A collection of snippets from Orin Metchker’s The Implications of Angel Anatomy: Taxonomy’s Last Monarch.
…If you have even a basic understanding of the human brain, you will find that understanding the anatomy of an angel’s wing is simple. Though comparing them outwardly would be akin to comparing a spider to a great blue whale, the similarity of a human’s brain and an angel’s wing binds them together closer than a man and an ape. Angel’s wings do, in fact, consist of the same cells as the human brain: neuronal, glial, and endothelial. Structurally speaking, the main difference is that the neuronal cells present in an angel are thicker than that of a human’s. Many researchers theorize that this was an evolutionary necessity born from a biological urge towards holiness. It is said that this thickening has only developed recently, perhaps within this eon, due to a generalized population boom.
Before going any further, it is important to stress that this cerebral similarity exists solely with an angel’s wing. The rest of the angel’s form is biologically vasty different a human’s, and can only be truly compared to the immortal jellyfish-- and even that can be considered a stretch under the scrutiny of any optimistic physician.
The material of an angel’s wings appears light and feathery, almost near translucent, under the right lighting. However, up close, it is revealed that an angel’s wing is meaty, and that it is deceptively heavy. Peeling back the dura mater, we begin to see the inner workings of an angel. Within the upper wing covert, there is a single, thick rope of soft tissue spanning the length. Like the human brain, beneath is tissue exists both gray and white matter. This tissue rope is a hotbed of ionic energy transfers and rapidly fluctuating charges. Small series of neurons branch off from the covert and enter the primary wings. It is here that angels store the electricity that would cause a muscle contraction in a human…
…Angels have, for most of recorded history, been known to travel in clusters. This closeness is not a social need- in fact, angels are territorial species- but a purely biological one. An angel that has not been allowed to release its pent-up electricity will rapidly begin to lose its ability of flight. In severe cases, the sheer heat of the electricity will burn the wings into ash from the inside out in a process called “falling”. Thus, the importance of angel clustering is revealed. Flying in close proximity of each other allows angels to graze each others wings and essentially close the synaptic cleft that they do not have on their own.
The trouble for an angel comes when it is alone. This is a rarity, but it does happen; alienation of an angel occurs primarily through group exclusion, self-isolation, or perhaps by virtue of the angel never being given time to develop alongside its peers. Before an angel will fall, it will ease out of flying and opt to walk on its underdeveloped legs. It will experience delusions of grandeur. It will retreat into a psychological state in which it is only capable of worship. Interestingly enough, this worship will not always be to the Christian God. There are plentiful reports of angels on the cusp of descent praying to other deities, and even more reports of angels praying to abstract concepts, such as “love” or “reality”. There even exists evidence of angels worshiping technological objects such as computers and MRIs.
The lone angel will often collapse to the ground a few moments before falling entirely. It’s legs will crumble under its own weight. It's at this very moment that the angel begins to realize the severity of what has happened to it. There is, at its very core, an abundance of static. It has spread itself out across its form so broadly, with such forceful tendrils, that there is no prying out from beneath it. These neurons wrap around it and shock it every so often, but that shock is interpreted by the angel as a mere part of what it is like to be an angel. Keep in mind, this angel (who is now feeling an uncomfortable heat spread over its extremities) has never known better. At this stage, the angel panics, and it begins to shed its wings feather by feather. The prevalent theory on why this happens so late into the process is that the angel simply forgets that it can do this. The static has built up and transmuted into flame. This is biological, and this is what happens when an angel does not do what it must in pursuit of a very achievable goal. Within five minutes, the angel has lost its wings and has experienced severe 1st degree burns around where the wings were forged to its form...
…A point of curiosity for many researchers is whether or not angels used to have some form of receptors at the very ends of their wings to take in the electrical impulses. Logically, some argue, it would not make sense for angels to produce electricity that goes nowhere and has a detrimental effect on them.
Some angels have been found to have the exact same wings as their peers, structurally and chemically. This has led to a theory referred to as “pleromic mitosis”: the belief that at some point, angels were physically attached to each other via their wings.
Other parties believe that this is a sign that angels were meant to be domesticated- their electrical impulses are meant for humans, as a means of controlling our actions directly. This theory is supported by the average wingspan of an angel. The wings of an angel, fully spread, typically have their very ends reach the palm of a human. The longest secondary feather of an angel touches the median nerve of the wrist.
Of course, there is a high possibility that this is all entirely conjectural when applied to wild angels. Though angels are one of the most plentiful species on Earth, it is difficult to get close to an angel in nature. Nearly all angelic research has been done on willing domesticated angels. Bearing in mind that domesticated angels are classified as “guardians”- not angels- the question must be asked: is there a structural difference between guardian angels and these elusive “free-range” angels?...