Have you ever seen an angel? They aren’t impossible to see, but they are difficult to spot if you aren’t looking carefully. This is mostly because they are so light blue in color, nearly transparent against a sunny sky, floaty and phosphorescent as they hover. They tend to flutter near you when you don’t notice, and they are reluctant to talk to you. If you can get one to speak, the first thing it will tell you is that it is an angel.
These beings made of air call themselves angels. Once they speak, their tones ring out clear and loud. It is not bell-like, as you would expect, but rather a bit like a gong, rich and reverberating, issuing from a mouth you can barely see. This big noise blooms from what seems nearly to be air.
Once the angels begin to talk, they hurry and their words fall and fill the space around them. They speak to you of truth and beauty, and right and wrong. They tell wonderful stories, these angels. They will tell you about the loveliness of the clouds as the sun sets and floods them with color, and the grace of the wheeling birds celebrating each morning. They will tell you about the scent of pine rising off a forest, and the rushing crash of a waterfall farther away than you’ve ever been. They will tell you of the things they have heard and smelled and seen – not of the things they have felt, though, for entities of air cannot feel as we do. But you will forget the sensation of warmth on your skin when you hear them speak of the reflections of sunlight on a glittering ocean.
As they tell these stories, their high light voices will rise and swell. They will gesture with their near-invisible arms in the air, as if a mirage were swooning before you. Their beautiful tones with weave and spin through the stories, and you will sit transfixed. You will cross your legs and hug your knees, right there on the sidewalk where you first saw them. You will sit there as the pavement grows cold beneath you, and the light dims around you, and a few faint drops begin to chill your shoulders. All of this escapes your notice, as you are too absorbed in the stories, listening intently to the rise and fall of the angel’s voice. Everything else ceases to exist.
This is why you have never seen an angel. They aren’t impossible to see, but if you do ever spot one – and it’s not difficult enough, unfortunately – you must know not to trust it. Ignore the swoop of shifting color in the air beside you, and if that lovely light voice speaks into your ear, keep walking. Shut your eyes to the sight of it, and do not listen to its stories. Instead. concentrate on the embrace of the cool evening air on your back, of the ache in your muscles as you walk down the sidewalk, on the softness of the breath you draw in. Listen to yourself breathe, and for God’s sake ignore the angels.
all the in between 