“Hey, what are you supposed to be?”
Those were the first words she ever said to me, the first words Angel said to me over twenty years ago.
My father, if you can call him that, was an abusive piece of shit. I sometimes wondered if he’d changed after mom left, but I guess he’s always been that way. He just hid it better.
After she left, things grew from bad to worse. He just gave up, lost his job, and spent his days getting wasted on the cheapest liquor he could find.
In the mornings, I was awoken by him cursing and rummaging through the apartment to find whatever booze was left. In the evenings, he’d drunkenly yell at me to leave him the hell alone.
The worst, however, were the days when he raised a hand against me. Every single time, I wondered what I’d done wrong, pleaded with him to tell me why he was so mad at me, but there was never a reason. No, all his words, all his accusations; they were nothing but excuses. He just wanted to vent his anger, to beat me, and beat me he did.
The day I met Angel, I’d been hiding in my room, staring at a picture of mom and begging for her to come safe me. Of course he heard, and the moment he saw the picture, he flipped. He ripped it from my hands and tore it apart. Before I could protest, he slapped me across the face.
“Don’t you ever say shit like that again, I’ll dare you,” he slurred at me, holding a bottle of liquor in his hand.
As so many times before, I ran and fled from the disgusting hellhole our apartment had become. Yet, I didn’t make it far. My tiny legs gave way, and I broke down crying.
I huddled up, arms around my knees, and sat sobbing in the building’s hallway. On my cheek, I could still feel his knuckles, and I could taste the blood that ran from my split lip. The few other people who lived in the place ignored me, pretending they didn’t see me, like they always did. No one cared about a crying little girl. I was all alone.
That’s until I heard her voice.
“Hey, what are you supposed to be? Why are you crying?”
When I looked up, I saw an older girl, a teenager, crouching in front of me. Her round face was framed by wild, strawberry blond hair, and her eyes were of the deepest blue. Her most prominent feature, however, was her smile. It was bright and toothy, more akin to a comical grin than anything else. When I saw it, the tears stopped and I couldn’t help but giggle.
“There now, that’s much better,” she said, laughing, and patted me on the head.
“W-who are you?” I asked in a sheepish, barely audible voice.
For a second, she looked away, and a contemplative look washed over her face. Then she grinned at me again.
“I’m Angel,” she brought out in a voice as cheerful as her smile.
Once more, I giggled.
That’s how I met Angel, and that’s how we became friends.
Angel was an odd one. I’d met no one just like her. She was always positive, always bouncy and full of energy and she always wore that wide, beaming smile.
Yet I never learned much about her or her life. I didn’t know if she went to school or worked, who her parents were, or where she lived. All she told me was that she lived in the same building, but her place was in such a terrible state of disarray, she was too embarrassed to invite anyone over.
For all I knew, she lived every day not having a care in the world, just having fun and doing whatever she wanted.
During my time with Angel, she taught me about the streets and the area we lived in. While those things might not have been special for an adult, for an eleven-year-old child, they felt like the best-kept secrets in the world.
One day, she led me to an abandoned backyard where a bunch of strays had made their home. On our way, Angel told me that one of them had recently born young. I was out of it. At first, the kittens were terribly afraid of me, but Angel taught me how to befriend them. Over the next couple of days, the two of us spent hours petting and playing with them.
On another day, she introduced me to Mrs. Schneider, who owned a small corner store in the area. It was a chaotic place, but Angel told me the old woman loved nothing more than little kids. Occasionally, she’d even hand out free candy.
The moment I stepped inside and actually saw the old lady, I almost ran away. I’d imagined her to look like a fairy godmother, but the woman behind the counter couldn’t have been more different. Her face comprised nothing but wrinkles and her bony hands held onto the counter like the claws of some animal. The worst, however, was her expression. Her mouth was pressed together into a single, hard line as she stared us down with piercing eyes.
“Now, what are you doing here? Didn’t I tell you to never come back?! I don’t want no girls like you in my store!”
