At night, destruction and a rainbow

A little something to go with the picture... The angel's sorrow and folly, as told by his dead demonic best friend.  

***

It was night, and no one was going to see you, you broken, frightened creature. No one was going to see you, for your light was slowly dying, falling into silence to participate in your pain, fading away and leaving only the void behind: nothing but this surrounded you, a pallid, sickly luminescence, a candle burnt into darkness. Maybe you still harboured within you a hope, I cannot say, my friend, but you indeed looked like one who had already surrendered.

Neither the moon nor the stars showed their faces, lost behind a veil of pitch black clouds, as black as your eyes, and they turned their backs on you, shadowed by your presence. The sky above you seemed ready to tumble down upon you, to crush you on the ground, you felt it around you, on your neck, on your hands, so cold and suffocating.

Unwanted, outsider, you faded gracefully -alive but without your light, something that was cruel, absurd, monstrous: you feared yourself and your own fury, you were afraid of your frozen solitude, a solitude that was auto-inflicted, endless punishment for a fault that did not belong to you. Cast away, you laughed sweetly, and your voice tasted like death, it was the desperate cry of a vanishing land; you didn’t come to me, my angel, kind angel, and for this I am sad: there was nothing else for you aside from the agony that kept you company, and you had no room for me. You were betrayed.

What were you thinking as you stared at the whiteness of your trembling arms, the silver shining from that skin which so much resembled a cascade of liquid metal? Still, you laughed, disgusted by your infinite weakness, by the selfishness where you allowed yourself to sink, down, down, further till you touched a non-existent end.

Out of love, you condemned a whole world.

It’s terrible, isn’t it, my angel? Ghastly how in you there could be found no horror for that thought, disturbing how it was your one and only certainty. Your life was nothing but a dance of bright thin bubbles: frail and vivid, ethereal, beautiful, they reflected the colours of a rainbow that you alone created, and they flew, they flew… You followed them -followed us, lovingly. And when even the last one of them blew… just then you lost it all. You lost yourself.

What were you looking for, my dear friend? Why were you still searching the sky, looking for answers that don’t exist, answers only you can give, answers that lack meaning as soon as they leave your parted, trembling lips? Why don’t you give up, even as you yield?

The rain that started to fall didn’t bother you, and, after all, it had never done so before. It painted your world in light grey, softly caressing you, soothing you in your sorrow -your Land, your daughter, was crying for you, you knew it. The small drops of warm water whispered at your ear terrifying secrets, secrets that, I’m afraid, you shall never reveal, but you didn’t seem to listen: you watched your hands and were quiet.

They were tainted in blood, those hands.

Maybe the rain was going to wash it away. Maybe that was why you loved it. Maybe it gave you the illusion you were cleaner. Purer.

Your dimming light was reflected millions of times in the wet air, yet there was no rainbow, it was too dark, there was too much hatred inside you. You hated, a lot. You had nothing left anyway, you could only live with the knowledge of being useless, of having failed, of not being right, of not having done enough. Surrender was even more bitter when it came from the most powerful being in the universe -the best, the gentlest.

Your surrender, more than anything else, terrified me: it had the acrid taste of death. You had wanted to save the world you created, and now you were going to be the cause of its destruction instead.

It felt right to you, did it not? It was what it deserved after betraying you so, after vanishing all your efforts, after stealing up to your last glimmer of light. I really don’t have the strength to contradict you or blame you, forgive me, I know I should.

So beware, Ye world, for your greatest protector has just decided your fate!

What will become of you, sweet angel, when you’ll have accomplished your vengeance? Will you finally find peace? I wish so, I do from the very depths of my heart, even if I doubt I’ll be there to see it.

The raindrops on your tired face were like tears, or so I wanted to believe. You didn’t feel any remorse, only relief, and still you smiled, tracing the dance of the falling water with those eyes of yours that were the colour of space. I wondered when was the time going to come when the universe would implode, erasing itself.

Dawn was approaching, yet you didn’t try and move: standing in front of the deserted beach, your drenched, heavy wings forgotten behind you, you shivered as the sky cleared, compensating that darkness which ate your light, nibbling at it, as tenacious as an old rodent. Once, you liked mice quite a lot -you let them walk around on your palms, skipping here and there, you took care of their nests. Now nothing more reaches you, nothing more touches you, isn’t that true?

All of a sudden, I saw you raise your arms brusquely, as if to stop the coming of the sun, an impossible feat even for you. It was a rainbow that followed your gesture, almost born from your hands, when instead it was as far away as the happy days you have long left behind you. Your sweet, crazed laughter filled the air, tinkling, you were glad to dive in that sea of bright, steady colours, glad to let them cross your chest with the strength and crudeness of sharp darts thrown by the heavens.

Where those your feelings that flew away riding the rays of the rising sun, or was I deceiving myself with the idea of being able to follow your contorted train of thought? But the trembling that shook you violently witnessed your enormous suffering, and the way you seemed to wish you could catch the rainbow betrayed your nostalgia. Would I have been able to help you, my angel? I regret not trying…

Forgive me. Forgive me, I beg of you.

***

Thus the rainbow flew, taking away your sweet lost soul.