Still not the thing but a little bit closer. I can see Sebastian. I can’t see Lana. She is hiding from me. Why is she hiding from me?

**

Lana isn’t the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Remember I have spent hundreds of years studying the human kind in all its subtle variations. I have witnessed in my not so idle curiosity many, many beautiful beings, both female and male. I am well-studied in the subtle shapes, angles and postures that render a person beautiful. My love for Lana transcends the physical, though she is, I must tell you, a wonderful, generous sight.

Though she is beautiful. It was not her beauty that captured me at first. It was laughter. I might never have even noticed her if it were not for her laugh. How many times had I seen her, shared space with her in the sanctuary and never noticed? I could not say. But it was her laughter, strong, forceful, inappropriate that caught my attention.

She was alone in the sanctuary at midday, praying in a room full of short candles, her head bent in solitude. And the intent with which she held herself, the posture of one who is grieving or wrestling with some secret burden. The muttering phrases. The susurrations, soft and unceasing. And then, when one might expect a pang of grief, a wail of despair, there lifted the brash rupture of laughter. It tore the silence. Shattered the stillness. She started laughing and could not seem to stop.

I walked over to her. I could not help myself, my errand entirely forgotten. I was drawn to her in a place beneath thought.

“What’s funny?” I asked. She startled, not realizing that anyone had entered the room.

She looked up at me with eyes bright with tears and there was the mix of humor and sadness in her eyes. And I could not say in that moment if she was more happy or more sad. She was both and embodied both perfectly and I was, quite against my will or expectation, captivated by the elegant contradiction of this woman in this church on this day.

She looked around, surprised to find me standing there, wondering who else she might have disturbed.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bother anyone.”

And she kept watching me, recognizing without saying the strangeness that was in me. It is a thing that happens sometimes when I choose to show myself. The people who see me realize on some level that the figure they are seeing is not quite right. That something about me does not add up. And yet, to her credit, she lowered her gaze, apologized again. “I didn’t mean to disturb anyone.”

“You didn’t disturb me,” I told her. “I heard laughter. One doesn’t often hear laughter in here. I wanted to meet the person making such a wonderful sound.”

I made a promise that I would send each night’s words out as a way to keep accountability, to keep myself moving forward. And tonight you will see what happens when threads don’t line up. There is a hiccup as I try to meet Lana for the first time. I had not expected to meet her praying in a church during lunch break. I don’t know what she is doing there. But this is what it looks like when the story loses a thread. Searching. Contradiction. Searching.

**

She wasn’t much to look at. Thin face lined with anxiety. Big nervous eyes that moved constantly in search of things that could not be seen. She was a nervous person with arms and hands that never seemed to stop moving or be at rest.

She was not a particularly devout person, though she was praying in chapel during her lunch break. Alone except for the old women who came to restock the candles, trim the wicks, dust the railings, smooth the sacristy cloth.

Lana did not speak to these women, silently willing them to disappear so she could be completely alone with her difficulty. She did not belong here. She was raised Catholic but had fallen out of church while still in high school and had never managed to fall back in.

It was a man. It was always a man. That was the problem. From one miserable relationship to the next, each man more disappointing and diminishing than the one before. It was pathetic, really. The way her life moved from sequence to sequence without ever really seeming to stop and wonder at what she was doing. It was tiresome, tedious. Lana hated being here, prostrating herself every day at noon but she knew no other way. It was change she sought most fervently and afternoon prayer was the only avenue she knew to affect change.

The priest approached her once, to ask if he might help her in some way. He could see she was obviously distressed. He was young and meant well-enough, Lana could see but he was frail himself and could not easily help her carry the load she bent beneath.

What I mean to say is her father is sick and she loves her father more than anyone and is desperate for someone to find a cure, some doctor, some researcher, some priest. And so she has come seeking miracles. And the brief respite that comes from finding a silent corner in the world where people are busy all around you but they do not bother to notice or interfere and you can disappear easily into plain sight. And she is praying for deliverance though she is not specific in what she is asking. Sometimes she thinks she is asking for a cure, complete and full remission. No apologies. Just a full reversal of nature and the bitter course of sickness sewn in her father’s veins. And sometimes deliverance is the wish for his to be released and the prayers take the shape of death wish. There are no words but she wishes in such times for death to release them. Her heart prays for death to take him. And then, she prays for death to take her. And then she feels sorry about the whole thing and prays for forgiveness and tries to convince God, herself, that she is grateful. That she appreciates the extra time with her sick and dying father. But that part simply is not true. Her father is already gone. His body just hasn’t accepted the fact of it yet. And Lana is caught in the twilight, waiting for him to draw the last final heave. To kiss that cheek one last time. To say “I love you” and know that everything that needed to be said has been said. And yet he lingers and she keeps vigil, praying to a God she believes may be cold and wicked, praying for the deliverance no one is supposed to seek.