“Oh, Auntie Schneider, I know you don’t mean those things,” Angel said, laughing and vanished between the store’s aisles.
“Now you little, I’ll dare you-“ she started, but broke up when she saw me.
Suddenly, her expression softened, and her face melted into a warm, caring smile.
“My, oh, my, and who might you be?” she asked, stepping past the counter and towards me.
“She’s my friend!” Angel proclaimed from down the aisle.
Mrs. Schneider shot her a piercing look before she turned back to me.
“Now little girl, you should be careful who you’re friends with these days,” she whispered into my ear. “That one over there, she’s no good… But, my, look at you, you’re nothing but skin and bones. Let me give you a little treat!”
With that, the old lady vanished behind the counter again and rummaged through the drawers. She was wheezing and mumbling to herself, but when she finally emerged again, she handed me a candy bar.
“There you go!”
“T-thank you,” I whispered with downcast eyes, shuffling around awkwardly.
“Now aren’t you well mannered, not like… Hey, hold on, what’s that in your pocket?”
“Oh no, busted!” Angel said, laughing
Before the old lady could so much as react, Angel had gotten a hold of my hand, and together the two of us rushed from the store.
“Thanks again, Auntie Schneider!” Angel called out over her shoulder.
“Don’t you dare call me that! And don’t you dare come back!”
As we ran, Angel was still laughing, and soon I joined in her laughter. We only stopped when we’d made it a few blocks down the road. There we fell to the ground, utterly exhausted.
Angel was still giggling to herself and showed me a candy bar of her own, one she must’ve snuck from one of the aisles.
“Angel!” I brought out in shock. “You can’t do that!”
She only waved her hand, downplaying what I’d been taught to be a terrible crime.
“It’s all right, it’s all right. Auntie Schneider doesn’t mind. She’s just pretending to be an angry old lady!”
Of course, I trusted her, and, of course, the same thing would happen every time we went there. Yet, sometimes, I could’ve sworn I saw a hidden little smile on the old woman’s face as the two of us raced away. Her curses, however, always stayed the same.
This wasn’t the only time Angel showed me her special talents. Stealing candy from an old lady’s store was one thing. Doing the same at a costly art store was entirely different.
Said store was in a nearby mall. It was a giant, multi-storied monstrosity of a building. I’d only ever been there a few times, years ago, when mom was still around.
Being back there, after all those years, felt different, almost like I shouldn’t be there, didn’t belong. As Angel led me through the mall’s enormous halls, I didn’t my best to hide behind her, trying not to be seen by the people around us. All the while, Angel’s head darted here and there, scanning the area with her deep blue eyes.
“There it is!” she suddenly exclaimed in a hushed whisper.
Before I could read the store’s sign, we were already inside, sneaking past other customers and down an aisle, unseen by the owner.
My eyes grew wide. I’d never seen so many beautiful things in one place.
“It’s so pretty,” I whispered to Angel, who gave me a quick nod and another one of her beaming smiles.
I saw costly glassware, various decorations, memorabilia and beautiful porcelain figurines. Eventually, I came to a halt in front of a tiny porcelain cat. It looked as if frozen in time during stretching, was covered in brown stripes and had glowing green eyes. For a long moment, I stared at it before I reached out to touch it.
“You like it?” Angle asked in a hushed whisper.
I nodded, but then I grew sad and returned it to its place. I knew it was way too expensive, and I knew dad would never spend his money on anything but booze.
When Angel saw my expression, a cheeky grin showed on her face. For a second, her eyes darted up and down the aisle. Then in a swift, but delicate motion, one I’d have missed if I’d as much as blink, the figurine vanished inside her pocket. I opened my mouth, but she was quick to press her finger against my lips, motioning for me to zip it. A few moments later, we were out of the store, and after another minute, we’d left the mall behind.
Once we’d made it a safe distance away, Angel handed me the little treasure. I couldn’t help but stare at it in a mixture of disbelief and wonder. At first, I wasn’t sure if I should take it, but when I saw the cat’s cute little face, I felt tears of joy coming to my eyes and hugged Angel dearly.
