I remember the first time I saw your face–you woke me up at 3 the fuck am, pounding at the door of my grandparents house. You were lucky they sleep like the dead.
Trigger warnings: magical illness that ends up with losing a magical ability, talks of homelessness, referenced transphobia, cursing, and magical prejudice.
Hands 1 by Tony Belobrajdic
I remember the first time I saw your face–you woke me up at 3 the fuck am, pounding at the door of my grandparents house. You were lucky they sleep like the dead. I looked through the window first (I’m not stupid); your face, it was…a freaking mess.
You were soaking wet, your eyes smudged as drops fell down from your long dark curls. Your brown skin was rubbed until red splotches marked it from your fore-head to your cheekbones. Your wings were unlike the paintings, gray and muted, a great divergence from the glistening white.
Looking back I thought you were crying but, in the moment it sounded ridiculous. Angels did not cry, everyone knew it.
There was a connection, like gravity that told me this was you, my angel. Little sparks across my fingertips as I saw you that would faint but not enough for me to second guess opening the door.
I caught you mid-knocking.
“Hi, I am-” you trailed off. I have forgotten to give you a name and you weren’t an angel anymore.
“I know,” I said and stepped back.
You entered the house and I saw the warmth physically hit you (my grandma always prides herself in having her home at the perfect temperature).
“I…I’ve fallen,” you said, “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just showed you to the guest-room. My grandparents have 3 rooms and until a couple of years ago only used 1. Weirdos.
“Do you sleep?” I asked, retrieving a set of clean bed sheets from the closet.
“I think I do now.”
The guest room was on the second floor far away from all of the other inhabitants, but still, I felt you sobbed as my eyes began to burn. What was worse was that you didn’t have any angels to protect you from the nightmares.
The next day… could’ve gone worse.
Fallen angels were not protected by any type of law, nor seen as sacred under the eyes of believers. I remember you shivering when you discovered, on the internet, news about the angel in Colombia, who was nothing more than an old person with wings as they were treated worse than a circus attraction, exploited for money by their hosts until they died of exhaustion.
I was still a minor with little power of what happened to my life let alone yours. Thankfully, my grandparents took it too well for me not to think this was the first time.
“A fallen angel you say?” asked my grandma. “Do you like chilaquiles?”
“Yes,” you said as my grandad finished chopping a papaya and passed you a bowl of fruit.
Breakfast was delicious as always and everything was going well until you messed it up and freaked out.
“May I have another-” you stopped. Your brain catching up with your mouth and stormed off.
I went after you and found you in your room whispering:
“That’s gluttony, that’s a sin. Angels do not feel gluttony, angels do not feel hungry.”
“Then what in the hell do you feel?” I asked.
You jumped. “The good stuff: joy, happiness, pride, sympathy,” you murmured.
“That sounds boring.”
I sat next to you on the bed. Your wings took up a lot of space, touching me from time to time, I didn’t like it.
“Look, my grandparents, they like when people ask for more food. I think they feel pleased, like they did something good. And asking for more may be a form of gratitude? You still have to say thanks though.”
“So I wasn’t being greedy?”
“No, you definitely were, but a little bit of greed hasn’t hurt anyone. Is the lots that do, in the meantime, don’t worry. It 's only human.”
“Only human,” you echoed.
I don’t know how you felt about that.
The next day you asked my grandma if she had any dresses she didn’t use.
She was overjoyed, telling you how since I had transitioned (socially), I didn’t use dresses anymore so she hadn’t had anyone to give them to. I corrected her that it wasn’t a gender-based decision, I just don’t like dresses. I am agender; I can’t make a gender-based decision, it is an oxymoron.
Your favorite piece was a Lemon Midi Dress which I am very thankful I have never seen my grandmother use. You almost cried when the gartment didn’t fit you because of your wings but my grandad (tailor since 1971) was able to make the perfect arrangements.
