The Angel of Death leads the Children's Crusade

His name was Michael, a beautiful French boy, with blue eyes and brown hair. I appeared to him in a vision, told him I was the mother of Jesus, and since I was all in white, with giant wings behind me, my face alabaster with red eyes, what could he say? He ran and told everyone he knew about me, how I was the mother of Jesus and that I had told him to come meet me in Jerusalem, where he and his friends would peacefully convert Muslims to Jesus and I would lead the way. Why did I choose him? I liked his face and his fate was going to be similar to many; raped, beaten, until all the beauty I liked would leave him, but where he was going, none of that would happen. He would meet me along with his friends in the clouds, and we would go on to glory forever… His body would be found in Italy on the way to Jerusalem, but his soul would be mine forever, along with many, many, of his friends…

The Children's Crusade is the name given to a disastrous crusade by European Christians to expel Muslims from the Holy Land said to have taken place in 1212. The traditional narrative is probably conflated from some factual and mythical notions of the period including visions by a French or German boy, an intention to peacefully convert Muslims in the Holy Land to Christianity, bands of children marching to Italy, and children being sold into slavery.

Jean Jones has an MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, teaches English as a Second Language part time at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, and has two books, Beyond Good and Evil, and Birds of Djakarta available on Amazon.com.

Find more by Jean Jones in the Author Index.

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