The most important thing, however, was that I’d just learned another little face to Angel, who she was, and what she could do.
Needless to say, Angel became my role model, my hero. I wanted nothing more than to be just like her: beautiful, smart, and crafty.
Being the child I was, I wasted no time trying to do exactly that. One day, not long after Angel had stolen the tiny figurine for me, I decided to put what I’d learned to the test.
I didn’t set out for the mall, of course. I was much too scared to go there on my own. Instead, I made my way to one of the small convenience stores in the area. With quick steps, I hurried inside, and vanished down an aisle. Just like Angel had done, I looked up and down to make sure I was alone. Then, with a shaking hand, I reached out to one of the many chocolate bars. In a motion, I imagined as swift and delicate as Angel’s, I pocketed it.
Then I raced back toward the entrance. I’d barely stepped out of the aisle when a hand closed around my wrist and I found myself face to face with an angry, older man who stared me down with cold, hard eyes.
“Now, what do we have here? A little pickpocket?”
I froze. Oh no, what had I done? Stupid, stupid, you aren’t Angel, you aren’t like her, not at all.
“N-no, I just,” I started, but my voice broke and didn’t want to function anymore.
All I could do was stand there and squirm under the owner’s hard grip, trying my best not to burst into tears.
“Out with it, you little rascal,” he commanded, while his eyes dug into me.
Without saying another word, I dutifully revealed the chocolate bar, and with downcast eyes, handed it to him. When I tried to run, however, he didn’t let go and instead pulled me in closer.
“Not so fast,” he started. “Let me tell you what they usually do to little thieves like you. The police will come and they’ll throw them into jail for a very, very long time. I’ll let you off today, but if you ever do anything like this again, I’ll call them right away.”
As a child, and under the man’s hard, scrutinizing eyes, I had no doubt he was telling the truth. Within moments, I burst into tears, and when I did, he finally let me go.
“If I’ll ever catch you here again, you’re in for it!” he yelled after me as I booked it from the store with tears streaming from my eyes.
I’d barely made it a single block when I saw Angel nearby. In my embarrassment, I tried to rush past her unseen. Angel, however, had already seen me, and stepped right into my path with outspread arms. I came to a halt. At first, I tried to hide my tears, but then I threw myself into her arms.
“Now, now, you little troublemaker, what did you do this time?”
“Do they really sent little kids to jail for trying to take a chocolate bar?” I burst out while snot ran down my nose.
When Angel heard this, she burst out laughing and patted my head before she leaned down to face me.
“So that’s it. Now listen to me, a good little girl like you shouldn’t do things like this.”
“But you’re doing it, Angel!” I protested.
“Yeah, but that’s different. I’m not a little girl anymore.”
Pouting, I bit my lip and turned away from her. When Angel saw it, she began giggling once more.
“Hey, how about I show you something super cool?”
With that, and without waiting for an answer, she took my hand and dragged me after her.
“Wait, Angel, where are we going?”
Instead of answering, she gave me another one of her toothy trademark smiles.
We raced down the street, then through an alleyway and then up another street before we came to rest in front of an unremarkable building. I stood next to her, panting, with no idea what was going on, but Angel was quick to point at the sign above the door.
“W-what’s that?” I could finally bring out.
“An internet café!” Angel announced. “Come on, let’s go in!”
At the time, internet cafés were still a popular thing. The internet wasn’t as ever-present as it is today, and our old social housing building, like so many others in the area, had no connection.
Yet at my age, I’d no idea what an internet café or even the internet was.
When Angel set me down in front of a giant computer monitor, and opened up a website comprising nothing but kitty pictures, my eyes grew wider than they’d ever been before.
“Oh my god, I love them! I want all of them!” I half-screamed in my excitement, making a few other patrons throwing us a disdained look.
“Not so loud, dummy,” Angel castigated me, giggling.
Before I knew it, we’d spent half an hour in front of the computer. Angel had just shown me a page full of little flash games, and I was busy helping a little cat catch fish when someone spoke up to us.
