Another Conversation

"Have you forgiven me?" asks Uriel.

"For what?" the Little Girl asks back.

"My insufficiencies."

The Little Girl furrows her brow.

"You are only an angel, after all. What can I do? What does it matter what I want versus what I can have when it comes to you? You will never understand."

"I have always tried. And yet your rage is like a tempest. Uncontrolled, although you do understand the limitations of my nature, yes?"

"Maybe only to the point that you understand the origin of my rage. Yes? And that rage is rooted in desire, which you will never understand. Because you are Holy. And I spit on that!”

If the angel were a man, it would turn away. Instead, it leans forward.

“I have been observing a man,” it says. “Where you are rage, he is desire. And it is rooted in his skin.”

“Something else you’ll never understand,” she says.

 “So you have not forgiven me.”

“There is nothing to forgive, angel. There’s only everything to either accept or lament. And you know my nature. Beyond the rage. Beyond the desire. Which is rooted in my skin. How can we ever reconcile our differences? You are nothing but a pocket of air with the annoying habit of dropping in and turning my head.”

“Perhaps we have more in common than you admit. For if I am a pocket of air and you are a storm, we both have our origins in wind.”

“Tell me about the man. Does he know you?”

“To him I am only a passing thought in his own voice. His voice asks why he is so thoroughly consumed with lust. I ask myself what lust is, for in truth, I have never desired. I have never felt a stab of hunger, or the emptiness of disappointment that you feel. I have never wanted, other than to be curious about what wanting is.”

“Desire is a preoccupation that rules all of us. It turns our heads. It keeps us in place. Even you. I follow your lead because I want to you. Because I need to know. Because I want to know.”

“Do you want me to leave you alone?”

“No. Never leave me. You are the air I breathe. Even though you’ll never love, I love enough for us both. You are always the one I turn to, despite all my resentment. Maybe it’s just that in the face of all my raging desire, the thing I desire most is to not want at all. But I can’t overstep my own nature, just like you can’t turn away from yours. I’ll always want to rid myself of wanting. The irony of it all.”