Angel
The stairs feel cool and smooth under her bare feet. She grips the banister lightly, the sensation making her dizzy. They seem to go on forever, in spirals she sees above her, like some strange 3-D decoration, dangling from the ceiling. The passageways are quiet, save for the soft thuds as her feet patter over the firm steps. Firm but old, she thinks, glancing over the polished Victorian design. The wood is a deep shade of brown, shining despite the stillness of the air. The banister supports are the color of purity, with oval frames and intricate designs etched into them. Somehow she knows where to go, although each stairway ends, leaving a landing at the top, then two identical ones resume their journey upward. Her destination is the sky- Heaven- to speak to G-d.
As she climbs, the air grows thinner, as if the light from some radiant glow which clouds her eyes is sucking up all the oxygen. She’s still inside, but outside too, shedding off boundaries, prejudice, hatred, years of her life.
Until finally the steps fade away, EVERYTHING just fades away. She’s left as she was 10 years ago, at seven, before everything changed. Her dreaming mind can’t quite grasp that change, especially since she is now in the past.
”I wish to speak with G-d,” a clear, innocent voice rings from her psyche.
Slowly, a sensation comes over her and her heart fills with another being, someone large and impressive. She knows she is being heard.
”What happened to me, G-d? Where did all my ideas go? I wrote to escape the world, but now my thoughts follow me. And I can’t look at a piece of writing and just like it. If I do, for a second, then I’ll hate it forever. What happened to me, G-d? Writing was the only reason I stayed alive.”
But G-d has no answer for her. Perhaps she is still tied too tightly to the mortal world to understand.
”Angel? Angel!”
With a jolt, she departs, a backward lunge as something from her heart pushes her down all those beautiful steps, down into an abyss.
And she wakes up, hanging onto something long and metal- a pole. She leans down and sees the end, cars passing feet below her.
”Angel, don’t! You were sleepwalking.”
A voice, one she vaguely recognizes as being her mother’s, travels through the now empty caverns of her brain. But she doesn’t understand. All her ideas are gone. She is 17 again, filled with the pessimism of experience, and her one savior has dissipated with youth.
Without a sound, Angel lets go of the pole and falls forward into the abyss.