“Now, who do we have here? You know our hourly rate, right? And it’s double since you brought someone with you. Let me guess, no money again?”
When I looked up from the game, I saw a man in a sweaty shirt that strained under his heavy pot belly.
His tiny bead-like eyes were focused on Angel and only Angel. It was almost as if I didn’t exist, and as he continued to stare at her, a hungry grin came over his face.
For the shortest moment, as Angel turned to face him, her smile wavered and a disgusting look came over her face. For a long, strained moment, neither of the two said anything before Angel went up to him and whispered something into his ear.
A second later, the man walked away and Angel turned back to me.
“Hey, I’ve got to take care of a little something. The owners got some problem with the computers, and wouldn’t you know it, I’m secretly a computer wizard! Just stay here and play your game. I’ll have it fixed in no time!”
I was about to ask her if I could tag along, but before I could, she gave me another pat on the head.
“Look, you just stay here and help the little kitty catch all the fishes, all right?”
I gave her an enthusiastic nod and went back to my game. Minutes passed, soon half an hour, and eventually, Angel returned to my side.
“Good as new,” she brought out, giving me a thumps-up.
Incidents like this took place a lot when I was with Angel, and many times, she had to leave my side for a bit. Sometimes, she ran into one of her many friends, other times she offered her help to people, just like that day at the internet café.
As a child, I believed everything Angel told me. Angel was the smartest person I knew. It was only natural that she could repair cars or fix broken computers. I had no doubt that she could do anything. As I grew older, however, I understood what was really happening. Even though Angel was always smiling, always positive, and always full of laughter.
As happy as my days with Angel were, they weren’t free of trouble. I always dreaded going home, and I was always afraid when I pushed open the door to our apartment. Often, dad was still awake, heavily drunk and staring me down with a bottle of his disgusting liquor in hand.
Sometimes, he’d yell at me or threaten me, sometimes, he’d throw an empty bottle my way, but he always stared at me as if I didn’t belong, as if I was a stray who’d wandered into the wrong place.
“The hell’s that?” he yelled at me one day, early in the afternoon.
He’d made his way into my room, and like so many times before, rummaged through what few things were left in it. I knew he was desperate to find something, anything of value, he could trade for booze.
What he held in his hand that day, however, was the small porcelain cat Angel had stolen for me.
“My kitty!” I burst out when I saw it in his hand.
“Where the hell’d you get that stupid thing from? Don’t tell me you took some of my money? I knew I should’ve been able to get more than two bottles.”
“No, Angel gave it to me!”
“Angel? The hell you talking about, you dumb little bitch?” he snapped at me.
By now, he’d grown angry again, seriously angry, and without waiting for an answer, he hurled the small figurine across the room.
“No!” I screamed, jumped off the bed and hurried to where it had landed.
I’d hoped it was all right, and that nothing had happened to it, but he’d thrown it with such force, the tiny figurine had shattered into dozens of pieces. When I saw it, a little paw here, an ear there, and part of the tail further away, I broke into tears.
“Why, daddy? Why’d you do that?” I asked, sobbing.
For a moment, he stared at me, his free hand already balled into a fist, but then he lowered it again. A short little laugh escaped his mouth before he turned to leave the room.
“Stupid bitch, crying about something like that,” he mumbled to himself.
At that moment, I hated him more than I’d ever hated him before. As I sat there, on the room’s dirty floor, I tried to piece the little figurine back together. The harder I tried, though, the more it broke apart, into tinier and tinier pieces.
Eventually, in a mixture of frustration, anger, and sadness, I jumped to my feet and rushed toward the front door.
“I hate you!” I screamed at dad before I up and vanished.
His tired eyes focused on me and saw the surprised look on his face for having stood up to him. At that moment, I felt as strong as Angel, unstoppable, but then, as I dashed down the stairs, the tears returned.
Angel’s kitty. He’d broken it. He’d broken it just because I had it! Just because he could!
