Fallen Angel – In Abrahamic religions, fallen angels are angels who were expelled from heaven. Given hell is other people according to Sartre, heaven needs first to exist.
Alexander sat there and let the cabin pressure lull his frantic mind into a moment of blissful sleep. Months have passed since the court case and the constant vigilance over the email inbox had ceased.
No longer were phone messages and phone calls being received at all hours seeking changes and yet more statements requiring that astral travelling mind to fly over from place to place in order to answer the questions coherently, accurately, exactly.
The plane shuddered as the engine thrust shifted the payload from ground to airspeed. A cargo of souls, humans in transit, travellers intent on arriving all now facing their destination.
“… The road out is as treacherous as the path into reckoning so I am told.” Alexander Hayes, June 6, 2019
So it is Alexander mused to himself that life brings another chapter forward and pushes another back. Just one more last act of grace, the moment of emancipation where the victim declares publicly in a last hurrah themselves as a victim of crime.
How senseless Alexander as child shouted up at his middle man holding his hand, eyes still weeping. Yes middle-man agreed.
Now steady your hand Son. Brother. Father.
What a journey from that skinny and frightened boy, through paralysis of fear and through the tunnel of blinding rage. The twisted road out from anger replete of expletives, tidied into a six page statement beginning with a declaration that nothing contained as deemed inflammatory to upset boy lover, litmus viper, insidious liar.
Where did she come from questioned Alexander. Picturing those moments in a tree, bees flitting in the blossoms that rained down on two children, one speaking in French and the other in a codified English.
Now as adults, the girl now a woman, hands held and spooned into one form in moments where each attest that it is the best part of the day, a paired switch into night. Terrors, sweats and shouting at dark forms follow yet there she is, holding him, believing.
The return flight to a birthplace where had there been past hope a moment of excitement may have washed through a mind cluttered with to-do’s and have-done’s. Back to a hotel room and witnesses to fill a gallery of spectacle. A city on the edge of refuge, bushland once forest filled now criss-crossed by the utility borne of spandex panted bearded bicyclists.
Alexander pictured the offender, once accused being led from custody to what was once life expectancy. Old and yet defiantly stoic, now weary creeping forward, stick bent, no longer smug psychopath.
A dock full of survivors, eyes glazed, tear stained, sitting in anticipation of reading the only words they can utter, mutter, muster. Families ripped apart by shame, convenience separating those from their kin, fake I love you’s no longer heard nor reciprocated.
How many of these repeating scenes must this Judge Arnold have seen, witnessed and adjudicated inquired Alexander. The question hung like coat hanger waiting for a coat. The hotel vestibule empty, question ringing out into a void of silence saved by another traveller entering along with the sounds of the street.
“… where did I go when in grief seeking relief I wrecked so many days and nights now a wracking form, hell bent on numbing down, too terrified and sleep deprived.”
Haiku after haiku later, mind made pictures of years past now placed before Alexander flooded through, swirling around his prone form, mid-stream, oily slick. Snapped back to Terriyaki with short grain rice or vegetarian curry.
Looks like we are going to be getting a little bit of weather the old soul sitting next to Alexander stated. Warnings of inclement weather ahead not boding well in Alexander’s mind, Terriyaki chicken decided, returning as always to an omniscient mind-made foyer filled with reporters knowing none likely given society, high morality, pedophile infested propriety.
Each layer stripped down bringing to life before the jury witched forms, damaged accounts never making it to front paged pews. Bells ringing calling forward new sacrificial lambs, cows cold, children snatched to form congregations who queue to repent to cannibals in boxes unseen, forgiven to return to a village for a better view on more perpetrations.
Sentences commuted as belief base lacking attendance Alexander shifts in the choir stall, tightening down gowns from wandering fat fingered hands. If only he says to himself as the plane bounces from turbulence that this kaliedescope of memory would rest.
Well at least you will have closure they claim. Good for you some exclaim. Better you than me others slur over the rim of their poison.
To think I helped others come forward and speak their pain Alexander speaks aloud. Stops, considers the paradox of the proposition. Adjusting his gaze Alexander looks up to see clouds forming, down to solid ground, eye line into the reality of catharsis for each survivor.
Peers through glossy seat backed magazines at rich, happy, healthy unaffected. Wonders, wanders through far flung places, an exotic where-to-be when in fact, there he sits.
Alexander middle man greying into Elder. How strange it seems to be in the last third of life he whispers to himself. Thirty good summers and a thousand days and nights of joy with lights.
Nothing had prepared Alexander’s boy for fate. Life itself complete yet lessons learned no more lament. Which path to take other than the one less travelled the small figure seated far far down below Alexander remarks.
“… From up here the seas are vast as is the ocean sky. Further away still a mere speck amongst specks. Energy formed into a figure of figures.”
The visual fades as words, like pieces of a puzzle tumble out over parched lips and interlock.
Where we go is where we are Alexander remarks aloud. The old woman on his right, nods. True that she replies.
