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last updated 3 June, 2008
Angel
This railing is digging into my back.
It has been for some time but I’m warm now and while I’m warm I could be anywhere. Perhaps sitting on a beach in some tropical country like those I’ve seen in the travel sections of the news papers people throw away after having read them once. I have a fancy cocktail in one hand and I’m sitting on the beach leaning against the palm tree that I’m using for shade. There is soft music playing. God only knows where it is coming from but it seems necessary for the picture. There is a tall man coming towards me – no doubt eager to partake in some of my stimulating conversation, and a servant is busy fanning my neck… Dammit, that’s no fan. My blanket has slipped and the cold air has reached my neck. That’s better. Now where was I…
Oh yes, the tall man has reached me now and is asking if he can join me. I graciously acknowledge him and invite him to sit beside me on my seat from where we can watch the carnival as it passes down the street. So much colour! So much life, energy, I’m
caught up in it all and carried away down stream… the sultan, eager not to lose touch that easily, meets me at the far shore and reaches down to help me not to fall as I get off the yacht. I reach and take his hand but its cold and it’s a banana skin that someone has thrown at me on their way to work. Didn’t even leave any for me. Bastard.
More and more people are passing now so I set about my work, taking out my whistle and beginning to play. I was entrusted with this work many many moons ago by a woman dressed all in yellow. Yes, yellow she was and she handed me this whistle saying… saying… oh what did she call me? It was my name I’m sure. It’ll come back to me. She said ‘Play. Play to protect and play to live.’ Of course at the time I was sure she was mad but that was simply because I didn’t know what I now know. The people who pass me you see think they are safe. Simply because they shower every day and have a house, clothes, a car, they don’t look and see the danger they are in. I see it. The black and purple haze that surrounds their heads as they pass. Gathering day by day, growing thicker, more oppressive, suffocating. But the sound, the beautiful, clean purifying sound that comes from my whistle breaks through and dissolves the diseased air. My head I know is clear. My work is thankless of course, except for the private pleasure I have in seeing that the people who pass close enough to drop change into my cup each day are almost completely freed from the darkness while those who cross over and avoid me are almost beyond hope. Once I even saw a man who always walked on the other side of the road to work each day completely consumed. The blackness took hold of his heart and he was too far away for me to be able to help him and there was nothing the ambulance could do – he just dropped dead on the pavement.
And so I play. Through all seasons, through all times. Sometimes the tall man sits beside me, so you see I am never lonely.
Angel. That is what the yellow woman called me.
This railing is digging into my back but I’m warm now.
by Evelyn Downing, 2004