I haven’t given an update on Angels and Aliens in a while, partially because I felt a little silly going on about it, but I enjoy daydreaming the storyline and I want to share it because it’s a lovely story. So here I am again! Angels and Aliens is a story I wrote and created inspired by Hayden Anhedönia’s work as Ethel Cain on her album Preachers Daughter. The album is a rich storyline written as both a cautionary tale and a reflection of Hayden’s own experiences. I wanted to capture that sort of depth in my own way, so I came up with Angels and Aliens. It’s a storyline that follows Emily, a young black trans woman and Lewis, a young black man, as they take a road trip across the continental United States in an attempt to fall in love with life again.
The story starts off with Emily, stuck at home daydreaming about running away from her life in Brooklyn, NY. Her life’s in a rut and she wants out of it. It’s the summer of 2025 and she’s just gotten over a year of pain. Throughout that past winter she’d fallen in love with the notion of finding heaven on earth through the work of Ethel Cain via her album Perverts as well as her own general dissatisfaction with life. She dealt with extreme suicidal ideation and after a failed attempt, decided to stick around and try living. Sticking around, however, is much harder than she anticipated.
Throughout the summer Emily has the urge to leave all of her problems behind her and get away, but she’s too afraid. She says to herself that if she really wanted to leave, she’d have to do it on a whim, and the only things she’d really need are her estrogen, her phone, and her wallet. One afternoon, walking home from a quick trip to her corner store, she finds herself unexpectedly prepared with everything she said she’d ever need all in her pockets. She takes this as a perfect moment, a sign, and leaves home without saying goodbye to her family. She books it to the nearest train station, rides it to 34th Street Penn Station and buys herself a ticket on the next train to Niagara Falls. When she gets there, her head is rushing with excitement. She spent the whole train ride staring out of the window with her eyes on the horizon. She orders a cab from the Niagara Falls Amtrak station and it takes her straight to the falls.
There, at the falls, on this cool summer night, the Niagara Falls summer fireworks display lights up the sky. Red, blue, green, and yellow lights reflect in Emily’s eyes, and within a moment, reality hits her. She can never go home.
What she has in this moment is true freedom. She’s finally escaped her attachment to the weight holding her down. All of her life, Emily’s feared doing the wrong thing, or making the wrong choice. She looked up to those above her, her mother and sisters, like the opinion of God. Their words carried a certainty she could trust. She relied on their yes’s and no’s for certainty in every major decision of her life. Now she would have to trust herself.
Realizing that the right decision for herself is the hard decision, one she would never have made if she hadn’t been brave enough to leave everything behind, she sobs as the fireworks light up the sky around her. Here, she meets Lewis.
Lewis is a young black man around the same age as Emily. He lives in buffalo and has just gotten off of a late shift at a local 7/11 when he spots Emily at the fireworks display. He notices Emily, all alone and in unbearable sadness. He walks over to her and she looks up at him. He asks if she’s ok and she replies by saying “I’m lost.” He asks her where she wants to go and she decides “Oregon.” He tells her that he knows how to get her there, and she calms. She’s about to start her very own journey to becoming an adult.
“Can I come with you?” Lewis asks.
Emily looks up, in confusion. She recognizes the look of desperation in his eyes.
The two head back to Lewis’ home for his “Zombie Apocalypse bag” filled with everything he could ever need in case of a national emergency. They set off on a Midwest roadtrip, hitting different destinations across the states. Exploring fairs, rodeo’s and carnivals the two get to know each other in an unexpectedly intimate way. In such close proximity they learn each other’s habits, insecurities, obsessions, and addictions. Outside of these roadtrip destinations, the two explore the beauty of the Midwest. It’s in these huge, quiet expanses of prairie that they share with one another their philosophies for life.
Both Lewis and Emily grew up Christian, but neither one of them kept their faith. Lewis is obsessed with Aliens. He’s always loved exploring the concept of life beyond earth; what breathes beyond the plain of the universe that we as humans can set our eyes on. Emily is obsessed with Angels. They are Heavenly creatures of terrifying beauty and potential; uncanny forms reflecting the same beauty she sees in bodies throughout the transgender community.
One clear night on a open prairie, Lewis and Emily attempt to signal an alien. They draw a figure in the land’s tall grass and wait there all night. Nothing happens of course, and in the morning they leave. But dynamics have begun to change in their relationship.
Emily let her initial attraction to Lewis go in order to spare the awkward tension that could come from a potential rejection, but now Lewis considers what Emily might be as more than just a friend to him. She understands him in a way that makes him feel like he might still have a home.
