Gilded Angel

A character building exercise for the piece I am currently working on. Here the focus is the archangel Gabriel, as seen by a random person as he shadows his brother Raphael on earth.

It’s been a hard day.  She’s a single mom who works forty plus hours a week.  This morning her son woke with a slight cough and it’s been all downhill from there.  She’s rushing out the door of the deli where she works to try and catch the next bus out to the daycare because now her little man has a fever of 101.

Any other day and she would have missed him entirely.  Any other day and she wouldn’t have missed her bus either.  As it was the driver started pulling away just as she reached the closing door and just didn’t stop.  Now she was stuck with time to kill until the next bus was scheduled to arrive.  Time she didn’t really have. 

If only she made enough money to be able to hop a cab to the daycare without having to worry about rent money for the month.  Or better yet: if only she could afford a little car and all the gas, insurance and maintenance that went with that sort of thing.  Then there wouldn’t be any waiting.  She’d just get behind the wheel and go.  But that’s not her life right now.  That’s why she’s leaning up against the doorway of the dingy bus shelter praying the bus comes early so she can get to her baby that much sooner.

It’s while she’s feeling sorry for herself that the revelation comes to pass.  The world around her looks grey and feels hopeless and then BAM!  Suddenly she’s blinded by a sudden burst of light.  She thinks that maybe the sun’s just managed to poke a hole in the clouds in some act of divine intervention.  Some sun would definitely make this day a little easier to survive.  Except that when she recovers and looks up it’s to an overcast sky.  There might actually be rain coming.  Had she imagined the blinding light?  So very odd, but maybe it hadn’t just been in her head.  She could still feel the warmth of it on her skin.  Maybe… maybe whatever ‘it’ was had happened so quickly she missed it…

Curiosity gets the best of her and she shifts her focus out from within to scan the passers-by on the street.  Maybe she’s not the only one who feels it.  Or maybe she’s coming down with whatever her baby has caught.  Now there was a very possible explanation to flashing light and hot flashes.  Funny, she doesn’t feel feverish.  A quick look at her reflection in the bus shelter window told her she didn’t look flushed.  Odds were she was okay.  So then, what’s going on?

There must be a few dozen people around, waiting for a bus or making their way from place to place.  They all face the world the same way, shoulders hunched forward and head down as if trying to charge their way through the crap life threw at them.  She imagined their thoughts to be much like her own.  Maybe if they can’t see how grey and desolate the world around them was becoming then they’ll stand a chance of making it through another day.  She’s been feeling it for a while now, ever since that deadbeat of a husband of hers had taken off to parts unknown.  The desolation had begun to overwhelm her at least it had until that bright burst of light just now.    

There’s a man.  From this angle it’s hard to say if he’s a man or a boy in his very late teens.  Whatever his age may happen to be, one thing is clear.  He is not like the rest of them.  The difference is subtle but it’s there and it’s unmistakable. 

Strange. She would have never spotted him if she hadn’t already been looking for the source of that odd light.  Even hyper aware of her surroundings as she was she only noticed him from the corner of her eye.  The way he was dressed made him appear to be no more than a silhouette.  Back to her, he was watching something through the chain link fence right behind the bus shelter.  He had the height and stance of a man, but his shoulders weren’t quite square enough yet to put him past his teens.  The shape of his body spoke of athletic youth but there was just something about him that set him apart. 

Unlike everyone else he held himself tall.  Shoulders back, head held high he faced the world around him as if there was nothing it could do to hurt him.  His stance alone spoke of the kind of wisdom that comes with having lived a long eventful life.  Not proud, but confident.  He was beautiful, strikingly so.  Why hadn’t anyone else noticed him?

Maybe it was the way he seemed to blend in to the crowd around him, even as he stood apart from it.  Just another poor sap trying to get by, except for the sense of purpose that just sort of oozed off of him.  His clothes weren’t anything noteworthy.  Just a pair of jeans, a shirt and a lightweight black pea coat with the lapels turned up against the wind.  The ratty pair of sneakers he wore could have belonged to any man in the city.  For all intents and purposes he was an average Joe.  So what was it about this guy?  Why had he caught her eye?  Why was he so different?

