L’ange

The haunting of an old man fantasizing on the precipice

This piece was featured in the Late Winter 2020 Monadnock Underground print quarterly.

It was 2:30 am. He was alone, staring at a computer screen, looking for the words he wants to say, hoping they will spill out onto his screen. A picture sat on his desk, the photo an item of contention between him and other lovers. It represented his past, a time before them, a time where he was optimistic and felt like he could waste precious moments. But that before the grays in his hair, before the doctor, before the specialists. He had begun to realize that those moments were more valuable than gold, and he had tossed them away like a drunk fool on a binge.

The picture was his inspiration, his muse. It was a picture of a memory, of a promise, and of his failures. He took solace in the picture and drew inspiration from it. It was as if there was a magic in the item, like it was some idol. He would stare at it and create.

Every night was the same. He would sit in his crepid apartment, feed himself what little food he could eat. He was already full from the pills and tonics the he had to take just to be able to function. He would sit, stare at the picture, then write until sleep came for him. Sometimes sleep would visit him instantly, other times he would stare at the screen until Sol had risen well past the early morning hours. It did not matter, sleep was no longer a place of safety or fantasy.

He had begun to dream of her more often these past few months, starting when the cough had begun. At first it had been just a tickle in the throat, an afterthought, but it had quickly become wet and tiring. Now it was dry, as if there was no more mucus in him. It seemed he only coughed to go through the motions, or as if some sort of muscle memory had the need to cough. The pain had increased.

It wasn’t the cough that concerned him, it was the weight loss. Never a big man, he was now gaunt and emaciated. His ribs had begun to show, and his chest looked as if it was caving in upon itself.

He would stare into the mirror for longer than he dared to admit, at times startled by the sick, old stranger he saw there.. He would look at pictures strewn around his dilapidated apartment, of his youth, his full hair, the thick hair on his lip, and a sort of musculature that he was proud of — not this zombie before him on the other side of the polished glass.

One day, as he sat down to type on a laptop long past its prime and warranty: another violent coughing attack. He felt himself get dizzy and fall to the floor. He dreamed of her again. She was cold and far away, a blue light outlining her. He could feel the echoes of her laughter in his ears, of songs she would make up on the spot to describe their lives together, always off key, and full of laughter; then welcomed the blackness of true sleep.

He woke up the same way he fell asleep, with a series of violent spasms in his chest and lungs. He was on his side as his eyes opened instinctively. He clenched his stomach as the coughing came harder, only stopping once the demonic ichor came out a dark brownish red of solid and liquid particles.

Slowly, painfully he sat up, finding his glasses (another reminder that he was no longer young), only to find he had broken them. Groaning at this, and the thought of his empty bank account, he forced himself up and reached for a glass of water he kept on his desk. Sighing, he took a sip, and prayed to any gods he could think of that it would not cause another attack.

Resigning himself to the fact that he was still alive, he sat down to type, tossing the broken glasses towards his bed not far away. Jostling the mouse, the laptop turned on it’s faint light and he prepared to read his masterpiece that he had written so far, his life’s work written over so many nights of insomnia fueled mania. He thought of his heroes, other tortured writers and artists who only became immortal after their deaths; he knew that he could be one of them. So mustering the strength of his dying mind he decided to read his opus. There was to his shock and sadness only one line, dated two weeks ago, “To whom it may concern, I bequeath my…” then nothing. This was not his book, this was a will. Whose will it was he could not remember. It couldn’t have been his, he was too young and in good shape. To prove a point to no one but himself he got up and did a couple jumping jacks, feeling the blood rush to his face. Winded, he sat down and coughed up more of the bile from Tantalus.

And the old man began to cry.

Impending mortality makes one honest with oneself, he typed in the very next line. He smiled. Yes, this could work…a story told in a will, no one had ever done that before. With the mania of creation he typed fast and hard, ignoring typos and grammar — editors could fix that!

He kept typing until he was physically and emotionally winded. He hit save and admired his work. A whole four pages! A modern record for this wannabe Hemingway. He smiled and closed his eyes and saw her again. It was night, in some mountainous location. Rocks and shrubs fell upon themselves as she came to him from an unseen cave. She was clothed in a pale blue robe, her hair done up like a Grecian Goddess. She looked every bit the part, even though she was not Greek. She did not smile, only walked towards him. He was sure he saw her mouth moving, but if she said anything, he could not recall. He was too busy trying to remember what her nationality had been when she was alive He knew it was some sort of former Soviet state, but he could not recall which one. He heard her sigh of frustration, and he looked up in his dream and met her face…

…and he was back in his apartment, looking at her. She was young again, just as he remembered her in his every fantasy, right down to the thin strip of hair just above her… Above, she was above him! She…

She had large feathered wings, the color of night and forgetfulness, sprouting from her back like a carrion bird delivering death and mysteries. Each beat of her large wings caused a torrent of wind. The papers of his office scattered about like leaves in an autumn hurricane. So strong were the air currents that he could scarcely keep upright. Two small pink horns had pushed through her head, her raven black hair parting and swirling around them. They did not look sinister, but rather seemed natural, feminine in their own ways. What did look off was her eyes: she was without her glasses, and she always looked alien to him without them. Her eyes were too close together like this and appeared unfocused.