Outside, I slumped down in a corner near the building’s entrance. As much as I tried, the tears didn’t want to stop.
I don’t know how much time had passed, but eventually, I felt a well-known pat on my head and when I looked up, I saw the same round face framed by strawberry blond hair.
“Always crying, you little dummy.”
“He broke the kitty,” I lamented between sobs.
“No biggie, I’ll get you another one! I’ll get you all of them, in all colors and all shapes!”
“But he’ll just break them again, all of them! He’ll break everything, just like mom’s picture!”
With that, I began sobbing once more. For the first time, even Angel’s bright smile and bouncy demeanor weren’t enough to make me smile.
For a moment, Angel was quiet before she let out a heavy sigh.
“Okay,” she finally said.
I looked up, giving her a questioning look.
“Come on, I’ll show you something. It’s my special place, so it has to stay our secret, okay?”
When I gave her a weak nod, her smile returned. Then she took my hand and began leading me down the street.
We walked on for almost half an hour, following alleyways and half-hidden passages before we arrived at an old building.
It was huge, bigger than any other I’d seen in the area, bigger even than the mall Angel and I had visited. As I stared upward, I couldn’t even count how many floors there were. Yet it seemed abandoned. Debris was everywhere, the front door broken down, the windows destroyed, and obscenities covered the walls.
As I stared at the ominous, looming building, I grew anxious and couldn’t help but shuffle around.
“Let’s go! Come on!”
When I didn’t move, Angel stepped up to me and brought her round, smiling face close to mine.
“It’s safe, I promise,” she said, patting my head.
Before I knew what was happening, we were already inside. As Angel led me down a long, empty hallway, our steps seemed to echo endlessly. Then, she led me to a staircase, and we went up floor after floor.
When we’d made it to the top, I was exhausted and wondered why Angel had brought me here. All I saw was a rusty, old metal door, one that Angel promptly pushed open. The loud scraping noise made me cringe, and my eyes darted around, afraid someone might have heard us.
“Don’t worry, there’s no one else here.”
With that, she stepped through the door.
At first, I didn’t know what she’d wanted to show me, but then I realized where we were: on a rooftop.
“You can see the entire city from up here!” Angel exclaimed.
For a second, I was quiet, too stunned by the view. She was right. You could see everything from up here. The streets, the cars, the buildings, the people, and so much more.
Eventually, we sat down by the edge, just staring out at the city, looking at buildings, trying to find our home, or watching the endlessly moving traffic.
As we did, however, I noticed that Angel’s face had changed. For the first time, her smile was gone, her deep blue eyes had grown smaller and a thoughtful look had come over her face.
“You know, I hate it,” she suddenly said.
Her voice had become quiet, barely more than a whisper.
“What do you-?”
“This,” she said, and pointed at the city below us.
“This place, this city, this world, all of it! It’s all just the same. All the fun and all the happiness are gone. Just watch the people! They all just go on, back and forth, day after day after day. No one does anything else, and no one cares for anyone else. They just go to work, go back home and then, they do it all over again, until the day they die. There’s no color anymore, they’re all just gray.”
As I listened to her, and looked down myself, I noticed it, too. The traffic moved through the street in endless lines of cars that all looked the same. The sidewalks were full of people just shuffling along. As I watched, I realized how right she was. It really was all just the same.
“Why’s it like that?” I eventually asked.
“That’s just how it is. Life, I mean. People lose their innocence, their imagination. They forget their dreams and abandon their wishes. And then, they replace them with work, with money, with responsibilities and with, with… this!” she exclaimed, pointing at the gray mush that was our city once more.
“They abandon who they are, who they once were, and so they turn gray. By now, all the color in this city’s gone.”
“But where’d it all go?”
“Up there, in the sky. Every dream, every wish and every bit of innocence and imagination, they turn into tears, into irradiant tears. And they’re all up there, gathering in the sky.”
I stared at the bluish-gray sky, at the clouds and the sun hidden behind them, but I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“I can’t see it.”
Suddenly, Angel put her hands over my eyes.
