Resignation of an Angel

We're working on short stories in Creative Writing. My obsession of late (I go through periods of obsession. For a while it was dragons. Then birds.) is angels, so, naturally, I wrote about angels. 'Course, it didn't start out that way. Initially I thought I was going to write a story about Chinese dragons. Funny how that happens.

But I was lacking in ideas (usually I have a brainful of them), so I decided to go through some old art. Here's what I found:

Angel Pox (Eva). 8.5x11". Graphite on paper. (c) Alexa Ke 2011

Perfect, I thought. Just the right amount of angst to make a good story. So multiple drafts and edits later, here's the story of Eva, a very disgruntled angel.

(As always, this is a working copy, so if you have any edits to make or questions please make them known. :) )

Resignation of an Angel             

            “Today’s my last day!”

            Lucy, absorbed in her work, didn’t hear the announcement until a hand on her shoulder shook her out of her concentration. “Huh?” she said, bewildered, as though she had just been roused from sleep.

            “I said, it’s my last day,” Éva repeated, exasperated. Her robes swished and her wings rustled dryly as she sat across from Lucy. “I finally got the guts to leave. Put in my resignation two weeks ago.”

            “I thought you said you would give it another couple of years,” Lucy said, surprised.

            “I can’t wait that long. This work is driving me up the wall! There’s nothing to do but sort files and run the shredder!”

            Lucy hmmmed. “Well it’s not a prestigious job or anything, but Record work has its perks.”

            “Like what?” snorted Éva.

            Lucy didn’t have anything to say to that, so she hmmmed again. “Have you found a new job yet?”

            Éva’s voice frowned. “I looked around for a while, but with the labor surplus there just aren’t any good jobs anymore. In fact, the only place that’s hiring is Admissions, but they’re even worse than Records! Dealing with all the newly fledged… no. Not for me.”

            “Well, I suppose you could always go into Christmas or Easter Celebration if all else fails,” Lucy said ironically.

            “Yeah. Right. Because you can totally imagine me being a Christmas angel.” The idea was amusing. A chronically apathetic cherub escorting the King of Kings would provide an interesting contrast to the celebrations. “Besides. Joy Larker is head of Celebrations, and that woman is so sweet it gives me a toothache. I’d be out of there before I even got past the doors.”

            Lucy sighed and shuffled some papers. “Well you’ve got to do something, Éva. Maybe you should just stick around here until you’ve got something lined up, otherwise you’ll get Guardianship.” She shuddered. Éva agreed.

            They were silent for a long time; the only sound was the rustling of papers and feathers, clacking typewriters and filing cabinets slamming shut.

            “By the way, your halo’s crooked,” Éva said with a quiet cough to break the silence.

            Lucy blushed. “This darn thing! It won’t stay on straight no matter what I do! And it’s so hard to put on in the dark.” She reached up and adjusted the radiance that floated behind and about her head, but it still tilted off to one side.

            “How do you saints keep those things on, anyway?” Éva asked, trying to carry on the conversation. “My stupid angel’s ring is hard enough to keep straight as it is.”

            Lucy shrugged and the conversation died once again.

            “I just think… There’s got to be something else out there for me,” Éva finally said.

            “Everyone’s got their calling, Éva,” Lucy agreed. “You’ll find yours.”

            Éva’s voice was dark, confused. “No, that’s not what I mean. I mean… maybe I’m not meant to be an angel. I just… I’ve changed. There’s nothing left here for me but menial chores and—mediocrity.”

            Lucy’s voice was thin. “What—what are you saying?” She choked, swallowed. “What do you—”

            Éva touched a finger to the Lucy’s lips and leaned close to her ear. “I’ve decided to go away,” she whispered, her voice tremulous, wary.

            “Yes, you said that before—”

            “No. Away from Heaven.”

            Lucy jumped out of her chair and slapped Éva’s hand away from her, scattering paperwork everywhere. “You’re doing what?” she cried.

            The clattering of the typewriters petered out. One last filing cabinet quietly rolled closed. Papers fluttered to the floor. All were listening intently to the scene.

            Éva muttered something. When asked to repeat herself she was no louder, her voice low.

            “Éva.” Lucy’s voice shook like leaves. “What did you say?”

