The Temporary Angel: A Journey Beyond Reality

November 15, 2024

No rainbow hues crowned the dilapidated house across the asphalt. A lone weed struggled through the crack in the cement to greet the constant passersby. She could empathize with the weed. “What’s a weed but a plant discarded from the mob?” she thought.

Her hair, from a distance, looked like a lion’s mane. Up close, what you thought was hair was clusters of thin lines of flame with light blue ends. Was she an angel? A messenger of fire descended into this neighbourhood? Or was she just an illusion to occupy a mind locked into a cube of space? Could she be both? Like a profile that is a vase from one view or two faces turned inward from another. How long she had been watching was anyone’s guess.

George felt her eyes on him, an unsettling sensation that sharpened his awareness of his subterranean existence. He had carried the underground in his soul for so long that he feared being recognized—feared it might destroy him. To be seen was to be known, and to be known was to lose the only freedom he understood: the fragile equilibrium between necessity and whim. His underground world was a realm of shifting sand, where heaven and hell were interchangeable kingdoms. Above, the surface world was a place of silhouettes; below, he clung to the parallax of a lost star.

The worry beads in his pocket offered little comfort. His father had given them to him, claiming they were carved from the thigh bones of a Turk killed in some distant war. The macabre story had been a joke, his father’s way of mixing humour with his dark compassion. But the beads—smooth, ivory fragments of elephant tusk—still felt like relics of a troubled inheritance. He turned them over in his hand as if their smooth surface might anchor him to something solid.

At the station, Sophie appeared, filling the empty space with something familiar and alien. George noticed her wings first—scarlet feathers that seemed too vivid and alive to be part of any costume.

“Who are you?” he asked, his voice wary.

“Good, you see me,” she replied, a grin teasing her lips. “Can you see all of me?”

He squinted. “I can see you’ve got red wings.”

“Scarlet,” she corrected. “That’s even better! You can see my wings. Most can’t.” Her hands moved as she spoke, graceful as a dancer’s, and George found himself oddly captivated. “I’m a Temporary Angel,” she continued, “and I need your help. I want to be made permanent.”

George shook his head. “You’re telling me you’re an angel? Walking around Redfern Station? And I’m the only one who can see you?”

“Yes,” she said simply. “What other people?”

George looked around and saw that the station was deserted. The people who were walking around, looking at their watches, holding their bags, waiting for a train—there was no one on the platforms or the stairs. It was as if the world had been blown away with a breath, leaving only him and Sophie in this crystalline stillness. He glanced at his shadow, unnervingly sharp against the ground in the fading twilight. The light around him seemed too pure, too surreal, sharpening every edge and making every detail glow with impossible clarity.

Sophie handed him a cup of coffee, her thermos producing exactly what he liked—short and black, no sugar. “For now, silence might save you. Just listen. Let your heart speak louder than your head. Don’t let your head scalp you.”

As George sipped his coffee, she crossed her legs and leaned back slightly. “You know,” she said, “some people believe you must suffer to reach salvation—hairshirts, long vigils, self-denial. But my colleagues and I have learned that you can sit at the gates of salvation with a cup of coffee and not be asked to move on.” She winked at him.

They sat in silence until the air shifted. A moth the size of George’s hand appeared, landing delicately on the rim of his cup. Its eyes—dark and unblinking—seemed to peer into his soul.

“That’s Moth,” Sophie said. “A fellow Temp. You’ll meet more of us soon.”

Moth took off, its wings slicing through the air like a blade. Sophie stood, her scarlet wings stretching wide. “What do you want, George?” she asked, her voice low and steady. “Say it aloud.”

He hesitated, holding his breath, the weight of the question pressing down on him.

“What do you want, George?” Sophie asked again, her voice softer this time. “Be honest. It’s not the past you’re after, is it?”

“I want everything,” he finally said. “Everything, including making it all like it was before—perfect.”

She smiled, a faint sadness in her eyes. “Everything, huh? Even a brand-new car?”

“Sure,” he said, though he knew how hollow his words sounded.

Sophie turned her head toward the distant stairs. “Look over there. If the timing is right, he’ll reveal something to us.”

At the top of the railway stairs, a man descended. With each step, his shadow lengthened, stretching until it reached the bottom, falling down the stairway like a spectral companion. He dragged a sack behind him, his movements erratic, like a puppet tugged by invisible strings. His patchwork clothes—a riot of velvet, canvas, lace, and denim—hung on his frame like a discarded quilt.

The Ragman stopped before them, his single eye gleaming. Sophie gestured toward him, her voice dropping to a whisper. “He doesn’t expect any sense from you. He merely guards the door.”

The Ragman began to hum, his voice rough and melodic, then sang softly:

“Pictures of Sophie burn at the edges,
In shades of blue, she keeps her pledges.”

Moth descended from above, spiralling in tight circles before perching on the Ragman’s head. Sophie’s wings shifted as she stepped forward. “This is the sign,” she murmured.

The Ragman shuffled closer, his one eye scanning George with a gaze that weighed him in unseen scales. Then, with a raspy certainty, he said, “The timing is right. The planets are aligned, and you’re here.”

Sophie turned to George, her expression shifting to something both tender and resolute. “What do you think, George? Will you take the next step?”

She extended her hand toward him, and he felt her fingers press through his chest, gripping his heart. A sharp crack echoed in his ears as his vision dissolved into light.

They rose together, Sophie’s wings propelling them upward. Below, George saw his body standing alone on the platform. He saw the weed standing defiantly alone as he ascended. Then, slowly, the world came into focus—a railway station teeming with people, their movements alive with purpose.

Higher still, the Earth appeared, a blue and white orb spinning in a sea of black. Sophie’s wings shimmered, their scarlet hue fading into white as they ascended.