“Well, that’s not how it works. You can’t see them with your eyes, but you have to use your heart, your imagination. Up there, in the sky, there’s all the wishes and all the dreams people gave up on. They come in all the colors of the rainbow. It’s the most colorful and beautiful place in the entire world, one full of joy and happiness. A sky full of irradiant tears, an ocean of the brightest colors.”
As Angel continued to describe it and told me about the irradiant tears and of people’s formless and forgotten dreams, I could slowly see them in my mind. I imagined an ocean of all the colors in the rainbow wafting through the sky. It was hidden from normal eyes, but still there.
“Can you see it?” Angel asked in a whisper.
“Yes, I can! It’s so beautiful!”
At that moment, Angel took her hands from my eyes and sat down next to me again.
“You know, I wish I could escape from the gray, colorless world down there. I wish I’d be forgotten by everyone, too, by everyone and anyone. Then I could become an irradiant tear myself and be part of that beautiful ocean forever.”
“But I won’t forget you! I’ll never forget you, Angel!” I blurted out in an instant.
When I said this, Angel smiled at me. Yet this smile was so different from her usual one. It wasn’t the same beaming one she always wore. No, this one was full of endless sadness.
“Angel?”
“I’m joking, silly!” she was quick to say, and her usual beaming smile returned.
A moment later, she put her hands in her pockets, and with a wide grin, brought out a handful of candy, which she divided between the two of us.
I don’t know how long we sat there. It had been the middle of the afternoon when we’d made our way up the stairs. As we talked, the sun wandered over the horizon. For a short few minutes, I thought I could actually see them, Angel’s irradiant tears. When the sun set, the sky was full of colors. At first it was bright yellow and organ, then vibrant red and violet before it was all replaced by the dark of the night.
Even then, we still sat there, staring up at the sky, at the stars, and Angel told me stories about every single one of them. They were all beautiful, colorful worlds, places of happiness, full of joy and dreams and wonder. And once Angel became an irradiant tear herself, she’d be able to visit all of them.
“We should head home. It’s gotten way too late,” she eventually said.
I yawned and gave her a mumbled reply, which prompted another giggle.
She carefully led me down the many dark flights of stairs, out into the streets and back to our building.
“Well, you better head to bed! We don’t want you to be tired all day tomorrow, do we?”
As she said this, I suddenly couldn’t help it and threw myself at her.
“Angel! I… I don’t want to go back! He’s always yelling at me and hurting me and destroying everything! Why can’t I come with you? Why can’t I sleep at your place?”
“I told you, dummy, my place’s a mess and I’m too embarrassed to show anyone.”
“But I don’t mind! Our place’s dirty too, and it stinks, and there’s all those bottles and dad, he’s…”
I couldn’t go on, started sobbing and buried my face in her bosom.
“Now, now, it’s going to be all right. I bet your dad’s asleep, anyway.”
I looked up at her, stared at her round face, at her strawberry blond hair and her deep blue eyes, and eventually, I nodded.
As quietly as I could, I pushed open the door. Before I stepped inside, however, I turned and looked after Angel once more, whispering her a quiet good night.
Then I tip-toed through the dark, silent apartment, trying my best to find my way between empty bottles and the various items dad must’ve hurled across the room in another drunken stupor. Step by step, I continued, but suddenly I bumped my foot against something unseen. I stumbled backward, tripped over an empty bottle, and fell against the small couch table.
The resulting thud and quiet yelp that escaped my mouth were bad enough, but then the sound of shattering glass reached my ear.
I froze and held my breath. For a second, this sound drowned out everything else and reverberated through the entire apartment. In shock, I turned around, only to see that one of dad’s liquor bottles had fallen and shattered on the ground.
Slowly, ever so slowly, my eyes moved upward to the giant, heavy-set figure on the couch. Yet dad didn’t move, didn’t get up and continued snoring. Angel had been right. He was asleep. Oh thank god, he really was asleep.
In the dark, and with shaking hands, I picked up the remains of the bottle. More than once, I winced as shards cut into my hands and fingers.
