Sympathy for the Seated

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Can you believe that there are angels?

People that are powerful, mighty and high in the heavens that look down on the rest of us with an air of superiority. To call them angels is somewhat of a misnomer. They are just people, like you and I, who have a better chance at life because this society rewards the rich and makes the poor grovel. Some of the angels do get the chance to thrash on the Earth with the rest of us until they learn valuable lessons in life. No matter the age.

I call it 'Exiled'. It's where you are abandoned by those who remember you, those who cared, because you are not the person that you once were. Strong, tough, a leader...only to become a survivor. But the miraculous thing is that survivors are beautiful in their own right. Survivors are a miracle in and of themselves. Like when some catastrophe strikes and people are not spared but instead are lost and laid waste, given over to flame and smoke and ash. Then, afterward, to have someone rise from the rubble and walk, rather, stride proudly from the wreckage is an incredible sight.

It is amazing to see something like one of these angels humbled, broken, laid low. It's amazing to see its wings torn, feathers flying, blood splattered and then burned in oil, pitch and gasoline. It's surprising to see the pain on its face when it is smudged with black ash and grime. Changed from its pale beauty to a marred smearing of oil and tears. It's perfect hair shorn and blown into the air to waft with it's loose feathers and all of its hopes.

It's fascinating to dress it in rags and feed it from trash baskets and grubby hands. To watch it totter on weak legs from sleep because the police will not allow it to rest overnight. It's a sight to watch it struggle and fight every day of its life. Something it never had to do before in the heavens. It just existed, floated, did what it pleased in a sky filled with light and cottony clouds and beautiful songs sung by cherubs and naked women wrapped in airy silks and wisps of smoke.

And then....

There is a call, a banner horn, a trumpet's blare. The angel hears the call. Something that it never thought that it would ever hear again in its life. It is a ringing sound that fills the ears and causes the heart to burn. The angel finds a pool of brackish water between a sewer drain and the curb of a sidewalk and washes the grime from its face. It stares up. The filthy water mixing with the tears from its eyes, its hands held up in supplication.

The exile is then over. The back of it's shirt tears and a pair of white- washed wings fold out, stretching to a distance of a near eternity from its body, opening fully, mightily. The shabby clothing falls from its back to the litter strewn streets of the city, replaced with blistering white raiment, that glows brightly like that of the sun.

He leaps and for the first time in ages his body rises upwards, over the city buildings and streets and sails off into the skies, finding the clouds and passing from this world onto the next.

Welcome to the Sun Tangled Angel Revival.

Hobobob