She would have tried to approach him.  It would have been interesting to get a little closer so she could get a better feel for the guy.  As it was, her next bus was coming up the street.  There was no time for fanciful conversations with strangers she’d probably never cross paths with again.  Still, she couldn’t keep her eyes off the enigmatic stranger.   

She let her eyes wander one last time.  Down to his shoes and then slowly back up over jean clad legs.  She noticed little details this time.  Things like that his coat was wearing thin around the elbows and the stitching on his lapels was starting to fray.  The last thing she had the chance to take in was his mop of fine caramel colored hair.  So fine, in fact, that it looked as silky as a young child’s.  He kept it long enough to be considered unprofessional in an office setting and yet still tidy.  The man wasn’t desolate or homeless.

He half turned then, as if he knew she was trying to puzzle him out, timed perfectly with the crunch of large bus tires on roadside gravel as it came to a stop behind her.  The moment was short but she would remember it for the entirety of her life.  Piercing eyes looking at her as if he knew exactly who she was and just how hard her life really was.  They spoke to her without need for spoken words.  You’re not alone, it will be alright. Sunlight painting an outlining halo of gold along the tips of his hair and shoulders from behind that was rivaled only by the shimmering brilliance of his smile.  She would have stayed there, rooted to the spot where she stood, except for the slight tilt of cleft chin and square jaw.  Go on, he’s waiting.  She didn’t know how he knew, or even how she knew that he did. 

There were several people pushing past her to get to the bus that had arrived and as the moment passed she turned to join them.  Her baby was waiting, after all.  Her reason for being needed her and nothing would feel right until she was with him, right where he needed her to be.  Later, when he was feeling a little better, she would tell him the story of the special man-boy at the bus stop.  The angel with the kind smile who had somehow managed to bring the light back into her world with nothing more than a smile.

Author's Note

please keep in mind that this is not only a rough draft but also a character building piece for a larger work in progress. I would appreciate any thoughts or feedback that you would like to share.

Reviews

[Creepy Swine Guy]

The character is well described and introduced. I would warn to be careful though. Take care not to be "choppy with your writing. For example, you wrote ...

"It’s been a hard day. She’s a single mom who works forty plus hours a week."

... The sentences are short and choppy to me. I'm wondering how it would sound to you if they were one sentence ... like ...

"It had been a hard day for the single mother who always worked forty plus hours a week."

I see the same sort of thing in several other spots such as ...

"Now she was stuck with time to kill until the next bus was scheduled to arrive. Time she didn’t really have."

... I don't believe that the second part is actually a full sentence. I'd have written that like this ...

"Now she was stuck with time to kill until the next bus was scheduled to arrive; time she didn’t really have to spare."

As I originally said. You tell us much about the character and you do so with excellent descriptions and detail. Just take care with the technical stuff.

I enjoyed.

[Seren]

Fave lines:

'if only she could afford a little car and all the gas, insurance and maintenance that went with that sort of thing'

[Awww. That seemed so humble a hope, it instantly makes you warm to her.]


'The shape of his body spoke of athletic youth'

[Because I know exactly what you meant by that! ^_^]


'He kept it long enough to be considered unprofessional in an office setting and yet still tidy.'

[I can perfectly picture that, too! Reminds me of something Neil Gaiman wrote about one of his chars being naturally scruffy in a way that made him more attractive to women than he would ever imagine or understand.]


'Sunlight painting an outlining halo of gold along the tips of his hair'

[I like it! It seems more magical realism than out-and-out flight of fantasy, and I've always been a fan of that approach.]


And I also like the description of him as a man-boy, because that kind of divorces him from the usual complications of an adult association, makes him a bit more of a figure of innocence, or rather someone who exists outside childhood/adulthood, adult sin/innocence.


All in all: lovely, uplifting, and deliciously ambiguous/allegorical. ^_^