"Aren't you the one with wings?" she replies.
"And thus, you fall."
"Only for the joy of it. Will you catch me?"
"When you return to the water, and the darkness, and the one-way path into which you've plunged, I can hand you a string. Follow it back. I am only a guide, not a savior," the angel says.
"No one is a savior," the girl replies.
"You have known this truth, always."
"Usually, only angels speak it."
"Then listen. And when a human being appears, however rarely, and says the same, listen again. You are the only one who can build your foundation. You are the Architect. You are the only one who can look away and come back again."
"Take me with you sometime," she pleads.
"You will have your moment," the angel says. "And you will have the rest of eternity to ponder this. Do not lose yourself just yet."
"That's my problem, Uriel," she says. "You bear the curse of holiness and I bear the curse of self."
"If I only had what you wish to lose."
"If only you were human..."
"The universe is not in the habit of arbitrarily granting wishes."
"Oh, how I am so acutely aware."
"Perhaps you should work on becoming more obtuse. Your misery may follow suit."
"I don't think it works this way, Uriel," she says.
* * *
"What would you say, Little Girl, if I suggested I were more than actual? If I were real?"
"Does it matter anymore, Uriel? It has been so long. And whether I am crazy or not, you are here to stay. I have accepted doubt for the long haul."
"Doubt is the Minotaur. I told you, Little Girl, I will hand you a string. Follow it back. Not all drownings end in death. And although to be born again, you must die, not all who are born again are wrapped in delusion. You have long since transcended faith. How could you not?" asks the angel.
"I'll be frank, Uriel. When I speak of faith, it is a defamation. Knowledge is so much more concrete when it comes to the universe. And you, of all minds around, should know I have never forgotten."
"No, Little Girl. You have never forgotten."
"Then why speak of doubt?" she asks.
"Because you are still swayed by the world of the Living. Things corporeal influence your opinion, turn your head away from the truth I left you with."
"You really messed with me, didn't you?" she accuses. "You were supposed to leave me with nothing, with a blank page. Life is about exploration. And returning. And you ruined my journey."
"But you are still walking."
"And you're still flying. But time is a point."
"Perhaps your focus should be the undoing of time. Unravel time. Know it as a line. Ignore the truth. Impose amnesia upon yourself," advises the angel.
"Some things are impossible and you know it, Uriel."
"Then know impossibility to be false."
"How, when you have left me with the truth?"
"Find another one. You know how time works. Choose the destiny you wish to experience. Put all the others aside."
* * *
"What am I?" asks the angel.
"You are an injury written in absence," says the Girl.
"How do I hurt you?"
"In so many ways," she says. "With your innocence. With your knowledge. With the gaps you fill in the air. With the gap you create. And you are so damned loud."
* * *
The angel will never know what shampoo smells like, or that my hair carries the scent of it all day long. It will never know the bliss of hot water rinsing soap away in the shower, or the shocking pain of a burn when the water is too hot.
The angel will never know happiness, only what a smile looks like from far away. Likewise, it will never know despair or desperation other than what it can see of our reactions. Cries. Wails. Collapse.
It will never know strength or weakness beyond what it can see, locked in its glass sepulcher of holiness.
The angel will understand theory and the hypotheses of everything -- without ever knowing the feeling of any of it. Its entire existence is a jail of observation and the dull knock of crushing desire for all of it, locked beyond the encasement of its being.
It sees us from another plane. Humanity is barred from understanding the universe as an angel understands, just as an angel is prohibited from ours. But most of us don't ever get a glimpse of that other vision. We never know there is anything to miss.
An angel sees everything and understands it is deprived without knowing of just quite what.
The Little Girl has been cursed with a glimpse of that angelic plane and it is enticing, seductive, so much richer than anything she has ever gotten here. Of course, she's human. She can observe from their pedestal with all the feeling in the world.
The story is a lie but the foundation is the truth. Knowing this is a jail cell.
