Glass Cathedral

I have a favorite church, more a cathedral, really. Now my faith in the one true God can be considered shaky at best, but there is something about this place. The cool blue glass panes, with sunlight filtering through them, are something to behold.

Cobalt splashes of color on the gray stone floor. The harshness of wood and cut granite…instantly less demanding. The many candles lining the walls add to the almost serene personality of the building, while a tiny wonder to behold themselves. Even to be found more magnificent when they all blur together as your eyes fill with tears. The white-gold sparks of light blending together with all the other colors – flickering – while you weep and your sorrow melts away.

Maybe that’s why I like this place so much. It doesn’t complain when the silent tears slip down your face. It doesn’t make fun of you for showing emotion, or stare at you in barely disguised disgust. It’s a place for faith and miracles; the building comforts, somehow. Like it wasn’t designed to with its forbidding exterior. It accepts those in need and isn’t aware of those dark secrets one person may harbor.

Well, at least it doesn’t judge. And that’s all we can really ask for, in life. To find someone that won’t judge you, won’t manipulate you. Has dark secrets to match your own. I found someone like that once. But I only have my favorite cathedral left, from them, a last parting gift.

I think that’s the real reason why I like this cathedral.

The man sitting in the pews got up and made his way on the carpeted isle down the center, head held high. Back straight with pride. Eyes dulled with remembered pain and memories. Were it that his clothes weren’t all black and so intimidating, there were priests in the shadows almost aching to comfort him with words of faith. Even the few others sitting in the pews, wishing they could offer this tortured man some comfort.

He has hair as black as midnight, accenting the clothes, and the eyes that seem to change color at every nuance of the surrounding light. At the alter, he kneels gracefully, for but a moment. Quickly coming to his feet to conquer the moment of vulnerability.

Slowly, with agonizing attention to his every move, he turns from the alter – where a single rose is now placed. He walks back down the isle in a world different than where everyone else exists. People, things, different in his memory and eye.

--

You could call it a day like any other. Sunshine, a few clouds, too many people, and lots of exhaust. Missing traffic lights, annoying honks, and that ass that cut you off. Just another Monday, yea? I was going on the freeway towards work at an hour before even the sun had fully come above the horizon. Yet, still, there managed to be too much going on. Fucking humans.

Maybe it is just the fact that I hate my job, or that I hate the people in it, or that I hate the people I have to help, or that I hate people in general. But today I felt a big increase in my unhappiness. A big chunk of me devoted to my anxiety and depression. I was restless.

That’s why I get fired. I am restless. Oh wait; she did fire me yesterday didn’t she? Couldn’t take the dirty, pathetic, and sniveling bitch anymore, so I blew up. I called out our boss – and while I’m sure more than a few of the others were happy someone finally did that – she got pissed.

So then I had the rest of the day. Free. Something that I haven’t had the pleasure of for way too long. And I quickly decided it would be a better life where I could get to just go away for a few hours, days, weeks, years, at a time.

That’s when I decided to go down that big dusty road that I always pass coming home, from my ex-job. I had no idea where it went, but I knew it was one of those desert highways littering Arizona – the ones all those freaky horror movies are based on. I had nothing going for me in the current city, so it didn’t take long for me to pick up a few things, and take off.

I always was a light packer.

So there I was, just about noon and the wind from my speeding SUV whipping my hair about. And I was smiling. Really smiling, not the patronizing little sneer that’s never left my face in public for years.

Sure, the sun made it hot. Sure, I was worried about what I was doing. Sure, I was worried about money. But…Hell…I wasn’t made to be a desk-job 9-7 hour’s person. I’d find something in the city this road eventually ran to.

I’d been driving for hours now; it was early-ish evening when I came across one of those bluffs that everybody passing has put something on. A personalization. It decided me that I’d pull off here, for the night; I wanted to see it in the light the next morning. Maybe add my own decoration.

Slowing down from the break-neck speed of before, I was finally able to really make out my surroundings.

And if it was freeing in the daytime, it was damn ethereal in the sunset. It completely took my breath away. And I think, as I can never quite remember this part, I completely forgot about driving for a split second.

