The exercise:
Write about: faith.
Spent my day hanging out with the boys so Kat could get some counselling work done. Challenging at points but I like to spend as much time as possible with them before I essentially disappear from their lives for four days.
Forecast is calling for cooler temperatures (high twenties instead of low thirties) for the next couple of days. I am hoping it will be correct.
Mine:
Have you no faith in me?
What would it take
For you to believe
Without being fake?
Can't you see the good?
Others can see through
Your words and actions,
Why can't you?
Can't you understand
That all this pain
And struggle you've b-
Oh, shut up, brain.
ReplyDeleteI really like the punchline at the end of your poem! The rest of it gives no indication at all as to what's coming, so it really works! Fantastic :)
Faith
I killed an angel in Rio. The words keep repeating themselves in the back of my mind as I wait for the lift to arrive. The building is shiny, all metal and glass and terribly modern: the people I'm meeting like it because it's not old enough to have any memories. There are five elevators, two express, one slow (that only goes to the 15th floor) and two reserved for important people. Needless to say, I'm not important. Though you'd think someone who had killed an angel deserved a bit more respect: it's not like just anyone can say they've done it.
I'm dressed, for certain values of dressed. After we'd got out of the bathroom and started to share out the clothes again I realised that I'd lost some of mine somewhere, so while I'm still wearing my suit, the shirt is a loaner and the underwear is... well, it's not so late in the year that going commando is a problem. The watch is mine, the chain around my neck definitely isn't, but everyone said it wasn't theirs either. They might be lying, but more likely I traded it for something while I was drunk. I'm hoping, but with a tinge of dread, that I didn't trade it for my underwear.
Lifts ping: my lift has arrived and so has an important-person's lift. As I get into mine: pleasantly empty, mirror-panelled, smelling faintly of lilacs, I can see a tall man leave his. He's got a slight limp, and there's something scaly about his hand: psoriasis maybe. Then he turns as though he can feel me looking at him and our eyes meet, and I know he could feel me looking at him. As the lift doors slide closed and it begins its ascent I wonder what one of the Schedim is doing in Singapore. There's a dull bang below me, and I remember that the Schedim have poor impulse control. I guess it heard about the angel already.
The lift stops on the 24th floor to take on a new passenger, a woman with tired eyes and arms full of folders of legal briefs. She's going to the 27th floor and she shrugs at me when she sees the button for the 28th lit: she'd be sorry about the delay if she cared about anything but she's doesn't anymore. I feel a faint twinge which I think is heartburn at first (breakfast was served with champagne for no reason I could discern and acidic wine sits uneasily on my stomach after long flights) and then realise it is sympathy. When she gets out I decide to act on it, and as she turns left towards a key-carded door I call after her, "Faith will be the name of your daughter." As the lift doors slide shut she drops the folders and turns back towards me, but it's too late.
When the doors open on the 28th floor two gentlemen are waiting for me. I know they're gentlemen because their name badges say so: "Gentleman Jim" and "Gentleman Tim". My eyes tell me they're nascent Seraphim and my sixth sense tells me they're trouble. But it tells me a lot of things are trouble so I choose not to rely on it.
"This way," says Jim, managing to lisp all the letters that aren't esses. I follow them, and when I step across the threshold of the glass-walled meeting room I feel the world hide away from me because now there's no time left at all. Joachim stands up from where he was sitting cross-legged on the floor and holds out a hand that is both right in front of me and a million million miles away.
"Hello," he says, his voice sonorous like the ringing of church bells at midnight, "welcome to Westrill."
I killed an angel in Rio, because it didn't have enough faith. I'm wondering if I have enough now to survive this meeting.
Greg - thank you :)
ReplyDeleteHoly crap, you're a roll here. First the Miss Hood entries and now this.
Very happy to see this continued, as it had slipped from my memory. But it only took the first line to bring it all back.
Anyway, so much goodness here that I can't point it all out. I will single out the interaction with the Schedim and the meeting with Joachim as favorites. Also the reveal that he killed the angel for not having enough faith.
Okay I'm done now.