That was the first time since you came knocking that you brushed your hair, washed your face and brushed your teeth. In that moment you looked like a fairy, albeit with bird-like wings instead of bug-like ones. All the better if you ask me.
My grandma saw you and decided that you needed to share the outfit with the world, so we went out to have a picnic. The park was buzzing with excitement as we sat in our spot near the lake. The tree that gave us cover had turned a reddish-orange that complemented your yellow dress well.
After eating, you and I went to sit in the swings, swaying slowly back and forth. You were looking at your leather-sandals you have arrived at my home with.
“They…I wanted something angels shouldn’t want,” you said, “I wanted and that is bad enough but, I wanted a name-”
“Sorry.”
“Not your fault,” you said even if it was my duty to give you one, “I also wanted dresses with colors other than the plain boring white we they all use, and like use she/her pronouns, being called a woman though I’m immortal and stuff.”
“Oh.” I said, which was dumb, “Do angels have gender?” which was doubly stupid.
“No we don’t. I wanted one and well… seeing you leave yours gave me courage to want mine.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Not your fault,” you said again and this time it was true.
I wanted to tell you how you also helped me when I came out to my parents and I had to move with my grandparents. How I felt you somewhere helping me up, telling me I wasn’t selfish, that it was okay for me to want a place that I felt not only safe but loved.
“It is okay for you to want that,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“Do you want me to give you a name?” I asked.
“No thanks, I think I’ll like to choose it myself.”
I asked if I’ll be the first to know, and you said of course you’re my best friend.
I was your only friend, I thought, but then again I supposed you counted my grandparents in that statement.
The first time you tried to make other friends went fucking horrible.
It was my cousin’s birthday party. We went after my grandparent tripled verified that my parents wouldn’t be there. You were in your Lemon-Midi Dress and I was armed with noise canceling headphones.
People stared at you, at your wings. They whispered “fallen angel” and passed it along like a game of broken telephone. Good thing though no one dared to say anything to your face, the hypocrisy of society.
We went to sit with the kids. We haven’t discovered your age in human years and even if I was on the brink of being an adult, the kids always had the most interesting conversations. Still it didn’t mean they weren’t a pain in the ass, especially the people close to my age.
I have studied human interactions since I was six to learn how to “break the ice” a.k.a. start conversation correctly and I am currently pursuing a career in sociology still, I find socialization difficult.
In that party, I found it was difficult for you too.
“How are you?” They asked you for pleasantries since they didn’t know you to care.
“I feel like being swapped by a hurricane and spit out. Everything is so difficult to adjust to, you know?” They didn’t know.
They looked at you weird but you didn’t see them looking.
“You’re interesting,” they said as a backhanded insult.
“Thank you. You’re very interesting too, I really don’t know a lot of people so each one is special to me you know?” They didn’t know.
They laughed at you and this time you detected the meanness. You stopped trying to make “small talk” again. I stood up to look for refreshments with you trailing behind me. We never went back to that table.
Instead we went inside the house and sat on the stairs looking at the people on the porch partying and talking without troubles.
“I will never be human,” you dropped on me.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. These people have a script I don’t know. I am constantly tripping over my words.”
I took a big sip of my Sprite and winced.
“That 's shit. I see the world differently from them, and express myself differently from them, it doesn’t mean that I am not human. We as a species have different ways of being—that’s diversity. It’s just that the majority are assholes to those in the minority.”
“So I’ll be able to fit in?” you asked.
“You’ll find your people.”
The day that you could no longer fly was a cold one since it was winter. I have finished my last day of school and found you sitting on the roof.
You were hugging yourself, crying, hurting and shouting about how you hated this, you hated being human, fuck (you did not say) why couldn’t you just go back and forget the pain. Because lord, it sucked, it sucked so much having this part of you taken.
I didn’t know what to say so I just sat next to you until you stopped shouting and only whimpers escaped from your lips. I stayed in your room that night because you seemed to crave company in these moments.