            Éva was silent except for her quiet breathing, which steadily grew louder until she broke out, “You know what? I’m sick of this! Keeping my feelings secret, living a lie. It’s my last day! I can say whatever I want!” She whipped around and faced the crowd of listening angels. “I hate it here! I hate it! I hate this job, I hate this life, and I hate all you! And especially you,” she spat at a shocked Lucy. “I just hate!”

            She brushed away into an office and slammed the door. Just as suddenly the click-clack of the typewriters struck up again, as though Éva’s tirade had been nothing more than a noisy rest between movements of a symphony.

            Lucy stood with her mouth numbly hanging open. Blindly she gathered the scattered files together and set the mess on her desk, then steeled herself and followed Éva.

            Éva kicked a desk, fuming. Through the dark of the room, Lucy reached out for Éva and put a hesitant hand between her friend’s wings, but flinched away. Éva’s skin was ice cold.

            “Éva, are you well? You’re freezing!”

            Éva laughed through her anger. “You really are blind, aren’t you?” Her voice was poison. “I’m just as well as I’ve always been, Lucy. Nothing’s changed. I’ve just finally got the guts to admit it.”

            Lucy grasped for the chair next to her, sat and clasped her hands in her lap. “You aren’t happy here,” she sighed.

            “I never have been,” Éva replied. “Not from my day of fledging. Not ever.”

            Lucy’s was confused. “But that can’t be. A Merciful God would not suffer you to be somewhere you can’t be happy. It’s one of the fundamental laws of Heaven. He should have found you a job you like—”

            “There isn’t a job I like, Lucy,” Éva muttered. “Employment has stuck me in every opening they could find. I even served a Guardianship for a few years. My boy died in a car accident while I wasn’t watching so Employment pawned me off to someplace I couldn’t screw up. Records was my last chance and now I’ve blown it.

            She paused. When she spoke again her voice was distant. “On my day of fledging, while I waited outside the Gates, I looked out to the side, down that little corridor between Heaven and Hell. It looks like it goes on forever, but it has to end somewhere. It has to, doesn’t it?”

            Suddenly Lucy understood: the depression, the chilled skin, the unhealthy rasping Éva’s feathers made as they rubbed against each other. “You—have the Pox, don’t you.”

            Éva hesitated before solemnly answering, “Sinner’s Pox? Yeah.”

            Lucy sucked in her breath, biting back a cry. “But—for how long?”

            “Since day one. My wings came like that, with little black specks all over them. They weren’t noticeable at first, but as time went on the spots got bigger and darker. I didn’t know what to do about it so I just hid it.”

            “How?”

            “I bleach my feathers.”

Lucy flinched, imagining the pain.

“It hurts, yeah. Every movement sets my skin on fire, and I can’t fly anymore, but I have to… I have to do it. In my weaker moments the stains show through, and when that happens I have to pluck myself. Or if I wait long enough the feathers just fall out by themselves. They die once they’re completely black.”

            “Éva—” Lucy choked. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you.”

            Éva’s voice was as black as the feathers that stained her back. “There is no helping me,” she said. “There is no hope for a sinner in Heaven.”

            “Why you? You never did anything that bad, did you? Why do you deserve this?” Lucy didn’t understand, couldn’t understand.

            Éva swallowed back the lump in her throat. “When the Admissions officer was weighing my good deeds against my bad, the scales wouldn’t settle between Heaven or Hell. I was nervous and I didn’t want to go to Hell, so I—I begged him to let me in. I promised him I’d be the perfect angel, I’d follow all the rules and make up for my sins. The lines were getting longer and I wasn’t taking no for an answer, so he admitted me, but—I met God on my way in. I couldn’t fool him; He could see every sin like sores on my skin. As punishment for cheating my way in, He gave me this curse to remind me of what got me here, and—I just can’t take it anymore. The pressure. The guilt.”

            “So… you’re leaving?”

            “Yes.”

            Lucy frowned. “But—where will you go?”

            Éva was indifferent. “I don’t know. All I really know is that this Heaven isn’t meant for me. I could go to Hell, or Home, maybe.” Her voice became distant again. “Or maybe… maybe I’ll just toe the line and see where I get. Walk along that corridor for a while, see where it leads. It has to end somewhere. Maybe—I’ll find my Heaven out there, somewhere beyond this, this—black-and-white, Heaven-and-Hell world.”

            She stood, sniffed, brushed off her robes, brushed past a silent Lucy. Hand on the doorknob, Éva turned back to her stunned friend. “I don’t hate you, Lucy. I just… I have to move on, and—saying I hate you makes it easier to leave.” The door creaked open. “I hope the best for you.” Then she was gone.