Not a word did she say, not a gesture did she make, only silence as she hovered above him. He called out a name from his memory, no longer sure if it was her real name or a figment of his deteriorating mind. If he was wong, she made no expression to show it. Just silence and uncaring.

“Why?” he yelled. “Why are you here! Tell me please, I implore you.” Silence was her only reply.

He fell to one knee grasping painfully at his chest. “Why must you haunt me so? I did nothing to harm you. You went away!” He screamed. “You remarried, you had the children I could not give you, a house, money and joy!”

No response came from her. Only the beating of her plutonian wings was her response.

“Don’t you see? You were free, free from my failures and shortcomings! You got everything, I got only this!” he shouted, his left arm waving behind him, as if to show her the chaos of his once tidy office, his escape from the world.

Nothing.

“Are you here to judge me then? To tell me of my failures? No, that would require you to speak. Last rites then? A chance for me to confess? Well then, I confess, I am a failure of a man. Even worse as a human. No legacy do I have to give away, no one will remember me. When I die I will be remembered only for no one remembering me. I have chosen this, chosen obscurity!”

With that he collapsed, mouth agape, a look of horror on his face.

He was right, he had chosen this, the solitary life of failures and shame. He had chosen it long before he met her. She was just a pause in his plan to prove to the universe that he was exactly who they expected him to be. Pulling his knees to his chest, he began to whimper, then gently weep, but within moments he was sucking for air as saline and snot soaked his graying mustache. The world around him became darker and darker, until it was a perfect void, ruined by random flashes of light his oxygen-starving brain used as a distress call.

He slowed down his sobs, and rocked back and forth, knees still pressed tightly to his chest. He began to remember everything about his life, all the failures he had that he ensured would happen, the happiness he would sacrifice to push those away who could love him. They were flashes, only quick glimpses of memories, but still he could feel each moment all over again. Like lightning flashes they came over him, and just as quickly they were gone, leaving only afterimages of what was and could have been.

He got lost in the memories of their time together: first meetings, clammy hands reaching for each other; a spring in Paris with her best friend, the first of many fights, the sex, and the silence that came when she left.

It was all his fault.

He had always known, and now here was the proof once again, plain and clear.

Then he felt her, though he dared not open his eyes. A gentle touch of a hand had rested upon his crown, and though his eyesight was poor he could suddenly see a white light, blinding, fierce and hot. When vision returned he could see himself, as he was in his youth. He was seeing himself as she saw him, in their past. He could see the little wrinkles that had formed when he became focused, and how she loved to stare at them. He could feel her heart beat harder, faster whenever she would catch him singing. He could see the love and the light that radiated from him, until it stopped. The world began to look darker, and he no longer had funny little lines, but scowls. His singing became broken up, off-key and fleeting. He could feel the sadness come over her, as he refused to adapt to their environment, to the time.

Then he felt the nothingness she felt as she had left him.

He could see her children, and how at times she would wonder what their faces would look like if they had been his instead. He could feel the love for her husband and family, but part of her was always missing once she left.

He could feel her become numb to her past.

Then her children began to marry, and the greys of memory began to grow upon her temples. She died, surrounded by all of her loved ones.

All but one.

She had never given up on him. She would check news articles and bookstores for his name, but found nothing but sparse, impersonal social media posts. In the end, she no longer loved him as she feared that she might still, feeling instead only sadness and pity.

In his head he heard her speak, although the words were faint, and were the sound that light makes if light made sounds.

“I’m sorry,” he said, in a dry, croaking voice. “So, so sorry…” He imagined that he could feel her wrap her arms around him, his forehead upon her exposed breasts. He searched for the gentle beat of a heart, and found only his own.

He stayed there, crying into the phantom skin of a lost memory and nightmare of his own making, then he stopped.

Monique gently laid his body on the floor and would have wept out a river of tears for his death, if she hadn’t already cried out all of the tears she had for him in life. Closing his eyes, she stood up and spread her wings out once more and took flight.

The corpse on the ground was a stranger. The man she had loved had died long before. She no longer had time to mourn for the dead.