"Ministering Angels"

I am but a shell
Without the earth and the sea
This is the place. This is the place with no name, with no character, with no energy. It is blank and careless, dark and heartless, cold and numb. It is a nondescript face with no expression: no eyes to witness, no nose to sense, no ears to listen, no mouth to communicate. This is the place; it is the room with no name and no face. Just an empty vacuum. The Tick Tock ticks.
This is the man. This is the man in the deepest despair, in the darkest, gloomiest misery. This man, in the darkest, gloomiest misery, sits on the floor in a cold blank jail cell brooding in anguish at his infected heart. The pits of Hell vehemently grip his skull causing it to sag wretchedly between two limp and hopeless knees. This man, feeling more alone than any man who lived, is undergoing a transition from anger and curses, from resentment and ill-wishes, to willingly allowing the cold blank jail cell to suffocate the vigor of each successive breath. The Tick Tock ticks.
At first glance his eyes appear weak, but hide a shyly kind man. With cheeks that hollow in like carved wood and thin lips which close as tightly as scissors, his silent face seems more gentle than harsh. His smooth skin, weathered only in patches, testifies to a life of harsh experiences. However, once his eyes showed only kindness and his face was as smooth as a sea pebble.
He came here on a day of unusual sunshine and beauty. This day knew no sorrow. It seemed to mock him, he now recalls, to bid him farewell with the most accurate tinge of irony.
In this jail cell he creates. Perhaps, he remarks, because the walls destroy him and eat at his core. Recreating through writing and drawing rebuilds his existence with an inky smear, becoming his only way to endure. He remembers music. He sits wearily searching for a note and begins humming a tune which he pulls by a fragile string from the depths of his memory. Music has not pacified his ears in countless days. He remembers a song, the beat gently sounds. “All that shimmers in this world is sure to fade away”, the all too appropriate lyrics of the Fuel song emerge eagerly. To pass the rhythm of the Tick Tock clock, he rewrites the verse. Creating:
All that glistens in this globe is sure to glide away, like golden arrows whistling through the dainty clean air. Everything that shines in this earth loses its color, like a fading, hazy, blurred silver spoon reflecting nothing of real consistency. Each glistening, gleaming, shining, shimmering, shocking thing in this world surely fades away, like some flowering, reaming, silkily soaring-and suddenly!- Dreary dream.
In the jail cell he sleeps. He sleeps to dream of heaven’s gala; countless thimbles of golden syrup dripping from the black cap sky and soaking life back through his fingertips. And he awakens, to see the true black cap of loneliness and solitude.
But one day, before the loneliness, the breeze mixed and turned the blood in his veins. In those days the birds’ clear twill transferred their potion into his lungs. He recognized his role as a human, he thought with guidance and clarity. He lived without cares; an unquestioning heart. He knew God, because he felt the forces of life quickening his body every moment.
For this man, the change to desperation happened through continually engaging in experiences which eliminate the recognition of the living air, the thudding breath, the evident God. He recognized change at its dying moment, at the beginning of his new ugliness, when reconciliation expired.
I hear an Angel!
When silence fills me.
Now, as the man sits in his jail cell with Hell pulling his thoughts between two bony knees, a knock knock on the door opens his eye lids with a jolt. Time stops- the door frozen half way open and the drab guard with a gaping mouth standing firm as a stone. The man hears the guard announce “A letter” in a cold, distant, booming voice, which makes time restart. The man hesitantly reaches over to the letter, which lies on the stone floor and glows with whiteness. First its’ glow frightens him. Then he opens the letter with as much vigor as a young boy on Christmas day. He feels the most wonderful joy. He wants to shout a joyous shout; for with the arrival of the letter his despair and anguish disappeared. The porous texture of the letter seemingly captured all the happiness floating around in the universe. The jail cell smiles at him, even the cracks in the stones adopt an upward curve. A breeze (in a windowless room) lifts him to his feet, and he walks, grasping the letter to his chest. An angel! he cries. An angel.

Flight is the productof God exhaling.
Her head tilts to the cream swirls in the sky (through the cascading trees with buds pregnant with new life).
“The air. The sun. A smile. The swaying meadow. To exhale. To walk slowly. The closed eye lids. A buzzing bee. Stinging cold water. To feel rain. Bubble clouds. To clear the throat. To search. A simple prayer. Hope. A crackling fire. A leaf which floats. A twilling bird voice. The soil. Blue. Ancient trees. Birth. Silence. To wipe sweat from the brow. A single tear.” The earth, so far below, looks quiet and peaceful and she envies the people walking quickly with places to go. “To be human.” She talks to God and thanks him for the day, for the world, for her life. She asks God to help the people in need, the people dying, and the people with no hope. Then she closes her journal, climbs down the tree, walks to her room, unlocks the door, and sets down her school bag.
Weeks have passed since she sent the letter.
She is 18 years old, in a tackily decorated college dormitory. In the mornings she brushes her teeth and goes to class. In the afternoons she works in the library, or reads in her room. And now at night, she hears a whisper. She remembers her old friend Tom, who she met several years ago one drunken night. He sold drugs. That night she talked to him about his life, and why he jeopardized everything with his habits. He cried. They kept in touch through emails ever since. He loved her. She was the girl he loved but hurt, a girl who should rightfully hate him.
The last email, which she sent almost a year ago, went unanswered. So she writes a letter. She sends it to his house, believing he still lives off the profit of drugs. She tells him he has a soul to hope, eyes to witness, a nose to sense, ears to listen, and a mouth to communicate. She tells him he is not an empty vacuum, and to remember stinging cold water, to feel rain, bubble clouds, hope. To be human.