            “And for you the same,” Lucy whispered, then broke into tearless sobs. Lucy, patron saint of the blind, had no eyes with which to cry.

            A myriad of black-spotted feathers fluttered through the air behind the retreating Éva, who held her head high past the legions of staring eyes. Out the doors, down the steps of the Records Hall, through the gold-paved street; not an eye turned away from the Fallen angel who smiled with freedom.

            Shouldering her way past the bewildered Gatekeepers, Éva hesitated at the Golden Gates. Her once-white wings had been reduced to ashy feathered stubs protruding from her shoulder blades, marking her as a Sinner. But she did not care.

            Slowly she turned to face the awe-struck crowd of angels, a twisted smile gracing her features. Thoughtfully she reached up, grabbed her halo, and shattered it against the pavement.

            With arms held wide open she faced the Gates to embrace Fate, Oblivion, whatever awaited her. They swung open, unleashing a blinding light. Joyfully, Éva stepped through.

            The Gates slammed shut, the light blinked out. Dark fell back to the streets once again like curtains drawn. A single black feather floated to the ground where Éva had stood, spotted with steadily growing white streaks.

EDIT (12/13/11): Updated to a more final draft.

Guest Writer: Evelyn L. (AKA EAL) and Her Odd Ramblings

Welcome once again to Illiterations' guest writer series! (I got a clap track after the last episode. If you listen really hard, you can hear it playing from where I live).

Today's feature is the ever-lovely, young, brilliant, amazing--ahem. Sorry. I could go on for ages about her, and I certainly don't want to bore anyone while I go on about this lovely lady. Of Assembling Imaginations, this is Evelyn L. (also known as EAL).

Not only does Evelyn write poetry; she also draws! (It's freaky. We're, like, twins or something...) I am an avid follower of her blog, not only because of her poetry, but also because I keep hoping to catch a glimpse of her mysterious Utopia Project. All I know (so far) is that it involves Europe, fighting, magic, and three years' worth of writing. Naturally, I'm a little curious.

I was also amazed to discover that she's even younger than I am! Just goes to show that talent and good writing can come from anywhere. c:

About herself, Evelyn says:

EAL, who was born in Illinois but raised in Norcal, will no longer be speaking about herself in third person.  I draw and play instruments, but writing is my main method of being creative.  Currently, I’m fighting my way through revisions of my finished story Utopia Project, with some short stories, poems, and possible longer works on the side.  I’m inspired by a lot of things: namely, books, landscapes, architecture, the ocean, and the odd ramblings of my brain.

So, without further ado, here is an odd rambling from the brain of Evelyn L.!

Blue-Eyes
Your eyes are stars, supernovae
But like black holes they pull me in

And implosions happen when I see you
Which is good because explosions

Are messy like finger-paint
And if I were five

I would choose my bluest crayon
To draw your eyes

Except they would be too round
And I would think of Neptune

Discovered by calculations
Existing as speculation before being found

A Roman god, a knockoff Poseidon
But that just isn’t you

Tell me what you mean
Tell me who you are

And, actually, I don’t even know
What kind of blue your eyes are

Blue like ocean under sun or
Blue like blood under skin

Because I keep forgetting
Even when I remember to look

For the black hole swallows even light
And under those bright supernovae

Color doesn’t really matter
Does it, blue-eyes?

This is Renee Montero from my plotless story which currently has the working title GW.  She's a little bit evil.

Like what you've seen? Read more at assemblingimaginations.blogspot.com!

Do you compose poetry, write prose, make art, or take photographs? Then you deserve to be recognized! Find out how!

The Man of My Dreams Is a Tree?!

In other news: I'm feeling a little better, all. Inspiration has once again sprung forth, and I also couldn't wait to share what I've been working on the past few days.

I realized that the reason I was feeling so yucky about blogging was that I had a set schedule that was putting way too much on my plate. Hence I have decided to throw out the whole posting schedule, and am now going to post once or twice a week.

