieval theologians surmised that flies were spontaneously generated by rotting pork. Then, by skilful use of this known fact, they answered Samson’s riddle; after all, it was true that out of the strong came forth sweetness, so the noble lion's decomposition should birth the noble bee. Pig meat, flies. Lion corpse, bees. And from the incorruptible bodies of their saints ...

The larva curl in the gut, feeding on the fat around the kidneys. As they grow the corpse belly—glistening with corruption—is stretched tight. We can see their sleeping faces through a skein of artery-laced skin.

In their natural element, high among the wispy cirrus, they resemble nothing so much as whales. It is the massive, slow grace of their flanks which makes us think of those ocean creatures; the angels above have no wings, mountains of glistening flesh rolling and being borne up in their own element.

Up close, here in the slaughterhouse, they are pitiful. They hang next to the ceiling, tethered by gently clinking steel chains. The chains are mortared into the ground at this end, and a harpoon with backward flowing needles is thrust deep into the angels' bellies. Up close they are obscene, bloated, their bodies in constant motion like termite queens swallowing ... no, grubs, or maggots, with that blind red eye of maggots in fact a tiny human head. The egg sacs are webbed to their gaping sex with mucous and their faces would be beautiful Raphaelites if not for the compound eyes.

We drag them down, passing chain hand over hand. They sob as they come.

We grab them by the hair, knotting a yard of it around our fist. We yank their fat faces back to expose what little throat lies between chin and chest fat. And here we cut, the serrated blade catching on tough fibres—as tough as hedge roots—before severing the head completely and letting the blood out.

It gushes forth liquid, instantly boiling in the tainted air of this planet. It is mother of pearl hue and has the flat mineral smell of sperm.

Ducking low, a hundred tons of dying angel hanging over our heads, we quickly use our blade to trace a line from severed throat all along the underside of the belly, just breaking the skin to expose the buttery fat beneath. Running, one hand up in the air behind us like children dragging a kite through the sky. For a moment it seems as though this layer will hold, flesh slowly parting like lips; but then the weight of innards causes it to rip open with a crackling noise as the guts thunder out, the membranes that web them in place breaking like a fisherman’s net. A steaming catch is unleashed across the rough concrete floor.

Intestines as wide as a horses bellies and boulder-sized organs heavily veined and the gutters run thick with suet grease. Smothered in juices, we gasp for breath, howling whenever we can open our mouth without it being filled. Pressing two fingers to one nostril and blowing out bits.

The body sags as it empties, deflating ...

A quick glimpse of a sickly green organ, green with disease, old seaweed color, and we wade hip deep through the spreading drift of guts. This is the organ we want, curled like a shell but big enough to be carried in both arms. The surface skin is pulled tight enough to shine and its contents slosh thickly.

We cut it open and it breathes rotten, gasping through the slit made in its cheek-thick hide. Angel shit. Half digested food pours out, and with it something else. A stone as big as an egg, hard and glossy but for all the world like holding a chunk of the thunder ... rolling darkness sometimes lit by silent flashes ...

Ambergris transforms eau du toilette into exquisite parfum, but it is hard to come by; it is a by-product of the sperm whale’s digestive track, a reaction to irritation from squid beaks. Here, then, is another reason to compare these beings with those gentle ocean monsters.

Here is the stone of the philosophers.

Kevin Sweeney, noun. Lives in C/Ford, prefers Bangkok. He has a children's novel coming out in a few months, Try Before You Die, about the Devil retiring and putting his grandaughter in charge of the family business. Visit him online at MySpace.