Author’s Note: Author describes this piece as an orphan child falling between short fiction and poetic prose. It explores identity and purpose while avoiding gender identification of the angel. Their appearance is also unusual which is not the standard Blonde perfection. This angel is of colour and lacking a wing hence they walk! The author would hope that this piece is not limited by faith while she respects everyone’s spiritual life.
Tears spilling over, Ahziba moved down though the clouds of heaven. Down through the Northern Lights. The dancing greens and purples got tangled in curly hair. Turned south to find an early sunset and brushed through. The pinks and oranges left stains like pollen. Used the thousand, thousand stars as stepping stones. Each star dimming for an instant as toes touched and blinking back into view as heel lifted.
To the left nearer to hip than a tail would be, a thin silver scratch followed steps through the night sky to the moon. Ahziba trudged through the deep moth soft dust of the moon and made an unsteady leap to earth.
Ahziba walked through sand, tickly dry and rasping wet, red, black, pearl white, ginger biscuit brown and egg yolk yellow. Walked through itchy dust, grey black, fawn, brown. Walked through mud, black, brown, red, and yellow, through mud bubbly with marsh breath, mud dry and crumbly as stale chocolate cake. Walked through grass, long and full of secret slithering, grass short prickly as standing on a hairbrush, grass dry and crackling, grass soft and wet as cool lemonade. Walked over tarry roads and bubbly gum sticky pavements. Saw the pavements shine when the rain brought out their secret colours.
Foot prints showed ten straight toes leading two small strong feet. To the left closer to hip than a tail would be, a long sweeping trail. If you’d bent to look closer you’d see that left foot always left a deeper print than the right.
If you saw from the right you’d see dark curls with the green and purple of the Northern Lights still tangled through. You’d see a deep gold striped eye with long eye lashes; a nose sharp edged as steepled fingers, a mouth that turned down just a little at the corner and skin the polished bronze of a church bell with the same greenish blush. Ahziba wore a racing back vest and a pair of long shorts both new white.
If you saw from the left you’d notice that a mouth turned up just a little at the corner and you’d see the large swan feathered wing that rose above head and reached past heel. It rows of strong feathers still stained with the sunset brushed through.
If you saw Ahziba from the back you’d see one beautiful wing and just below the right shoulder, a sort of giant dimple with raised spirals of skin round a pearly centre.
From that centre thread fine silver fronds were curling and moving. As if something had broken or was just beginning.
Ahziba walked and walked into day. People stopped to stare and point. Sometimes they asked “Are you an angel?”. Ahziba didn’t know what to say. People had no wings. Angels had two wings. So he told people about angels.
Tall warrior angels who polished their spears and lances, checked their armour for rust, read Soldier magazine. How they were fascinated by Tazers and, wondered if they were kinder than swords. Were fascinated by the new soft looking body armour. Would it be easier to fight in?
How they wished that they could learn Karate.
All that jumping and kicking looked such fun They wondered if the “Other Side” would agree to fight that way. Those angels wear the hot white of furnaces.
Stern gate keeping angels, standing still as stone when on duty. Deaf to any excuses, holding their swords of living flame. Dreaming of Lazers that might be lighter to hold aloft for hours. They wear the blue white of glaciers.
High angels are so full of light that it sometimes hurts to look at them. They wear the white of midday sun on smooth water.
Messenger angels wear the white of Madonna lilies, watch bicycle messengers weaving through traffic. Wonder how they would manage with wings and two wheels and a fragile Lily to deliver.
Guardian angels waiting for their people to be born, reading name books and hoping not to be assigned to someone named for a whole football team. “How would we ever get to whisper a warning in time?” One of the High ones walking by, stopped.
“Don’t fret little one, their parents and friends will have the same problem, they will soon have a nickname to answer to.”
The guardian angels wear the soft white of new born lambs.
Joyful choir angels full of music wear the silver white of flying fish caught between shining sea and sky.
Little smiling angels made only to laugh have tiny scarves the magic white of bubbles because they have no bodies only their happy faces and wings as small and delicate as dragonflies.
People would look at Ahziba. Walk round look twice. Sometimes ask “What kind of angel are you? What do you do?” Ahziba had no answers to those questions.
Ahziba kept walking. Found a man sitting by the side of the road. The man was so full of tears that he could not move or speak. Ahziba didn’t know what to say to comfort him. Didn’t know what to do. Didn’t want to leave the man alone with his tears. So Ahziba sat down near him. The man said nothing. Ahziba said nothing.
After a time Ahziba noticed that the sun was burning the man’s bald head so raised the wing to shade him. Stayed with the man for a long time. Used the wing to keep the man dry when it rained. When it was cold at night folded the wing round the man like a duvet to keep him warm. The wind blew dust into the man’s sore red eyes, Ahziba fanned feathers into a screen to shield him. When it was hot and airless used the wing to make a cool breeze.
One morning the man got up, turned to Ahziba and gave a small watery smile. “Thank you.” He said in a creaky voice.
“But I did nothing. I didn’t know what to do.”
“You stayed with me, sheltered me. You didn’t say I cried too much. You stayed and I knew I wasn’t alone.”
That night Ahziba stepped up to the moon and walked lightly across its dusty surface. Remembered boys making snow angels. Ahziba told them that every snowflake was a note of music and talked about the wonderful concerts that snow gave.
The boys laughed. They’d never heard snow music but they showed Ahziba how to make snow angels. Alone Ahziba made an angel in the moth soft dust of the moon by waving right arm and leg.
Went smiling back up the thousand, thousand stars as stepping stones. Each star dimming for an instant as toes touched and blinking back into view as heel lifted. To the left nearer to hip than a tail would be, a thin silver scratch followed Ahziba’s steps through the night sky, through the sunset past the Northern Lights back to heaven. The little angels and the messenger angels were surprised to see dirty feet. Grass stained with seeds and leaves sticking to dried mud, red, black, brown and clay white. The mud and sand crusting between toes.
They wanted to know what it felt like. How was it walking on grass?
Were hot pavements more comfortable to walk on than cold slimy ones?
Ahziba told them about everything and the other angels slowed down as they passed trying to listen. Told them about the boys who made snow angels. Described making an angel in the moth soft moon dust. The warrior angels and the gate keeping angels smiled. Ahziba told everyone about the man who was full of tears. The great shining angels smiled and said “Well done.”
Ahziba the walking angel moves over the thousand, thousand stars like stepping stones, moves over the dust, mud, sands, roads and pavements of earth, listens and tells stories of earth to heaven and heaven to earth..
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