Now that I've got my head back together, here are some things to look forward to:

• More poetry: Poems on internet love (I'm making fun of people who have asked to date me on the internet and stuff like that), fish, and my soulful aversion to prose.
• Stories: Chapter-by-chapter postings of unfinished novellas, including a story about a puddle and another about a society of maneaters.
• Short Stories: Including a seven-year-old comatose mother of two, a blank-slate-child, and today's story of my dream-boy (he's also a tree).
• More Features: As promised, EAL's feature will be posted tomorrow! Also remember that I am always looking for other poets, prosets, and artists. :)
• More Art: Including a tree-man (for today) and a tree-woman (for later), broken eyes, birds and bird-people, and watercolors.

For today, I have a piece I wrote based off a dream I had two nights ago.

Have you ever had a dream in which you meet someone of the... opposite gender... and somehow yo know that you're completely in love and you'll never find anyone else like them in real life? That's the kind of dream I had last night, except the man of my dreams was part tree.

Can I say, WUT.

But it's true, and now I find myself condemned to search my entire life for a man who's also a tree so we can get married and have little tree-babies.

Crap.

Anyways, I couldn't help but use this as a bit of inspiration leverage. I assume you'd like to see what this dreamboy looks like? Well, here he is:

He's still a bit of a work in progress. Those are the flat colors, and later on I'll add  shade and dimension and probably a background. He has bark for skin, his eyes are ice-blue, and his hair shines pale-green in the sunlight. Do I know too much about this non-existent man? Um... Yes. Yes I do.

So there he is. One big hunk of woody hotness. He was really fun to draw, especially since I almost never draw men. When I started putting bark on his face, my sister was like "Why are you giving him a freaky skin disease?" I've learned that to avoid earning snarky comments from my family, I need to draw (and write) in privacy.

So aside from the characters in my dream (him, me, and some other dude (I think he was part bird, and he might have been funny, also)), the plot went something like this: I fell in love with a tree-man, and then some army marched by and I told him to hide and pretend he was a tree.

Goodness, I'm original, telling a tree-man to pretend to be a tree. I promise the story I'm writing is a little less obvious. Here, I'll even prove it. I've only written one little bit of a scene because writing in chronological order depresses, bores, and bores me. It's boring. So here's a little excerpt from my dream-turned-novella:

Something caught my eye—a movement apart from the rhythmic motion of the tree limbs swaying overhead and the wind swirling below. It was a seedling, and I would never have picked it out from the undergrowth were it not for the alarming rate at which it was growing. Such things were normal occurrences due to the State-of-Things, but even this was a bit of an oddity. Within seconds as I watched, the tiny sprout of green became a sapling, and the sapling a tree, with innumerable branches and leaves as green as emerald. And while certainly I was surprised to see a tree do such a thing, I was not prepared for what it did then.

As the rate of its growth slowed (by then the trunk was probably too large for me to wrap my arms around), the rough bark just above my eye level shifted, swirling to form some shape, a pattern. As I stepped closer, the image came into focus: it was a face, round and soft like a baby, but hewn out of wood. I staggered backwards, startled.  As I did the face shifted again, its features becoming harder, more refined. I stared, unable to tear my eyes away from this spectacle, as the face in the tree grew quickly older, the lips becoming thinner, the cheekbones more pronounced. Its eyes remained closed through all of this, as though the being were asleep, or perhaps dead.

Despite my fear and shock, somehow I was drawn to this strange creature, as though someone had tied a string to my heart and was slowly pulling me in. Without any thought I reached out my arm and gently ran my fingers across the surface of the bark, tracing the outline of the jaw, the brow. As I passed my fingers over those closed eyes, they opened, and suddenly I was staring into ice-blue eyes as real as any human’s.

I shrieked, jerking my hand back, yet those piercing eyes never left mine. I stood frozen, waiting for the apparition to pass, or for me to wake up from whatever dream this was. When neither happened, I again cautiously reached out my hand.

Suddenly, the rushing stopped. The face closed its eyes, and I could swear I felt the tree take a single sighing breath.

“Lisbeth?” he said, as it was apparent that the voice belonged to a man. My name was spoken accompanied by whistling leaves and water, as though the entirety of nature was saying it in unison.

“Yes?” I answered, finding my tongue able to speak.

“Help us?” He made it sound like a question, but I knew it was a command more than anything else.

His eyes opened again, shining so brightly it felt as though I was staring into the sun. I staggered back, released from my paralysis, shielding my eyes. The rush of the wind again filled my ears, a shrill cacophony of rustling leaves and shrieking voices, desperate and, it seemed, in pain.