Because when I looked back, to the road that is, there was something in the middle. And it looked too much like a ghost. All pale skin, pale cloth of some sort, and pale wings with splotches of something I thought might be blood. But as I looked on in a mute horror, it collapsed.

I did the universal swerve-the-speeding-car-while-breaking-too-hard-to-avoid-an-irreparable-mistake. Even if I was already sure the bundle – the human, I guess – was already dead. I mean, middle of desert, guy barely wearing a sheet, and I’m just going to think he is coming from some kind of messed up Halloween party? And his costume had wings…complete…maybe the town isn’t so far away as I had hoped?

My mind, however, was taken from the mysterious fellow, as my peril became more immediate. I thought for sure I was going to crash against the various rocks lining the barely visible road. By whatever luck, I didn’t, but my back still hurt from whip lashing around as I got up from the car and looked back to the figure in the middle of the road. Yup. Definitely a sheet with blood. So he pissed someone off and they left him here to die? Do I want to get involved with this?

The slightly moving figure, not dead after all. Aw damn it, if I’m willing to swerve and practically die for him, I can bring him into the damn car before it gets too cold. Especially for him in his sheet.

“Hey! Hey! Are you alright?” And stupid question of the century award goes to…me! I run up towards the guy, to see just what the hell was going on to cause the bleeding. By now, I was getting no little freaked, and really wanted to know something. Remind me again why I decided to take this stupid road trip to nowhere?

Part of me, though, was glad I’d found the guy. He was providing a neat little thrill in my otherwise dull-up-until-now life.

“What happened-” I completely lost my voice and all train of thought as the guy shifted towards me, on the road, with a small groan. The guy was covered in small sluggishly bleeding cuts, little pricks, it looked like. Too neat, not nearly ragged at all, to be an animal attack. Definitely human weaponry. And unless monkeys (as the only other creature with a working opposable thumb) suddenly decide that Arizona is a great place to live while studying the art of the Knife…right. His hair was matted with drying and dried blood, and the bloody spots on the wings obviously had had feathers ripped from them. That’s some realistic wings.They even looked like they completely meshed with his skin from the back, probably just a trick of the light.

That thought like all the others morphed to form a single one – as the guy opened his eyes. Holy shit, his eyes are beautiful. This is the reason I can never really remember this time; every time I try, the eyes just sallow everything. Glistening orbs of purest silver with what looked like glowing sparks of an electric blue.

The guy mouthed something, and I couldn’t hear him, so I kneeled down and leaned in, subconsciously cradling his head. And was immediately glad that I had leaned down as I felt something way too close wiz over my head.

“What the fuck!?”

I was sorry I had yelled so loud, and right in the guy’s ear, when he winced. Given the guys luck so far, he probably had a bloody concussion. “O-okay…well, uhm, sir… I’m sorry ‘bout that lets get you to my car, alright? No worries, I’m not some axe-murderer. Are you? You’d tell me if you were? You’re probably not, though, given the state you’re in. Of course, you could be some escaped nut from the government facility around here somewhere.

“I bet they call you angel.”

The head lolled against my chest, and I barely heard a few words, “I know…” In an odd way, the conviction, made it seemed like the guy really already new me, well. “you… Darien…”

Oh boy. There is no way the guy could guess my name in one go, barely conscious, in pain, and having never met me before! At least I didn’t recognize him from anywhere. Eyes like his would stay in my mind for a long time. Definitely going with government secret. And that wiz thingy was probably a bullet! They are trying to protect their dirty asses! Not that I’d tell on them. Sure, I’d bribe ‘em…maybe…OK so not…but…

However stupid of me, I couldn’t find it in me to be overly suspicious of the already damn doubtful guy. I reasoned that a man in as much pain as he no doubt was couldn’t get enough will together to set up a deception… And it’s not like I’m the only Darien…maybe he didn’t even say it like it was my name! Maybe it is his.

But then explain the whole ‘I know you’…he’s lying wounded in front of me…on the cold pavement…obviously delirious.

I could hit myself, sometimes. Then impale myself on an iron bar before jumping off the Eiffel tower. Then maybe get up to do it again, I’m that dense. He needs to be off the pavement and in my car where there at least is the heat soaked into it from the sun.