The entire ordeal took forever. I was sweating, shaking and constantly staring upward, afraid to find him awake, to find him staring down at me. I could already see his fists in my mind, could almost feel the slap I thought was coming. But no, he didn’t wake up.
Once I was finally done, I threw all the shards in the trash before I snuck into my room and hid myself under the blanket.
“He won’t know, he won’t know it wasn’t me,” I told myself again and again.
I lay in bed for what must’ve been an eternity. I was shaking and terribly afraid he’d come for me after all.
Eventually, out of sheer exhaustion, I drifted off to sleep. In my dreams that night, I was holding hands and the two of us swam through an ocean of colorful, irradiant tears. We were both laughing, traveling all around the world and towards the stars.
And then it was over. The irradiant tears and Angel’s face vanished and were replaced by nothing but the deepest darkness. I felt something pressing against my body, holding me down. I struggled, kicked the blanket away, only to be greeted by a nightmarish, twisted visage.
In the dark, I almost couldn’t make out a face. All I could see were wide, glowing eyes. Dad’s eyes.
“The fuck did you do?”
His voice was icy, quiet, but full of pure, unadulterated anger.
“Daddy, I-“ I started, but the moment he heard my voice, one of his hands closed around my neck.
“You goddamn little bitch!” he screamed at me.
His breath stank of his disgusting liquor, making me cough, almost gag.
“Thought you could hide what you did, didn’t you?”
A laugh escaped his mouth. It was a cruel sound unlike anything I’d heard before, one that send shivers through my entire body.
“You’re just like your mother, just like her, trying to make a goddamn fool of me!”
“No, daddy. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” I pleaded with him.
Yet, my quiet voice didn’t seem to reach him and, in one swift motion, he pulled me from the bed and hurled my tiny body across the room.
I landed, crashing against the wardrobe on the other side. When he heard my pained cry, he laughed again.
“That’s what you get for messing with my booze.”
Shambling, he made his way towards me. Each of his steps was slow, and so hard, it seemed to shake the entire building.
By now, I’d pushed myself to my arms, then my knees, and began crawling away. I knew I had to get away, I had to get out, but before I could, his hand closed around my ankle.
“Oh no, you won’t. Not today, not anymore,” he slurred at me.
“It’s always you. It’s always been you! The one who ruined everything! If it hadn’t been for you, Julie wouldn’t have left me. I’d still have my job. Without you, everything’d still be all right!”
As he screamed those words at me, he pulled me up by the leg and brought my little body up in front of his face. Even in the dark, I could see the mad grin that distorted it, could see how wild his eyes were.
The pain as he’d jerked me upwards had been almost unbearable, but his expression was so much worse.
Panic washed over me in heavy waves and I struggled. I beat the air with my thin arms before I began screaming. I screamed for Angel, screamed with what little strength I had left, screamed at the top of my lungs.
Yet within moments, he pushed his giant, sweaty hand over my mouth, drowning out my screams… my hope.
“Shut the fuck up! There are no angels who’ll come for you.”
And then, he brought his mouth close to my ear and whispered: “No one will come for you.”
As he said this, he began laughing again. It was a manic, wild sound, more animal than human, reminding me of a wild dog me and Angel had once seen.
Once more, I struggled, fought, tried to scream again and bit down on his hand. I didn’t even see the slap coming. It was hard, all knuckles. For a moment, my vision went dark. When it returned, I could taste blood in my mouth.
“Oh, that’s not all. That’s nothing. I’ll make sure to shut you up for good!”
With that, he stumbled towards the small kitchenette at the other end of the apartment and threw me to the ground. Before I could even move, he brought his foot down on me. For a terrified moment, I thought he’d crush me, trample me until there was nothing left of me.
But then, in the waning light of the moon, I saw something in his hand, something long and shimmering.
“Should’ve done this years ago. Should’ve done it the moment Julie pushed you out of her body! But now, now I’m taking it all back! My life, Julie, everything! Without you here, it’s finally going to be all right!”
