Wings

          I have always known that everything we do has a consequence. Lie, steal, cheat and you get beaten, punished, thrown in jail. Simple stuff – although, maybe not that simple. Have you ever heard about that saying? The one about the butterfly and how as it flaps its wings, the air currents carry the tiny disturbance and suddenly, there’s a tornado lifting little Dorothy off to Oz on the other side of the world. The butterfly effect. Something like that.

          Like, who knew that the flaps from the pair of fairy wings that Jenny Jameson gave to little Abby Rose for her birthday would ultimately lead to their turbulent double funeral the very next weekend. Well, this is how it went down:

          Now, little Abby Rose wasn’t exactly the smartest little girl, so when she put on the wings and saw the sparrows in the sky, she thought she could join them. She climbed up onto the roof of her 3-storey house and jumped. Jenny, who happened to be across the street when this happened, saw her and dashed across the road, into the path of the drunken Mr. Gibson on his way back from the bar, in his new Porsche.

          The day of the funerals was a disaster. You see, the Jameson family believed that if Little Abby Rose had some common sense, their darling daughter wouldn’t have run across the road and had her neck snapped by the velocity of the speeding Mr. Gibson. On the other hand, the Rose family believed that if Jenny Jameson hadn’t told their little Sweet-Pea that the wings were made of magic, she wouldn’t have impaled herself on the picket fence.

          Although now, in retrospect, the tornado didn’t really end there; you see, Little Abby Rose was my darling little sister – and dear Jenny was the woman I was about to propose to on the weekend of both their funerals. Anyway, actions, consequences, you get the point.

          Today I made a discovery. I realised that there are some things that people do that have consequences so great the human mind cannot fathom. You know how everyone says that suicide is so great a sin, you plunge straight into Hell? Well, it doesn’t really work that way, in fact, maybe it’s worse.

          I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you the truth. I am what you mortals call dead. Well, I like to call it spiritualised, but most of you know of my condition as dead, kicked the bucket, snuffed and all that jazz.

          You see, it was the Tuesday night after the funerals and as you can guess I was pretty shitted out. Maybe I couldn’t take the strain or whatever, what with everything that had happened and all. I was drunk and I was crying and … Well, it was then and there, on the rooftop of the apartment blocks on Fifth Street that I decided to end it all.

          It isn’t at all like what they say in books or in movies, how hard it is to actually do the deed. You just take the leap, one foot at a time. But just as my foot left the concrete roof, I felt someone grasp my waist, pulling me back onto the ground. He held on for a moment, gently caressing me as I continued to cry. Then he whispered into my ear: ‘I’m here for you’

          It was such a hauntingly beautiful, comforting sound, a sound that seemed to stay my tears and clear my eyes. I turned to look at the person who had saved me, and there, in front of me, was the most magnificent visage the world had never seen; golden hair that shimmered like the moonlight and eyes deeper than the midnight sky, yet, at the same time, as blue as the ocean. I was awestruck. Watching as he smiled at me, it was then that I noticed his wings. Glorious wings that shone with unparalleled brilliance, they stretched out from his back and folded inwards towards me, holding me in a soft embrace. Then he told me that he had come to take my place.

          Now, you know how I was talking about actions, consequences and all that stuff? Well, the consequence of my suicide was this: an Angel had come to take my place. You see, every time someone decides to take his life, an Angel falls from Heaven to take his place. The thing about Angels falling is that they lose their wings. Poetic isn’t it? No, not really. On that fateful Tuesday night, as I rose up through the clouds, I watched my Angel falling towards the ground, watched as his reassuring smile turned into a hideous twist of agony, watched, as his wings were torn from his back.