The cries and groans of countless souls filled the air. “What is this place?” George asked, his voice trembling.

“The holding space of the dead,” Sophie replied.

“The sun takes those whose light burned too brightly to last. The moon cradles the quiet souls, the dreamers. And Earth… Earth takes those who still have something left to finish,” Sophie said softly.

“Is my father here?” George asked.

Sophie nodded. “He’s waiting.”

George felt the fear of taking an uncertain step onto a journey that had no clear destination. Sophie’s grip on his heart tightened, and he realized she had brought him to the edge of something vast and unknowable. The shifting sand of his old life was gone, and in its place stretched a horizon of infinite possibility.

“The stranger within you is no stranger to me,” Sophie said. “It’s always been watching, waiting for this moment.”

“What happens now?” George asked.

Sophie smiled, her wings glowing softly. “That’s up to you.”

George felt the pull of the horizon, vast and uncharted. Somewhere in the distance, a new path was waiting. He took a step forward into the light.

The above images generated by AI from the story.

Leave a Comment » | Expression, fiction, personal, philosophy, poetry, symbolism, Uncategorized, writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by stavr0s

Carnival Day

November 14, 2024

It’s Carnival Day, and the streets hum with strange music that seems to echo from the cracks in the cobblestones. The sailors sing tunes that rise and fall like waves, their voices rough and gentle, worn by salt and time. Ancient whores lean against faded railings, their sighs heavy with the weight of forgotten desires, watching a day that never ends roll out again like a ragged carpet.

Old men tip their hats to passing dogs and the shrieking children who dart between the stalls. Ladies in feathered boas throw blown kisses from their booths, winking at those who dare catch them. Somewhere in the crowd, a sky pilot—tall and solemn—wraps his arm around his lover’s shoulder, murmuring sweet equations, words of science, as they wander toward the looming shadow of the roller coaster.

“Hey! Hey! Don’t forget your sense of justice!” comes a call from a voice lost in the crowd. It’s Carnival Day, after all, a day for the topsy-turvy, a day where nothing is what it seems.

The ghost train rattles past, its lights flashing garish neon. Round and round, it goes, yet no one can hear the screams of the shadows within. You catch sight of the acrobats now, spinning and turning high in the air, their bodies dangling by invisible threads. You wonder what magic holds them up there—what spell, what curse—yet there’s not even a single hair to show the strain. Your head begins to turn, spinning in rhythm with the world around you, and you wonder what the clown is doing over there, grinning like he knows all the secrets you forgot.

You find yourself seated under the grand old hat, an enormous thing that arches above, draped like a night sky. Its great mast rises from the centre, a pillar of mystery that holds the curtain between this world and the stars. Looking up, you see them—stars peering down with distant curiosity, pinpricks of silver against the carnival’s blaze. Somewhere, you think, there might be a wishing well beneath this hat, deep and endless, catching all the silent hopes thrown up by this crowd.

You wander into the Topsy-Turvy House, tripping over invisible stairs and losing balance in rooms that slope and slide. The electric vibrations of the funhouse hum in your bones, a strange, tingling pulse that you can’t shake. Electronic zombies greet you, their eyes blank but somehow alive, watching you even as you look away.

The laughing clowns are waiting with wide mouths open, eager for you to throw your ball into their gaping grins. You do, and the ball tumbles down, but you lose track of it, forget where it went, though you wish—foolishly, perhaps—for the panda plush on the wall, a silly prize you’re sure will hold you tight.

Nearby, a bearded woman whirls like a storm, her skirts sweeping the air in wide arcs. You see the hammer and bell challenge beside her and step forward, but somehow you miss, though you strike with all your might. Next, a boxer in the ring grabs hold of your toe—he’s a strange one, like a sumo who left his mittens by the dock, his laugh deep and unfathomable. Around you, freaks and fortunes twist and collide, creatures of illusion, like characters from a song half-remembered.

You stumble into the fortune teller’s tent, where the hangman, of all people, sits kissing the feet of an empress. She looks up at you with a knowing smile, and a chill creeps up your spine as the cards—tarot, tarot—whisper among themselves, hinting at secrets you’re almost afraid to hear.

Outside, a clown with a monkey mask offers you flowers, their petals made of bright tinsel and paper. You hand him your last coins, and he smiles, ringing a small bell that echoes through the carnival. “All is well,” it seems to say, though you wouldn’t know why you believe it.

The young man with a tattoo steps forward, gripping knives he throws at the naked girl spinning on the wheel. He calls himself Zorro, but his aim is shaky. If he misses, he wins a prize—perhaps the fighting panda from the loft or a doll that talks in the dark.

The happy families pass by, their children wide-eyed as they glance at the three-headed man and the bearded lady, sharing popcorn and secrets they can’t understand. Parents, lost in the spectacle, miss the glimmer of longing in their children’s eyes—a yearning that no mask, no glittering carnival can truly satisfy.

Later, you drift to the promenade, away from the noise. The seagulls flock close as you toss crumbs into the wind, their feathers flashing white like ghostly signatures across the blue. You look to the horizon, where the sky meets the sea, and the foam spells out words you cannot read. Over there, you think, beyond that edge of the sky, perhaps the carnival drifts, waiting, the astral colours of the day hidden beneath its layers.

And then, a final whisper rises, carried by the salt breeze, as if from an uncharted land: Let the cynics cling to their masks. Let the innocent create rings of fire for the children kissing the sun.

We don’t need a ticket, we don’t need a guide—just the courage to walk that horizon toward the blue, where the carnival fades, where the laughter echoes long and low, and the stars, watching over, nod their silent approval.

1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by stavr0s