We watched 7 of the 8 Harry Potter movies as I explained to you all the differences between them and the books, the decisions the creative team had made and fun facts of the production. It wasn’t the first time I ranted to you about Harry Potter so I think you were okay with it, maybe even found it comforting.
At 3:00 am (what’s with angels arriving at 3 o’clock?) an archangel came looking for you. It seemed that the fucking Lord finally heard your pleas and was ready to take you back in. A whole load of bullshit.
“You have repented,” the idiot said, “you have been granted the chance to come back home.”
They couldn’t restore your wings to its healthy state but they could make you stop feeling the pain. After all, the angels only felt the good stuff.
You came back 2 weeks after…relieved. A weight had fallen from your shoulders but the bones of your wings still stuck to your back looking feeble, like glowing sticks ready to break.
It was my grandfather that let you in because I still felt hurt and angry, we had helped you, loved you and you were ready to discard us as soon as an easier path for you to walk was presented. I was ready to leave you by yourself for one whole week, maybe two.
I’m glad I didn’t.
You told us that you no longer fit in the sky. Because you had experienced humanity, it was as if you and them were existing in different frequencies, never understanding each other.
“I missed the bad stuff,” you murmured, “Being greedy for grandma’s food, getting joy from material things, crying every time a character in the magic movies dies…Loving you.”
After you explained yourself you asked for forgiveness. Most people apologize first but I guess your tactic worked. I was the first one to forgive and open my arms.
“You can hug me.”
Giving you permission was all you needed to throw yourself into my arms and break down crying.
My grandparents didn’t hug you but, my grandad served you a cup of his ponche con frutas and my grandma left the room only to come back with a floral gown and a clean set of bed sheets.
It took me until New Year’s eve to ask you. We went to the rooftop to see the fireworks and I saw you looking at the lights, longing to touch them.
“Do you miss flying?” I asked.
You stayed pensive for a long time, my noise canceling headphones had begun to slip. I quickly fix them.
“Sometimes,” you said, “it’s like grief; it comes and goes. Sometimes I see a flock of birds and want to follow them and remember that I can’t do that anymore and get frustrated and another feeling in my chest I can’t decipher. Other times, and it is happening more often as time goes on, I forget that I’ve lost them or rather just live my life as it is, not giving it much thought.”
“You think one day you’ll stop grieving?”
“Probably. I hope so.”
We continued watching the fireworks until my Grandma texted me an image of Piolin saying goodnight which I knew was her way of telling us to go to sleep.
“I think I have found my name,” you said one day.
It was the first day of spring (or so the weather man said, I never trust them). We were by the lake under the shade of our tree whose leaves had turned a dark and vibrant green from which little white flowers sprouted. We were eating bolis, yours chocolate chips and mine lemon.
“What is it?”
“It is Amarilys.”
I turned around to face you and raised my hand, you took it.
“Nice to meet you Amarilys, I’m Angel.”
My name made you laugh as it always did whenever someone said it. I admit I was afraid it was offensive but you just washed away a tear and told me it was hilarious.
Your wings - or what was left of them- ended up falling a couple of days later. We watched together as the last bone broke down as easily as uncooked pasta and turned into dust on the floor of the bathroom.
“I guess I am human now.”
You sat in the seat of the toilet hugging yourself, hands looking for the limbs that weren’t there anymore.
“Sort of.” I said cleaning the rest of your wings. “How do you feel?”
“Like shit. I want to crawl underneath my sheets and never come up.”
“That is human all right.” I said and went to lean on the washbin next to you. “Are you leaving us again?”
“Nah. I think I do enjoy being human.”
“Weirdo.”
When we exit the bathroom my grandparents started to dote on you: my grandad gave you a cup of chocolate abuelita and an orejita and my grandma let you help in her crochet project (something she never lets anyone do).
As for me I am happy that you’re still with us and that you seem happy with us being with you too.