Faithful Heretic

Our Father, Who Art in Heaven

There came a day that the angel met a young woman that she could not ignore. The woman, Edith, had strawberry curls and an aura that could only be described as sunshine. She moved like a flame, allowing the soft music to move her, uninhibited and spontaneous. The light that Edith emitted was blinding and all encompassing. The angel had not known love outside of her mother's embrace when she was young, yet the small glances exchanged set the angel's heart aflutter, an unfamiliar though not unwelcome feeling.

Though Edith was mortal, ichor flowed in her veins; she was the best of God's creations. In the eyes of the Lord, she was his gift to her community, a provider of hope though it may be false. God plays favorites, and he holds them close under a watchful eye.

Edith had come from a wealthy family and made a point to be humble and well read. She feared the mundanity of settling. Settling down into family life and settling for a man who, though kind and well off, did not share her yearning for more. More knowledge, more wisdom, more adventure, more life than what is possible in her village. Edith's heart was purer than most angels, but her mortal body remained in the earthly plane. Her hopes turned to fleeting dreams, but she shined just as brightly as our own Sun.

The angel and Edith did not speak to each other for quite a while, they merely observed. The angel returned to Heaven often to hear the choir of angels sing, but with each visit she grew tired of the odd perfection. The angel knew that Edith attended a small parish on the outskirts of Varenna, and on an early Sunday morning, she left heaven and took a seat outside the chapel. The human choir was far more entertaining than the angels'.

Though she wasn't the greatest out of the small group, nor did she have any solos or significance over the other girls, Edith's voice still rang in the angel's ears every time she ascended back to God's domain. Each visit, the angel knew exactly which voice belonged to her. Edith's voice had a certain sadness behind it, like an animal caught in a trap just waiting for its guaranteed death to come and end its fear. The angelic choir of Heaven lacked a sense of emotion, rather, it came to sound eerie when compared to the imperfect songs of the mortals. The angel found herself coming to see Edith's choir every chance she got, just hoping to feel and understand what it was that she wasn't allowed to have in her short lived life.

The angel had decided far before that she hadn't reason to approach Edith; she was happy as a mere witness of her unseeming existence. She knew that she had been lucky to be granted the permission of roaming this small, but welcoming place as she'd earned God's trust, and she wasn't willing to put herself at risk of breaking his rules.

Growing close to a mortal would only bring tragedy. The angel knew that if she were to befriend any one of them, she'd be forced to watch them grow old and change into someone she didn't recognize. She began to think that perhaps she had saved herself and her mother from unimaginable heartbreak with her early death, but she knew her mother would never stop weeping over her loss until her eyes held no more water and her body no more salt. To die so young with so little chance of changing into someone unrecognizable was a curse, but also so much of a blessing. She'd never have to watch her mom grow old; never see her mother's eyes falter to recognize her. The angel wanted only the memory of her mother's eyes lighting up as she ran to hug her when she would come home after work each day, and nothing more.

The angel didn't quite understand the amount of time that had passed since she'd met her end, but her mother was likely gone by now. She would've probably fallen to the illness that reaped her child as she was beginning to age quite heavily. If not, then she would've starved to death or died from the loneliness she was dragged into by the empty house with walls covered in reminders of her daughter's laughter and smiles as she'd run down the hall as her mother chased her down and tickled her before leaving to the kitchen to see if there was any food.