THE CITY OF ANGELS IS ON THE WRONG COAST

I thought I saw an Angel today.

New York City. A big, bright, massively populated town on the Eastern coast of the country. The city of lights. The city of opportunity. If you can make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere. Every day, tourists from all over the world pour into this city.

And I can’t figure out why they’d want to be in such a disgusting place.

Nobody here cares about each other. Every single day someone dies in this city, and nobody cares at all. Half the time, they’re dying because of somebody else. Every day I have to walk ten blocks from my apartment to my place of employment, and every afternoon I have to walk back. And every single time I make it, I thank God Himself that I didn’t die on the way. Being at work is no day at the park, either. It’s rough, dangerous, just like everyone and everything in this town.

And then I saw her.

Walking down the street. She looked to be just a few years younger than myself, maybe she was nineteen or twenty. Her hair was a very dark brown and shoulder length, her eyes a deep sea green.

And she had a smile that could make the stars fall out of the sky.

Nobody in this town ever smiles. Just seeing her walking among the people, not cursing and shouting at everyone and everything, but just smiling, and not one of those fake smiles, not one of those “smile so nobody knows how you feel inside” smiles, but it was real, a real smile. And the way she walked, it was almost as though she was gliding by like a dove through the autumn air.

How could I not follow her?

I traced her footsteps, from a distance, trying to make sure that she didn’t notice me. She eventually led me into Central Park. The sun was starting to lower into the sky, painting the sky in beautiful shades of red and orange and yellow, and at the points furthest from the sunset the sky was a very deep, calm blue. But I wasn’t focusing much on the brilliance of the sky, my eyes were glued to the girl that I was now following. I watched from behind trees or from far away as she walked among the flowers, stopped to smell them, and waved at and greeted the rare passerby. Usually they just stared, and one of them even cursed at her, but she just smiled and continued on her way, not even changing her smile one bit. Something about that smile of hers made my stomach feel fluttery, like my insides were made of moths and butterflies. Then, for a moment it looked as though she would turn around and see me. I wanted to hide, but there was nothing to cover me. I didn’t want her to know that I was following her, she might find it weird. Maybe it was weird. But I just had to know who she was. She wasn’t like everybody else... she was better. I could tell just by her smile. She was better than everyone else.

She was better than me.

She stopped in mid-turn and looked off into the tallest towers of the city. I followed her gaze, and noticed how beautiful the city looked from out here. The lights shone brightly on the buildings, and reflected upon the darkening sky above. I had never looked at the city from this angle, or maybe I had just never tried to imagine the city as being beautiful in any way.

Maybe it isn’t so disgusting after all...

Then, I turned back to the girl, and she was walking on again. Had she seen me? I wasn’t sure. I followed her calmly, quietly, not too close yet not too far away. Then, she suddenly stopped and turned around, and I quickly jumped behind a tree. I hoped she hadn’t seen me, yet somewhere deep inside my tangled mess of dirty clothes and my butterfly insides, I wanted her to have seen me. Carefully, quietly, slowly, I peeked around the tree, and surely enough, she was staring right at me, and smiling even more brilliantly now. My heart could’ve stopped and I’d have never noticed it at all. I came out from behind the tree, and she laughed, and then turned away and started running. At this, a strange sensation came over me, and my first instinct was to follow her. I started running after her, but as the greenery thickened around us, she only got farther and farther from me. Strangely enough, however, I could still hear her laughing softly as though she was right next to me. As though she was inside of me. I ran and ran, and she got further and further away. My heart was pounding, my lungs weren’t getting any air. Was this it, then? I wanted to stop running, needed to stop running, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Maybe she was some sort of siren, luring me into her trap, making me run until my heart gave up and burst, and even then, maybe my body would keep on running, even in death it would never cease.

Then, just as I was sure I’d die, I entered a clearing. By now the sky was dark, and the moon shone brightly. It filled the clearing with a misty blue haze, and although I had been through the park many times, I had never seen this place. There were flowers of every color imaginable stretched out in all directions. It was a hill, and at the top of the hill was a tree stump. The girl stood there, looking down with her eyes closed. She was humming a tune, and it seemed somehow magical, somehow familiar to me. I started to hum along, and we hummed in perfect unity. I had stopped running, and it was as though I didn’t even need to catch my breath, it was just there again.

As we stood there humming, I closed my eyes. The music took over my world, and there was nothing but me, her, this place, this song. No disgusting people, no disgusting city, no danger or crime, no police sirens or gunshots. Just us.

And everything was right.

We stopped our song, and we both started laughing. I couldn’t figure out why we were laughing, but we were. We laughed for a few minutes, but then something happened. Something changed. To this day, I can’t figure out what it was. Maybe the sky got darker. Maybe it opened up. Whatever it was, her smile faded into a grim frown, and she looked at the sky and closed her eyes. The wind began to blow gently, and she started to cry silently, though I couldn’t figure out why. She looked up to the sky, eyes closed, and the wind blew harder in a small tornado around her. Then, it all died down. She stopped crying, and her smile came back. The sight of it filled me with a great warmth and happiness.

“Well, I had fun, but now it’s time for me to leave,” she said.

“Leave!? Where are you going? We just met!” I cried.

“I have to go. My time is up,” she replied.

“But you’re the only thing I’ve ever seen that’s beautiful!” I said.

“I’m sorry. We will meet each other again someday, I know it. Until then, I’ll be watching over you...” she said and trailed off. She looked up at the sky and nodded, and then she looked back at me and smiled her smile. Then, she sprouted wings.

I thought I saw an Angel today.

But she just smiled and flew away.