Friday, November 8, 2013

Prompt: Angel at sunset


Matadel stood overlooking the valley, arms lifted in prayer, wings outstretched.

What am I watching for? She had asked the Great One when he placed her there, so many countless days and nights ago. She had been so very young, afraid she would not recognize her charge. He had smiled and cupped her cheek in his warm palm. You will know.

How long? Young and naïve, perhaps foolish to think she could measure time in any way compared to Him. As she turned to stone, the cold creeping through her body, she heard his answer in her heart. You will know.

So many long days, hot, cold, dry, rainy. She liked the weight of snow against her hard body. She liked feeling washed clean by the rain. Birds kept her company, and little creatures sometimes ran around her bare toes, or under the sweep of her windblown skirt.

People had come, stayed, gone, returned, built, built more. And more. The air began to corrode her outer layer. The rain had an acid bite that stung as it splashed, burned as it washed over her time and again.

What was she watching for? Waiting for? The sun rises, sweeps in its broad arc across the sky, sets the horizon on fire, sinks to reveal the night sky…what if she missed it? What if she let Him down? There might have been a moment, a year, a century, when she was lost in thought and not paying close enough attention.

Was that it? The cruelty of one person to another? Many people to many? Many to one? Tears mixed with rain on her cheeks, an extra sting that burned out from her heart.

Was it the gentle moments she saw over and over. Mother or father with a child. Lovers. Strangers.

Was it the beauty of His creation itself? Great and small, she marveled over every moment, every act, every emotion. But how would she know what she was waiting for?

This day, the sun blazes in brilliant colors as it sinks below the horizon. Golden light flares in streams across the clouds, and they reflect dozens of reds, orange, pink, purple, colors that have no name, no definition.

There! So far away! Her eyes burned through the veil of age, through the stone that imprisoned her. Yes, her heart sang with fierce joy. That is what she was waiting for. She had always wondered what would happen, would the stone fall away in chunks? Would she be weak? There was no time between the thought and freedom. Her wings fluttered in the evening breeze, and she stretched them wide, feeling the muscles across her shoulders and back. She leaped into the air to carry her message.

Well done, He spoke in her heart. Now it begins.

Time writing:
20 minutes


October word count:
8,383

1 comment:

  1. Prompt: Angel at sunset


    I held my breath. The sun was closing in on the horizon, a giant yellow ball that had somehow became larger as it lowered. The sky was a palette of reds, oranges, and purples, with faint clouds reflecting colour on their undersides, looking more solid for the hues.

    It was the moment of touchdown, they said, that the angels could be seen. Sunset angels, so much more elusive than sunrise ones, who remained illuminated as the sun rose into the sky. Sunset angels burned forth only for an instant – that instant in which the sun’s disk touched the horizon.

    “Kaaa-tiiiie”

    Not now. Not now. The sun was almost there. I would see them.

    “Kaaa-tiiiie”

    If I ingored her, I could watch just a moment more. Just a moment, is all I wanted.


    Time writnig: ~15 min

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