Angel
She stood alone, staring out over the many grave markers sparingly placed in the dark. The cold Florida rain bounced off her hard skin. Angel was alone and no one saw or noticed her, she was alone. The droplets trickled off her robe in a steady stream to the muddy ground. The lightning strike in the distance didn’t cause her to jump, neither did the screeching brakes of a car that slid three feet on the slick asphalt just to the other side of the fence from her.
The headlights shone bright on her, she didn’t even blink. A man stepped out holding flowers in one hand, umbrella in the other. He wiped his face, signaling the end of a crying fit he must have had during his somber drive. He looked as if he were in pain, not the physical kind; the emotional kind and he stepped over the short picket fence and walked over to a marked grave. Angel stood quiet, standing on a slab of stone surrounded by a puddle of rain water and watched his every move.
He stopped at the grave marker, shoved his keys in his pocket and looked down. He never even bothered to acknowledge Angel who stood silently in the shadow, her long hair riddled with water.
His shoes were already soaked. He didn’t care. This was rainy season and Floridians were just used to it. A long disheartened sigh withdrew him, causing him to kneel down and place the flowers on the grave stone.
“I love you Mom.” he uttered. Then he stood and stared at the grave, let out painful tears that only he and Angel witnessed.
“She loves you too.” he heard.
“Huh?” he turned, saw no one, “… who said that?”
He looked around. The only sound aside from what he thought he heard was the rain pelts bouncing off of everything around him.
“She loves you.” The voice repeated in the dark.
His car’s headlights illuminated the entire area; no one else was there – no one, but the marble statue of an angel just feet away from him and they locked eyes.
The angel was a local legend. Rumor says that she was there before the graveyard was. That it was the people who formed Angelica, Florida who decided to name it Angelica, because the six foot marble statue of an angel complete with wings and a robe that touched the cement slab that held her up was there, and nothing else was. That was back in the year 1927 when a family moving away from Tampa found the perfect spot to build their home. The home became the only train stop in Angelica. The entire town was built around it, and the Angel – who stood as a landmark no one wanted to touch or move. They left it there to stand the tests of time.
“Excuse me,” the man said, “… who’s here? I just need a moment alone with my Mom if you don’t mind.”
Just then his headlights turned off. He looked around, saw no one but the outline of the Angel who was staring back at him with dead eyes.
“Hello?” he called out.
He heard flapping, something like wings.
“Your mother wants you to know that you can stop blaming yourself, she is at peace. She needs you to be at peace too. Can you do accept that, David?”
“Who’s out here?” he asked.
He saw the form, the silhouette in the dark, and it seemed like it was moving. The rain drops fell cold on his back but he ignored it. A hand reached out to him. He saw it stretched out, almost inviting him to touch.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Angel. I am the watcher of the graves in my care.”
He walked closer still trying to focus and make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. It was true, he realized that he was speaking to a statue.
“Uh..?” he squinted his eyes, rubbing them to make sure.
“David, your mother wanted me to convey the message to you. Release your burden and know that all is well. Live in peace. My work is done. The task shall now rest upon your shoulders.”
Then she backed off and looked up into the rain-filled sky. She crouched down and in one heaping leap, the graceful being hopped into the air and disappeared into the night sky.
“Hello?” he called out, “... what shall now rest on my shoulders? Angel?”
He looked up into the sky, shielding his eyes from the ponding rain. The Angel was gone. He glanced down at his mother’s grave, read the inscription.
“Elizabeth Jimenez, loving mother, rest in peace.”
David smiled and his face was totally drenched from a mixture of tears and rain. He walked over and stepped on the cement pedestal where the Angel was standing just minutes before.
“I’m at peace Mom, finally I can truthfully say that I am at peace.”
He stood staring out into the cemetery when suddenly the ground trembled underneath. He moved to jump off the pedestal, but for some reason he felt locked on the stand. Without any kind of warning and to his shocked surprise his feet wouldn’t budge. The sensation of something crawling up his legs caused him to shake, but he soon found that he could not move. It felt like wet cement bubbling up from the pedestal. He struggled, but slowly and surely his entire body was stuck there.
“What’s happening!? Angel! Angel!?”
In a matter of minutes he was covered from head to toe by the mysterious marble-cement type material, as it defied gravity crawling up his legs, then waste, torso and ultimately his neck. David’s entire body was molded and had changed into that of... an angel. The last thing on his body to turn into stone was his mouth and he screamed in pain as white marble wings violently ripped out of his back.
“Auuuughhh!”
No one else heard the horrifying scream in the vast wet darkness of this corner of Angelica.
*
It was a dark, sweltering Florida summer night. The forecast hadn’t called for rain in over a month and the dry foliage proved it. The tormented rain of that dark night is now forgotten as several seasons have come and gone.
The lone motorcycle coasted off the main road in Angelica, Florida and came to a slow stop at the uninviting graveyard. The rider slowly crept off the Suzuki and walked up past the rusted wrought-iron fence to the grave stones. The helmet was peeled off and the long hair of the rider flowed down on either side of her head. The tall brunette slowly made her way over to the grave that was sat alone on the far end. As she pulled the roses from out of her backpack, a tear slid out of her left eye and dropped softly down her cheek.
“Daddy, I miss you…” she sighed, “... I love you.”
She knelt on the ground at the gravestone, and the angel’s eyes followed her.
- © Lou Normann 2021
Lou Normann credits Stan Lee, Rod Serling and TV episodes of Colombo as his inspiration for writing. The murder mystery thriller has been in his blood since he can remember. Telling stories came naturally since childhood. It was inevitable that his passion with words and language would turn into novels.
No comments:
Post a Comment