Angels
have always been a topic of interest for the human race, from the Bible days
onward. They came as messengers of God or the gods (our word angel is derived from the Greek word angelos, which means "messenger").
They carried messages from Heaven to Earth. In the Bible, people almost crapped
their pants when they saw an angel; messengers from heaven are scary! C. S.
Lewis once commented that angels in the Bible always said, "Fear
not," when they first appear; but in the popular depictions of angels one
sees in Victorian literature, he noted, the angel looked as if she should say
"There, there." And angels, by the way, were always male, not female,
in sacred texts. But what about a quirky angel—one that was quite different from
stereotypes? An angel who is a little edgy? Thus came the story
"Angelique."
"Angelique"
is not about an angel. It is about a
young man who meets one and she is quite different from how he imagined angels
would be. Tyler Foreman is in a relationship with Pella, who has repudiated a
strict fundamentalist upbringing and lives with him. He works at software firm;
Pella is trying to make it in the very competitive world of freelance
photography. And Tyler has an attraction to Goth girls. Pella is not Goth and
he has never dated such a woman, but he likes photos of them in his cubicle and
as screen savers. He finds one he hangs as a pin-up: Angelique. She has jet black hair, blue
lipstick, heavy eye makeup, and is nude from the waist; rings piercing both
nipples; tattoos covering her upper arms; black rose tattooed on her stomach;
fishnet hose, long nails painted black, rings on all her fingers and both
thumbs. That she is topless earns the censure of some of the female workers he
knows.
 |
| Angelique |
One
day, after a long staff meeting, he returns to find the photograph of Angelique
changed. She is now wearing a halter top and her tattoos are gone. Her sultry
expression is gone and she seems to be smirking at him. He stares for a long
time, assumes someone stole the picture and photo-shopped it, but does not try
to get it back to its original state. And, as in Oscar Wilde's classic novel, The Picture of Dorian Grey, the photograph continues to change, and not in a small
way. The model changes from a woman of European origins to an Indian woman with
brown skin, large, lustrous eyes, and long black hair. He keeps waiting for his
friends, whom he is sure have sabotaged the photo, to come out of hiding,
laughing, and admit the prank. But they don't.
 |
| Pella |
At
the same time, Pella eventually begins to experience unexpected success. The
editor of The New Yorker wants to use
two of photographs. Soon after informing her of this, he picks two more and
wants her to send him a portfolio. And, for the first time in her career, she
is paid a substantial sum of money for her shots. Pella quips, "I think
my guardian angel hasn’t left town after all.” They go out to celebrate. While
they are dancing, Tyler suddenly gets an overwhelming impression that he should
go to a local hotdog place called Yesterdog. He excuses himself and goes there.
Angelique, Pella's guardian angel, is there waiting for him.
She
does not fit the stereotype. She is not blonde and fair-skinned (as angels are usually depicted). Here is a little of their encounter:
“Angelique?” he
asked.
“You were
expecting, maybe, Alexander’s Ragtime Band? I thought you’d never get here. Sit down.”
He
slid into the seat across from her. He noticed she had two hot dogs and an
A&W root beer. Three dogs and a Canada Dry Ginger Ale (his favorite soft
drink) sat on his side of the table.
As
she stuffed the end of a hot dog in her mouth, he studied her face. No doubt
about it. She was the girl in the photograph:
the brown skin, lustrous black hair, brown eyes—only she wore a white
minidress and white knee-boots, like a go-go dancer from the sixties. The white
costume made her skin more lovely, her eyes more full of mystery and depth.
She
pointed to his hot dog. “Eat,” she ordered. He obediently ate one and then
another. She wiped her mouth.
“If
you’re an angel,” he began, but he stopped.
“Why
am I not a white blondie with wings and a halo? Stereotypes. Since a lot of
white people started believing, there are more ángeles blancos these days, but that’s only been in the
last fourteen-hundred years or so. Prior to that, believers were almost all
from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, and I came along in your year 694, back
when most of us guardians were fashioned to resemble, as you say today, people
of color.”
“Guardian?
You’re a guardian angel?”
“You
said it yourself.”
It
seems that though Pella has repudiated her childhood faith, her guardian angel
has not repudiated her. Tyler asks if she has come to protect Pella from him.
She tells him, to his astonishment, no, she has come to protect him.
She
explains this and also why she altered the picture. Tyler's liking for Goth
girls, she informs him, is symptomatic of his need for a "back door"—something
to illustrate to him he can leave Pella if he needs to, though he doesn't want
to now. That however, may change. Pella, Angelique says, is on the verge of
fantastic success as a photographer. She will become one of the wealthiest and
most famous photographers in the world. He will have the role of her husband. Because of this, he will be tempted to leave her. He thinks Angelique
wants to protect her from this, but she tells him it will be worse for him and
that, if he stays with her, new and beautiful doors will open for him. He is a
little miffed at learning that he is secondary to Pella in talent and
potentiality, and when Angelique gets ready to leave he sarcastically asks if
she's in a hurry because she's going off to get laid. "I might," she
said. When he expresses surprise that angels can unite sexually, she tells him,
“There’s a lot you don’t know about us. Read Milton. I’ve got to go.”
She
leaves him there alone. After a while, he returns to the bar where he left
Pella.
It
was a fun story to write. It appeared in Indigo
Rising, a journl that ceased publication, but it looks like it has relaunched. I'm trying
to get access to an archive and, if I do, will post a link.
For more titles and more great reads, check out
my Writer's Page. You will enjoy reading ShadowCity, a fantasy novel about a parallel world; Strange Brew, about a rock star who suddenly finds a powerful witch in love with him--not a good situation; The Prophetess, about a teenage girl who is able to become a fortune-teller because she is possessed by a demon, but then things turn in an unexpected way. Many others.
And my latest novella,
used her considerable skill as a warrior to assure freedom and independence for her people. But
when her father wants to make an
alliance with China and marry her off to one of the Emperor's family, she is troubled. For one, she is in love with Chen and wants to marry him. And she does not trust the man to whom she is betrothed. Sorcery though, is available. They key to the future lies in the past.
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