More words on this weird little tale. Read from the start here.

**

They settled into a Waffle House, where Frieda watched Sebastian eat the tallest stack of pancakes she had ever seen. Followed by a plate of eggs, bacon and toast. Followed by a bowel of fruit, two bowls of oatmeal and a seemingly endless carafe of coffee.

“That’s amazing. How long has it been since you’ve eaten?’’

Sebastian tried to answer with this mouthful. Smiled. Chewed and swallowed. Took a long drink of coffee. Then a small burp.

“Long time,” he said at last. “I’ve never been this hungry before. Never really been hungry at all. We don’t eat where I come from. This is incredible. This sense of filling the body with tastes and energy.”

Frieda just nodded.

“I am sorry you were scared. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Frieda nodded again, watching Sebastian study the array of empty plates with obvious satisfaction.

“What are you?” she asked. Which was a related but very different question than Where are you from?

“I can tell you that, but its probably better that I tell you everything. That way you can understand.”

“Okay. Go ahead,” Frieda told him.

Sebastian motioned for the waitress to bring more coffee. He poured the last of the current carafe into his cup. Swallowed and savored. He opened his mouth to speak. Closed it. When he opened it again, his most incredible story spilled out.

**

Your people have many different names for what I am. Angel. Seraphim. Courier. All of these have a kind of truth in them. My people have a specific name for what I am, but this tongue cannot pronounce it. My kind were created, just like your kind, to serve. Though who or what we were made to Serve I cannot say. I have never seen Him. He does not show Himself to such as I, though my mother tells me I must be patient, that we each were made to serve Him and each will see Him in due time. This from my mother, who is millennia old. Any my father, two millennia and a half. And my grandparents, five millennia each if they are a year.

And I am still young. Only six hundred years in the way you measure time. I am just a child in the way my people account time. But I remember looking down at the age of Great Churches. I remember the Plagues, the Bonfires, the Age of Mighty Ships.

I have been watching with such interest and enthusiasm. I have made myself a scholar. I have made your people my study. And I have watched with such keen attention. Such interest. My family worried that I might eventually fall into disgrace. They were right to worry. It was inevitable, I think now. My fall was destined to happen. I had become infected with an ailment uncommon among my people. An incurable sickness that robs the immortal of their joy and their certainty. I had become curious.

I am what you might call an Inbetweener. I was created to travel between the worlds, your world and mine, carrying important messages and the occasional sacred relic back and forth. I had been between so many times before, each time delivering my message, depositing my relic in some secret place, and each time bringing back with me some trivial little token, some small trophy back from your world to mine. I made these objects my study. I kept my mind bent on them, obsessively poring over each in what few private moments I could steal for myself. I made these objects my textbook. They were my learning. And they made me desperate to know and understand the people who had made them.

And it was on such a trip that I made my fatal mistake. I fell in love with Lana.

I was coming down to retrieve a sacred relic. A minor statue the priest had left locked in the vestibule closet. It had served the people well, having been prayed over for a hundred years. It had brought good luck, peaceful lives and bountiful crops to those who held it. It was an insult we could not bear to have it gathering dust in some forgotten church closet. And so, I was coming to retrieve it. To carry it home where it could serve its true purpose and derive power from the presence of those beyond faith.

And that’s when I saw her, praying at the altar. So intent. So fervent.

Lana.

I saw her and knew, right away, I had to be right beside her.

More words. Want to read from the start? Here’s a Google doc with the entire story (so far).

***

And now Frieda is standing in a daze, looking from Sebastian to her phone and back to Sebastian as she presses numbers with clumsy thumbs. Her hands shaking so badly she can’t dial the simple three digits without messing up.

She cursed. Cursed again.

“Why did you get out of the fucking car?” she yelled. “I was just trying to help. You should have let me help.”

Sebastian reached up to steady her hands. “I am grateful,” he said, a small smile forming. “You have been most kind. Most generous.”

“You need an ambulance. You could be hurt. That car flipped you really hard. You should dead.”

“I’m not,” he told her. “I can’t.” Though strictly speaking that last claim was uncertain. The times before Sebastian had known himself to be invulnerable while traveling in this realm, this body and mind unbreakable. And yet, this was all new experience. He was no longer traveling through this realm. Now he belonged here. Certainly, his body had limits. He had no idea what they might be.

“I’m not hurt,” he said again, although that was not strictly true. His entire body pulsed head to toe as if licked from inside by an angry flame. The pain was dull, pervasive. “I’ve had worse.” And that also was true. His body still wrecked from his punishing fall.