With this conviction, I slip my hands underneath him, so that I can carry him bridal style, it seems the best position due to all the cuts. The wings are an interesting hurdle, as I can’t quite tell how he got them on to take them off…and whenever I tug light on them, he moans, so I guess it’s that supper effects glue stuff. What is he, a fallen angel? As I cradle his cold body towards me, he weakly pushes himself closer towards my body heat, and I can see that he is smiling.

Must be some nice hallucinations, the bastard.

Well, as stunning as it is, smiles do not fit on a blood encrusted face. Less than blood fits on an angel. Then he actually cuddles into me and I swear I can hear him purring, and I feel my frown go away…and damn if I didn’t smile while I sat him in the car. He seems to ooze comfort even as hurt as he is.

I found myself talking, babbling. Like I always do when I’m extremely (un)comfortable, and oh do I find the weirdest places to be (un)comfortable.

“So, I’m Darien Jarvis. I know you know that…but I bet you don’t know that I’m 23. Unless you’re a stalker, but! Even then you wouldn’t know that I just got fired by a pretentious bitch for not fucking her. Or that I love William Shakespeare. Or that I’m moving with no place to stay. Or that I have not five bucks and a car to my name.

“Or…that I’m an extremely stupid person. Or that I’m a very dense idiotic retard, and that I’m actually fairly ugly and steal shampoo from hotel carts…” The scene that played out earlier in my mind comes to the front, and I find myself saying it before I fully comprehend. “You could hit me, impale me on an iron bar, then shove me off the Eiffel tower…and I’d get up from my smudge on the pavement to do it again, I guess…

“But, right, hello, I’m rambling. You must be tired. And you obviously don’t need my life’s story, Angel, do you mind if I call you that? It’s just the wings that cued me…and that fact that you pretty much fell from the sky…are you a fallen angel? Are you human? Are you even real? Am I really talking to myself right now?

“I’d better just stop that thought there, because then I’ll start to break down in the middle of nowhere, and then you will suffer for it. Because even if you aren’t real, you’re still breathing in my arms, and I don’t want you to die. Then I’ll have blood on my hands, and the guilt to add to everything else that I suffer from…no meds don’t help, I tried.

“Right, well, we’re here. Viola, my car…and I should probably stop talking to myself. You’re obviously unconscious.” Actually, his breath hitched at that, showing me fairly conclusively he was still lucid…crap. That’s gonna make an interesting morning.

--

Six years ago was when I met my heart. Four years ago, this very day, I said goodbye to him.

He didn’t want to put the past behind him. He’d never been happy, and never would again, but for the two years he spent with the one he loved – and still did. He had been content, satisfied to be still breathing. Now, he had no meaning.

--

The guy woke up a few hours later, after we both drifted off to the sound of me rambling for what seemed hours on end. I, of course was still wide awake – not to mention freezing my ass off – to make sure Angel was still breathing. I think I stopped breathing for a few seconds after he opened his eyes in the morning – containing barely any of the fogged over glaze of last night. It just felt that looking into them I could see everything, life, my life.

But I got over it, and in a very uncharacteristic act, smiled.

“Hello, Angel, you don’t really mind me calling you that until you tell me your name, do you?” The guy – Angel – smiled.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Well, I’m-”

“Darien Jarvis, 23 year-old jobless, homeless, penniless, and freezing his ass off, come over here, I’m cold too.” To say I was stunned wins the understatement of the century award. I was down right comatose. The guy had been like dead a few hours ago, and now he had made a joke and invited me to the large back seat...to keep warm.

“Uh…you were paying attention?” People don’t pay attention to me, especially when I start babbling…and well…I kinda made a fool of myself with that Eiffel tower thing…or was that showed him that I am truly a deranged neurotic schizophrenic?

“It was better than focusing on the pain. Now I want you over here so I don’t have to focus on the cold. If that’s alright, of course…”

“Yea, yea, it’s fine…just let me get something out of the back real quick…” I felt tired of keeping up with the shock this guy kept giving. I’d especially like to know where the hell the wings went. I know I didn’t imagine them…there were still feathers on the road.

Regardless, I needed alcohol. If only so that I couldn’t focus on how nice it would be to lay next to a warm, breathing, being. Still not sure he’s even human, but what the hell. Nothing to loose. Except life, but eh.

