literature

Jumping Angel

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Literature Text

There he stands – again. He just stands. A dark figure non-descript from afar. I want to get closer. I pull my reluctant body, one leg then the next but he fades.

On the fringe of my dream I feel the stabbing sensation of reality. Salty, warm tears pour down my pillow-imprinted cheeks. I desperately cling to a tiny spark of hope. Asleep is my faith I don't bother trying to wake it anymore. My days start as they always have, after chasing the nightmares from my sheets; a cold shower clears the murk from my eyes but not from my brain. The blue and white uniform hangs from my cupboard. I pull the crisp white shirt over my bra. I thread my legs through the blue skirt which gets buttoned just above my belly button. Black shoe polish has left stains on my white shocks but that's ok. What is one more stain? My doctor's scalpel has left long, thin, scares on my body. Familiar fingerprints stain my memory; my failure stains my courage.

Sometimes when I dream, I am under a UV light and all the tarnishes, which I hide so well, shine bright; like glow in the dark paint. In this dream there is a ladder, reaching oh so high into the deep green night. It spirals up and no one is around to scale it but, every so often, I see him, I do not know who he is, what he wants or why he waits. He just stands and always on the eighteenth step, indecisive as to whether he should climb the nineteenth.

"Alexandra!" Still deciphering the fringes of my dreams I climb out of the car. I really don't want to deal with this today. The day starts with assembly, my candy striped blazer means I stand in assembly. I am a prefect, a supposed role model. I feel like a scam; how are the new and out of place grade eights supposed look up to me when I don't even want to look at myself in the bathroom mirror? Class starts, I am polite to all my teachers, some I love, and they incite initiative in me. This is what I look forward to, the one lesson which makes me want to wake my faith once more. Then I inevitably have to deal with possibly the most useless, unhelpful teachers, who I so badly want to tell to Fuck off; I'm sure their sentiment towards us is the same.

"Alexandra!" Oh God, I hate it when she does that; clicks her fingers in front of my face. "What is the matter with you? Is my lesson so boring that you feel the need to drift off to god knows where? Pay attention!" Yes lady, as a matter of fact your lesson is the biggest waste of my time. You teach me nothing of significance and you're the most incurably boring, stale and insignificant person I have ever had the ill fortune to come across. "No Ma'am I'm sorry it won't happen again."

Today I finish with all of this. No more clicking fingers, no more waking up sad, no more.

A man comes up to me and asks my name, "Alexandra," I say. He looks down into my face and repeats it "Alexandra," his voice sounds like the wind. Then slowly, as if something he has never seen before appears in my eyes – he comes closer. He tries to tell me a story with his stare. I see anguish and anger. I see a vigorous passion and a sensitive love. Hope and failure, seriousness and severity; I see me. He lets me catch a glimpse of my soul.

It hurts, I am aware of the cold pavement, the warm sticky stuff oozing from some arbitrary appendage.
"What do you want?" I ask. "Oh, I want many things, but it is not a question of what but of why and not of want but of need." He replies the windy – quality of his voice calming my already tedious heartbeat. The silence that follows is long. I look at this strange, intriguing man, trying to describe him to myself.

A horrible piercing siren brings me back to fuzzy, painful reality. A ladies voice, "she fell from there!" I just want to sleep, it's not so sore anymore.
The street is moving with bodies of people, black and grey coats the occasional navy suit and the rare brightly coloured jersey. Off in the distance there seems to be a commotion but it doesn't concern us. We do not move, suspended in our encounter.

Was he young? In his twenties maybe, so painfully striking. No, forty something; intelligent and mature. His face just keeps moving, inconspicuously morphing as if changing in time to his thoughts... Now he is old eighty or more, relentlessly pursuing my eyes – my soul. He is startlingly wise; God-like.

"You know don't you?" he asks.
"Yes," I tell him.
"Why?" he endeavours,
"Because I can see you."
"So you now know why you needed me."
"Yes, I needed you to take me." I explain.
"Now answer the what."
"An angel." That is who he was; I was who he was waiting for. He is my angel, my guide.
"Now answer the why."
"Because I jumped."
"No," he says with a smirk, "not because you jumped but because we need you and they don't – not anymore."


It stopped hurting, consequently it also stopped beating and I never did catch the colour of his eyes.
A piece inspired by the youth who just need to do it
Comments7
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DJChocolate-Lover's avatar
Oh. Wow. Brilliant story.

Just one thing bugging me: perhaps "Why?" he endeavours, "Because I can see you." should be
"Why?" he endeavours
"Because I can see you."
or make it obvious that she is speaking in some other way