“I’m calling an ambulance,” she said again, opening her phone.

“Don’t,” he said, taking the phone from her. “You were right before. I’m not from here.”

“Undocumented? They still have to look at you. They have to fix you.”

“No. I’m not from here.” Sebastian tried to stand but his legs collapsed under his weight. Frieda caught him, eased him back onto the pavement. Realizing they were still standing in the middle of the road in the dead of night on the edge of town, she looked around for other cars. A few passed here and there along the interstate but the side loads and ramp were empty.

“Come over here.” She guided him to thin patch of gravel and grass on the road shoulder. “I shouldn’t be moving you. If you have internal bleeding, moving is very bad.”

“I’m not from here,” he said again, lifting his shirt. “I have suffered much worse.” He turned to show Frieda his bare back. “See.”

Even in the dim sodium light, Frieda could see the raw, jagged scars of flesh where Sebastian’s wings had recently been. The scars rose from Sebastian’s back like cold, purple mountains.

Frieda leaned in closer to get a better look.

“What are you?” she asked.

“I’m not from here,” he said again.

“Where exactly are you from?”

“Much farther than Europe.” He smiled and then actually laughed. Laughter was a feeling he had forgotten in his previous home. That high, cold ceiling was not a place of laughter. It was a place of serene thought and reverent reflection. It felt good to laugh. Once Sebastian started, he did not know how to stop.

Frieda was staring, her eyes wide, mouth open, as Sebastian gained control of himself.

“I don’t understand,” she told him.

“I can explain,” he said.

Frieda looked down at the place where Sebastian had recently lain. There was glass and a bit of shattered plastic from the car that hit him. There was no blood. There was no sign of injury.

“Okay. Explain.”

Sebastian smiled again. Strangely enough, he looked to Frieda as if he might actually be happy.

“I will. But not here. Further up the road.”

Frieda nodded.

Sebastian moved toward her car, but the first steps were unsteady and he nearly pitched over. Once again, Frieda caught him.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

Sebastian shook his help. “No. Not pain. Balance. It takes a lot of concentration here to stand or walk. I lose focus.”

Frieda nodded, not understanding.

“Help me to the car,” he said.

“Of course.”

A work in progress. You can find the rest here: Section 1 | Section 2 | Section 3 | Section 4 | Section 5

**

Frieda edged the car down the exit ramp and along the edge, slowing gradually, unsure where or how to stop. They were into the city limits now, the concrete and orange sodium lights stretching up like spires. The crisp, hard glare of billboard light. And the garish neon of pawn shops, bail bonds men, beer joints and laudromats where no person ever went expecting to get there clothes clean.

“Here? You sure?”

“Here. It isn’t far,” Sebastian said searching for any landmark to help orient. Everything was so strange and savage from here.

“Look. You’re plenty weird, and I’m not sure you’ve got any clue what you’re doing but I think you’re harmless. And I hope you find your girl and that she is glad to see you and everybody lives happily ever after. But I really don’t feel good about leaving you right here. People get mugged. People get stabbed. Let me take you a further bit up the road. Buy you some dinner. Give you time to make a plan.”

Sebastian opened his door. “You are very kind. When I tell Lana of the kindness you have shown me, she will join me in blessing your name. But I must be going now.” He stepped out of the car. “Thank you.”

“Okay. Whatever,” Frieda told him. Watching Sebastian take to his feet, unsteady, blinking as if completely dazed and dazzled by the confused spectacle of light and color. Sebastian shook his head as if to clear it. Rolled his eyes, as if he might pass out. “Take care,” she told him and pushed the car into gear. Frieda drove further down the ramp, watching Sebastian in her rear view mirror, staggering the wrong way across the road. And a car coming too fast in the opposite lane and those cockeyed headlights sweeping the shadow and the sickening moment she saw shape and shadow connect and Sebastian’s body fly over the hood of the speeding car.

She stopped. Jumped out of her car, left idling. Sebastian lying in a crumpled mass in the middle of the road. And the stillness of the other car as the driver checked every mirror. The door opened, closed, opened again, closed. And then the brake lights glare, dim, as the car pulls away, slowly at first and then with sudden gust of speed. And Frieda is cursing and hyperventilating and trying to catch the letters and numbers of the license plate but everything is happening much too fast and she can’t stop looking at the heap that is Sebastian’s body on the pavement. And she is cursing the driver of the car and she is cursing Sebastian and she is cursing herself for being unable to just mind her own business and she is calling Sebastian’s name as she is fumbling with the cover of her flip phone and she leans down, expecting Sebastian’s face to be crushed and bloody but he is laying there looking up at her, exasperated, astonished. “Perhaps I should accept your kind offer. A little further up the road,” he groaned. “Dinner would be a very good idea.”