And in that moment, I screamed once more. With tears of desperation in my eyes, I called out to her, called out to Angel to save me, to rescue me.
Dad only laughed. By now, his laughter was shrill, nothing but insane. For a single, mad second, he even joined in my screams, mimicking my voice and calling out for angels as well.
Then the front door burst open.
It had to be a dream, an illusion, nothing but a figment of my imagination. A moment later, however, a figure threw herself at dad, freeing me and sending both of them stumbling away.
“Who the fuck?” he cursed.
For the shortest of moments, before the moon vanished behind the clouds again, I saw a round face, strawberry blond hair and deep blue eyes.
“Angel? How are you-?”
Our eyes met.
“Run, get out and-!”
Her voice was cut off when dad plunged the kitchen knife deep into her body. Suddenly, all the sound was gone. I didn’t hear Angel’s pained scream, nor dad’s triumphant laughter. Instead, all I could do was to stare at the single dark spot on Angel’s body that grew bigger and bigger.
“No! Angel!” I finally screamed.
“Once I’m done with this bitch, I’ll make sure to-“
Dad never finished his sentence. When Angel had thrown herself at him, when the two had tumbled away from me, they’d come to a stop right next to a window. With a last bout of energy, Angel pushed him backward. Glass shattered, wood broke, and a moment later, nothing but an empty broken window remained. Dad was gone, but so was Angel.
For long moments, I stood there, staring at the ruined window, waiting, hoping for Angel to fly upward, for her to be an actual angel. I hoped for her to be what I always thought she was, my guardian angel.
Yet the real world is no fairy tale. No, it’s a gray, colorless and most of all dark place.
I stood there when police sirens reached my ears, when people started screaming and I still stood there when the police stormed into the apartment. When they tried to lead me outside, I screamed at them, fought and told them Angel would be back, that she’d rise and come for me.
It didn’t happen, of course, and as they dragged me outside, I heard it.
Not ‘he fell,’ but ‘they fell.’ Two bodies. Two dead.
I don’t remember for how long I was at the hospital. Everything after that night was a blur, and none of it mattered. Angel was gone.
Over the next years, I went from foster home to foster home. Things weren’t easy, and I wasn’t a good child, and turned into an even worse teenager.
One day, however, by sheer accident, I ended up at the same dilapidated building. Almost in a trance, I went up the stairs. As I did, I could almost feel Angel’s delicate hand holding onto mine.
When I made it to the rooftop, I remembered it all: the lost dreams and wishes, but also, the irradiant tears. As I stared at the sky, I wondered when I’d lost my dreams, when I’d given up on them and if I’d ever get them back.
No, I told myself, as I stared down at the city below, I wouldn’t end up like all those gray, colorless people.
Even long after her death, Angel still helped me, still protected me and kept me going.
Things didn’t change overnight, of course, they never do, but change they did.
By now, over two decades after Angel’s death, my life isn’t exactly happy, nor is it the most beautiful or colorful, but I’ve found my very own dream. I did what Angel did for me. I help those poor little girls out there, those poor little souls just like me.
Over the years, I learned more about Angel and who she really was. Susann, that’s what her real name was, and just like me she was a damaged and abused girl. She was no older than sixteen, without a home or family, and did what she had to get by.
That night, like so many others, when she didn’t have one of her ‘friends’ to take her in, Angel had been sleeping in a hidden corner of the building’s hallway. That’s how she’d heard me and that’s how she’d been able to rescue me.
She was nothing but a child herself, one haunted by her very own demons. She never showed them in front of me and pushed them away to become what I needed the most: a guardian angel.
There’s one thing, however, one thing, I’ll never be able to do.
Angel’s dream had been to be forgotten by everyone and anyone, and to become part of the beautiful, colorful ocean in the sky she loved so much.
Yet she never will be, not as long as I live. For Angel’s someone I can never forget.
I’m sorry, Angel. I’ll guess you have to wait a bit longer before you can become what you truly were, an irradiant tear.