The two make their way to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming where Emily officially introduces Lewis to Perverts by Ethel Cain. She explains that the album was inspired by a vision of Heaven which Hayden (Ethel Cain) saw through the humming metal architecture of a power plant. Throughout the last winter, Emily explains, she searched for that Heaven in the humming of the campus and city around her, and one day, she found it. Lewis asks if they can try to find it again together. They get high off shrooms and walk around the Tetons, casually trying to find this vision of heaven which Emily once searched for desperately. Here, with Lewis, she’s lost sight of heaven. Lewis, however, seems to have found it. Eyes wide open, he points to a scene from the lookout they stand on.
“Is that it?” he asks. Emily turns and meets an intense shock
The vision of heaven which she found in the city bordering her college campus now lays transcribed in the dark trees and starlit sky of the Grand Teton’s. The first time she saw this heaven it lasted a few seconds, now it seems to be moving closer. All of the sudden, humming rings out from the sky above.
Three stars circling each other soar towards the earth. They run back to their camp site as orbs in the sky speed down towards them. Just as they reach their tent, the orbs stop in the air before them letting out a wave of sound. a gust of air brushes through the trees about them. The orbs continue humming, orbiting one another in the air and combining into one. The orb transforms In an instant through unfathomable numbers of forms from a star to a man to a woman to a baby and finally to an angel. Floating in the air on six wings an angel speaks to Lewis and Emily, teary eyed and in shock at the marvel before them. The presence introduces itself as Barachiel and says that it has come to take Lewis and Emily to its home.
Afraid, and in a final rejection of heaven, having found peace on earth, Emily looks to a box which she bought to keep her pills in on her travels. She opens the box, dumps it of its contents and traps the angel inside. She and Lewis go straight to bed.
The next morning they wake, assuming the previous night had been a dream. Cracking open Emily’s pill box they hear waves of humming from within. They’ve trapped an angel. Emily wants to leave it in there, but Lewis isn’t sure. They have the opportunity to touch life beyond earth, an addiction they have both faced and only one of them has shaken. They decide that the best course of action is to keep the angel inside this box until they finish marking off the destinations on their bucket list.
The two drive to California stopping at Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National park. It’s here that they admit their feelings for each other. From here they ditch Lewis’ car and take a freight train to the last stop on their bucket list, Oregon.
In Oregon, they stay from the end of the summer throughout the fall. Running through its tall trees and falling for each other. They get jobs and camp around the state to save money. Soon Emily brings up the subject of renting an apartment together and the couple’s final conflict ensues.
Emily thought Lewis had forgotten about the box with the prospect of heaven inside, but he hadn’t. She’d forgotten how difficult it can be to give up on addiction even in the face of love replacing it. She feels for Lewis, but at the same time, she feels like a phantom. The love they share isn’t enough to keep him from looking out into the universe for salvation. She grows angry with him, allowing her pain to overshadow her understanding. Lewis begs her to consider whatever heaven the alien in the box offers, but she won’t. She takes the box and leaves their camp. Lewis goes out to find her and looses his way in the woods.
Alone, in the Oregon wilderness, the sun sets over tall douglas firs and Emily contemplates the decision she’s just made. She wants to get rid of the box and everything it holds for good, but who is she to deny Lewis freedom from the pain she was fortunate enough to escape. She hears him, screaming her name through the forest. She hides, watching him from afar. He kneels in the fallen leaves of the forest floor and sobs. He cries up to the sky.
Emily approaches him, unsure is he’s prayed for her or the release within the box. His face meets her eyes with the same expression she reflected in his at the falls all those months ago.
They go back to the campsite and spend days coexisting without speaking. Emily breaks the silence. She tells him to take the box and open it; to find peace for himself even if it’s not the way she’d hoped he would. He asks if she’ll go with him and she says no. She’s fallen in love with living and she won’t tie that desire to the love of another. He takes the box and walks into the woods.
Deep within the Oregon firs, Lewis opens the box. The angel transforms itself before him with open arms.
“Are you certain.” the angel asks.
Lewis pulls a shotgun from behind his back and shoots the angel through the chest. It falls back and dies.
Emily hears the shot from their tent. She goes out to see what’s happened. She finds Lewis all alone sitting on the edge of a cliff outlooking the state. She sits by his side and rests her head upon his shoulder. They stay for a while. Lewis gets up and gestures for Emily’s hand. They walk off into an untold future.
Welp…that’s all folks. I’ll probably be posting some more details about all the lore as time goes on but this is all of it! Please lmk what you think if you’ve gotten this far through reading. And if you have gotten this far, thank you so much for reading my work! It means alot. Happy blogging!
