PITTSBURGH — The first Easter was as dark as they come. The crucifixion, a grisly showcase of Roman justice, coincided with Passover. During Jesus' era, Passover was a solemn commemoration of the Angel of Death's mass killing of the firstborn of the Egyptians centuries earlier.
Moses warned the enslaved Jews to smear the blood of lambs on their doorposts if they wanted the Killer Angel to "pass over" without murdering their firstborn, too.
Though separated by centuries, Passover was also the week in which Jesus came to grips with his pending death, a looming inevitability given the passion of his enemies and the fecklessness of his friends.
Fast forward thousands of Passovers later, and the Angel of Death has yet to take a holiday. Why should it? From the killing fields of Tigray and Yemen to the mass graves of Syria and Ukraine, hardened hearts abound.
Still, the Angel of Death has never restricted its killing to dark nights in the Valley of Kings. There are too many COVID wards, street corners and bloody public spaces to sift through at any given moment to indulge in such snobbery.
That's why the Killer Angel is nothing if not egalitarian. It is more than willing to sneak away from war zones for a bit to make side trips to wherever the business end of a sword or scythe is likely to be welcome. There's always a new pharaoh to humble; there's always someone's first or last born to kill. If it looks around hard enough, it can always spot someone to crucify in keeping with the theme.
So, on early Easter morning, the Angel of Death found itself mingling in an unruly crowd of 200 at an Airbnb in the East Allegheny section of Pittsburgh's North Side.
Like all the young people who surrounded it, the Angel of Death came with just the right accoutrements for the evening: expensive sneakers laced oh-so casually, an expression of bored normality and a willingness to take offense at the slightest provocation.
When the Killer Angel surveys the territory, it doesn't restrict its attention to the first born. If you have a pulse, you're fair game. As has been the case for thousands of years, children are a preferred target. The scythe trembles as it becomes a gun. Suddenly multiple guns appear in multiple hands. The Angel of Death can be singular or plural — whatever the moment requires.
The music always obscures the pop-pop-pop of the first round. Despite the heavy bass, those initial screams have a way of cutting through the noise. The terror of the moment always feels good to the Killer Angel. The screams of the stampeding partiers aren't that far removed from the screams of those parents watching their children die during that first Passover thousands of years ago.
The Angel of Death steps over the bodies of two 17-year-olds left behind in the carnage of broken glass from a second floor window, solitary sneakers, wrecked furniture and spilled alcohol. Eight others were shot, but not immediately killed in the melee. The Angel inhales and exhales in anticipation of many more deaths since the ambulances were full when they left.
There is no lamb's blood on the doorpost of the Airbnb. The only blood on the premises belongs to those who smeared walls with their own blood and cut themselves on shards of broken window glass in their rush to escape.
The echo of bones breaking after some of the partygoers jumped or fell from the second floor window gave the Killer Angel a sense of what could've been. Ten young people got to see their blood gush out of them, though only two succumbed to the darkness on that morning as the cops wrapped yellow tape around the crime scene.
All-in-all, three mass shootings in America during the Easter/Passover weekend was a decent haul, but not as spectacular as it could've been. Still, the Killer Angel knows that the future bodes well for the likelihood of another, far deadlier massacre in the coming days. That's a metaphysical certainty almost as constant as: "Death comes for everyone sooner or later."
The Angel of Death is almost wistful as it surveys the scene. There was a time when such an event would've filled everyone who heard about it with horror. Now such horrors are greeted with numbness. Soon, even visceral horror turns into nonchalance the minute conversation turns to gun control or limiting Second Amendment rights in any way.
Americans are a stiff-necked people and the Angel of Death appreciates that. The fear and hatred that settles over this country like midday smog shows no signs of ever lifting. Fear compels ordinary citizens to accumulate enough guns to commit daily massacres if they should ever chose to do so. Here, the willingness to shoot and kill those one feels threatened by is not considered a form of madness; if anything, it's considered a civic virtue. In a country where undiagnosed psychosis, especially in children, is the norm, it is assumed to be a necessity.
The Killer Angel's only fear is that mass shootings on Easter could indirectly result in a resurrection of conscience across the land instead of a doubling down on the contempt and hatred that made the latest killings possible.
Standing outside the Airbnb as cops and news crews sought answers to the unanswerable, the Angel of Death settled into stealth mode even though it was eager to get back to Jerusalem's Old City where ancient hatreds are stirring once again. The Killer Angel looked long and hard at its handiwork on Easter morning in East Allegheny and saw that it was good.
There was no sign of resurrection on the streets in those pre-dawn hours. When the church bells rang and choirs began shouting "He is risen" many hours later during Easter services, the anguish of the families of the Killer Angel's victims offered a second opinion.
