The Exodus of an Angel
The Fall
It's a summer day in Paris when I meet him, and it's a summer day in Paris when he leaves me.
I am seventeen, weighed down by the shadows of mourning and the sootier darkness of poverty. He is a student, nineteen, all golden hair and stormy gray eyes. When I stumble into him in a busy street, it's like colliding with a hurricane. Fervor and chaos. Calm and startling warmth. All the peace and unruliness of water and wind.
So when he apologizes, I'm surprised. And when I see him the next day, I'm pulled in by the current. I'm not sure how we started talking, or how I learned his name, or when I know I'm in love with him. I just know I've fallen hopelessly.
He's my rock, but that doesn't describe it. He's the soft ground beneath my feet, the mercy in my heart, the grace in breathing, the fire in my veins. Everything, and yet a part of something bigger than everything. Love is like that.
At night, when my world is cold and black, he comes. I am a daughter of the streets, used to the unyielding touch of the cobblestones. I, stubborn child that I am, refuse to accept his charity. Yet he comes and with determined fingers pulls me from the filth of the alleys and into the warmth of his apartment. We lie in the darkness, fingers entangled, sharing in the lazy dreams of midnight hours. In the twilight I can almost imagine that his arms around me are really the wings of an angel, sent here to raise a former criminal from the depths to light and love.
The days are sweet and innocent and devoid of the shadows that have plagued me all of my life. I had been a twisted child, corroded by the streets and the bitterness of the extremely poor. My parents do not care. My siblings do not care. Those who are rich enough to help turn away in disgust. But with him I find happiness, with him I find love, and with him I find salvation.
It's two years and then we're just suddenly there. We. Us. Love. We never say it because such things don't need, don’t deserve, the simple confinement of words.
We've made a home out of a garden, a scrawny thing in a dank, forgotten corner of Paris. It reminds us of us. In the spring, it's beautiful. In winter, the bareness holds truth and grace. Now, in summer, it is green and new and filled with the beloved kind of shadows that lessen the harsh burn of life. The warmth doesn't bother and the brightness doesn't offend.
A storm is brewing. The first jostling of thunder is merely a backdrop for laughter. Then lightening comes and the screams pierce as much as the light. We're running, fleeing as the green turns to harsh red and black. The gate is ahead, a rusty, high, gangly thing. By now fire has consumed our little world, painting in shades of destruction. Emergency bells chime overhead, straining against the sounds of despair. He pushes me out of the gate, out into the crush of the street. The panicked crowd pulls me back, pulls me away, pulls. When I jab my way through, the force of the violent winds has shut the gate. It’s jammed.
I stare through the bars, metal too hot to touch. He stares back, standing tall in the middle of our heaven. Flames can’t drown out the words that never before needed to be said. Before we know what’s happening, the condemned building that previously sheltered our oasis, our dreams, our future, collapses. The rubble hits him. He falls.
A whisper grows in the red, soft like the rustling of wings. Rain. Steam rises, clouds my view, lit with a sun from within. Then I’m grabbing at the metal, no matter that it burns. Then I’m there, beside him, his hands clasped, and in the strange twilight of the smoke with ash floating like dusty white feathers, I can almost imagine he’s praying.
I am seventeen, weighed down by the shadows of mourning and the sootier darkness of poverty. He is a student, nineteen, all golden hair and stormy gray eyes. When I stumble into him in a busy street, it's like colliding with a hurricane. Fervor and chaos. Calm and startling warmth. All the peace and unruliness of water and wind.
So when he apologizes, I'm surprised. And when I see him the next day, I'm pulled in by the current. I'm not sure how we started talking, or how I learned his name, or when I know I'm in love with him. I just know I've fallen hopelessly.
He's my rock, but that doesn't describe it. He's the soft ground beneath my feet, the mercy in my heart, the grace in breathing, the fire in my veins. Everything, and yet a part of something bigger than everything. Love is like that.
At night, when my world is cold and black, he comes. I am a daughter of the streets, used to the unyielding touch of the cobblestones. I, stubborn child that I am, refuse to accept his charity. Yet he comes and with determined fingers pulls me from the filth of the alleys and into the warmth of his apartment. We lie in the darkness, fingers entangled, sharing in the lazy dreams of midnight hours. In the twilight I can almost imagine that his arms around me are really the wings of an angel, sent here to raise a former criminal from the depths to light and love.
The days are sweet and innocent and devoid of the shadows that have plagued me all of my life. I had been a twisted child, corroded by the streets and the bitterness of the extremely poor. My parents do not care. My siblings do not care. Those who are rich enough to help turn away in disgust. But with him I find happiness, with him I find love, and with him I find salvation.
It's two years and then we're just suddenly there. We. Us. Love. We never say it because such things don't need, don’t deserve, the simple confinement of words.
We've made a home out of a garden, a scrawny thing in a dank, forgotten corner of Paris. It reminds us of us. In the spring, it's beautiful. In winter, the bareness holds truth and grace. Now, in summer, it is green and new and filled with the beloved kind of shadows that lessen the harsh burn of life. The warmth doesn't bother and the brightness doesn't offend.
A storm is brewing. The first jostling of thunder is merely a backdrop for laughter. Then lightening comes and the screams pierce as much as the light. We're running, fleeing as the green turns to harsh red and black. The gate is ahead, a rusty, high, gangly thing. By now fire has consumed our little world, painting in shades of destruction. Emergency bells chime overhead, straining against the sounds of despair. He pushes me out of the gate, out into the crush of the street. The panicked crowd pulls me back, pulls me away, pulls. When I jab my way through, the force of the violent winds has shut the gate. It’s jammed.
I stare through the bars, metal too hot to touch. He stares back, standing tall in the middle of our heaven. Flames can’t drown out the words that never before needed to be said. Before we know what’s happening, the condemned building that previously sheltered our oasis, our dreams, our future, collapses. The rubble hits him. He falls.
A whisper grows in the red, soft like the rustling of wings. Rain. Steam rises, clouds my view, lit with a sun from within. Then I’m grabbing at the metal, no matter that it burns. Then I’m there, beside him, his hands clasped, and in the strange twilight of the smoke with ash floating like dusty white feathers, I can almost imagine he’s praying.