I squinted through the light, trying to discern what was happening. To my amazement, the tree was not growing as it had before; rather, it was returning to a smaller state, the immense trunk growing steadily smaller and strangely misshapen. The towering branches fell, landing on the ground around me, as though sheared off; the roots tore themselves up and shrank back. And the face… I would have expected him to be in pain, but he was… smiling.

At last the transformation was complete, and before me stood a man, his skin gnarly and wooden like the bark of a tree. Leaves sprouted from his face, parting his wind-blown hair away from those mesmerizing eyes. Like snake’s eyes, I realized. You can’t look away.

He reached out a hand for me, his fingers thin and decorated by budding leaves. Every movement was filled with grace, yet there was a sinewy power behind those bark-covered limbs. Before he could take hold of me, though, he was on the ground, his eyes rolled up in the back of his head.

All I could think was, What in I’Soul’s name just happened?

Suggestions? Confusion? Constructive criticism? Let me know. c:

The Gallery: Digitart!

I made that word up. I did for reals.

IN OTHER NEWS: Yay! I have my first feature lined up and ready to go for tomorrow! This one's going to be really superwow, you guys. For reals. As my obnoxious campus tour guide said, "It's, like, legit. Legitimate legit. Like, for reals."

Man she was annoying...

Today's Gallery pieces are things I made on my computer with a touchpad mouse and Photoshop! I love Photoshop...

I know, a rock isn't the most interesting subject, but it was fun to do.

Trying to imitate Evan Dahm's style...

...And I guess I was going to color it, but have yet to finish it. It happens.

IT'S A KITTEH. :3

Arright, that's all I have for today. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for our special guest feature!

It's Wednesday! (That Means It's Picture Time!!!)

And that means I'm going to post pictures! :D

My parents recently visited France on their late 20th anniversary trip (their real 20th anniversary was last year, but my mom was too sick to do anything but go out to some lame restaurant and sleep through a movie). They bought me a set of watercolor pastels from the Louvre, and I've been experimenting with them as of late. What's neat is that you can blend them like watercolor paint if you get them wet, kind of like watercolor pencils.

P.S. You can click the pictures to make them bigger. ;D

This is attempt one:

Pretty, pretty hummingbird of prettiness (I guess).

I used the watercolor feature of the pastels on the hummingbird, but I have to say that I wasn't impressed. Of course, nothing can ever match the versatility of real watercolors, so I think the pastel people were fighting a losing battle from day one.

Over the weekend I decided to give it another try:

I'm not big on backgrounds...

As you can see, there was an obvious improvement. I did a few little studies on the paper as well:

I experimented on her legs for skin color, then petals, leaves, colors in general, and the folds of her dress. I also practiced my signature with the felt-tip pen I killed by drawing on top of the pastels. That's what vanity will do to you.

I was so happy with the results, I made two more. (I might also have been very bored. I was up at my cabin and my friend did MATH the whole time. >_> Weirdo. :P )

She had a background at one point, but I didn't like it and it wasn't done. Also, she's a black rose because the red pastel is actually more red-orange.

My scanner kind of messed up her dress. I like how the sky is kinda hairy, like a kitten or something. :D

I really do like pastels, though. Maybe once I run out of these cheapy-cheap-o watercolor ones, I can graduate to oils. c:

I'm also thinking of illustrating my poem, Summer Blooms, in this kind of style. Though, it would be kind of creepy-ish. I don't know if I could pull it off; I'm not too good with these pastels quite yet. It's a bit of a risk...

What do you think? Should I do it? Would it be defiling my poem? Would it be too creepy? I must know!

A Few Painful Ideas

Yes, painful.

My dad always asks if it hurts when I think. Well, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.
Or maybe this is one of those "You had to be there" moments.

But I was, indeed, thinking about two things. The first: guest bloggers. The second: art.

Would anyone be interested in being featured on this, my beautiful blog of beauty? It can be anything, really: art, poems, short stories, prose, essays; whatever it is you do. If enough people, as I determine, are interested, I might do a feature every other week or something. State so in the comments if you'd like to do something of that sort.

Now regarding art. I, being a many-faceted-and-multi-talented-person, draw and paint and such. I bet you never saw that coming, eh? That's right! I'm throwing curveballs now. Anycrap, would anyone be interested? I think I'll do art Wednesday to start out, and maybe post on Saturdays or Fridays if I feeeeeeeel like it.

Please respond!