“Here we go, a little friend of mine, Angel meet Wine Bottle #3, Wine Bottle #3 meet Angel.” I refuse to mention where #1-2 went. Angel laughed, and the sound made me feel proud. And faced with a sudden need to know the other man’s name, as I sat down next to Angel’s prone figure.

“My name is Avayce, Darien, and you’re not warming anyone there, come on,” I felt the beginning of the tingling in my cheeks, damn, I was blushing. Oh cruel fate. Now I had no choice, I opened the bottle, said goodbye to control, and threw myself down.

He was warm, the little liar…

--

We met in the oddest of odd places, we had our first kiss in the bathroom of a drive-by diner, and we had our first sex in a fantasy land. Because that was my life, those two years, some kind of fantasy land.

I should have just appreciated the bliss while I had it. Humans weren’t supposed to live so content; I should have known something would happen.

But I didn’t then, I do now.

He could walk forever, and not go anywhere. His mind circling in haphazard patterns over the time he used to smile. When his love smile. The time he used to know what it meant to have emotion. The time he used to know how it was to live.

--

It’s only been two years since I met Avayace, but it feels like forever. And we have forever more to find out what infinity means. “Brooding doesn’t become you, Darien. You need to smile more!” I’ll know that voice where ever I may hear it. I’ll love the soul attached to it far more than I can articulate.

“Maybe you should’ve gone for a bubblier guy, Angel,” I use the name Angel, now, only because it makes Avayace laugh, and smile that great smile. But, then again, he may like it only because he actually is an angel…

…At least in my very biased opinion.

“Maybe you should’ve fallen for the class Goth, Eiffel,” Blow for blow, I use his nickname, he uses mine. It still makes me smile remembering the way I told Avayace what I should do with the Eiffel tower. Coupled with the fact that I am about a foot taller than him, it rather fits.

It’s an inside joke, to us, now…like almost everything. Anything my Angel says could be construed as hilarious.

“One can only have so many philosophical discussions,” I say distractedly, as Avayace bent his head and cuddled into my neck, making me lean back into his body. A quaint smile on my bemused face, just waiting for his rejoinder.

“Mmm…one can only have so much blonde…” He hasn’t stopped kissing my neck, moving his hands over my shoulders. Its doing wonders for all the stressed stored up in the tense muscles.

“Are you going to change your hair again!?” Angel laughs and moves his head from my neck, instead twirling me around and grabbing my hand, pulling me back towards our room.

“Of course, lover-mine.”

--

We settled down in a new city far away from my old one. Avayace’s home town, I was lead to believe. It was a great place – had one of those homely appeals, friendly neighbors that brought you pies. By far, its greatest feature was it’s church. Cathedral, really. An awe-inspiring place of devotion and mysterious grace. We’d go there every Sunday like almost everyone else would, if only to see the place that had us both enthralled so completely.

How could I believe in a merciful God, when he’d caused the priceless angel Avayace to fall?

--

There were feathers littering the ground, blood splatters as well. A single, unmoving mass clothed in the purest of white. A scene from a memory. Hair falling over a face that is all too recognizable. Serious de ja vu.

“Avayace! What the hell?” Beyond thought, or mortal comprehension, Darien runs towards the figure lying prone on the rocky ground. The dying light creating a halo around the man’s pale skin.

Darien runs his hands through his lover’s hair, and pulls the limp form into his lap. Holding the head and shoulders as the body proves to be going cold fast. Hot tears pour down his face as he takes in the raspy breathing, and the large amount of blood. Still pouring fast from the great gash across his lover’s abdomen.

He repeats the name like a mantra. Hoping that his fear of loss will call back the one that is Avayace.

Half blinded by tears, he can only blurrily acknowledge a motion from the form in his arms. Darien feels the cold hand against his cheek as a kind of final act. His mind refuses to accept the fact that Avayace is dying. “Do not weep, beloved…I go to a final rest…we will meet again, my lover.”

The telling sigh, of a final breath taken and released, causes more tears to fall. Despite the coaxing words of his now dead love and respected friend.

And many more tears would be shed.

--

I died, when he did.