Ragged Angel

Ragged Angel


Rain cries crystal teardrops onto his lifeless form, ragged angel of the streets. He lies pitifully in a gutter, tattered clothes made filthy by rainwater and sewage. His wings are sullied. His eyes are glazed. This sentinel will watch no more.

The constant stream of robotic passers-by don’t notice him. Why should they? They have their own lives, their own problems. They don’t have time for him; just another suicide in this city of souls.

Time is another of the luxuries he could not afford.

Night falls on the broken body of this broken angel. He does not notice. His own night has already fallen, smothering him with its eternal, unremitting darkness.

He pawned his halo for another bottle of whisky to drown his sorrows in, but no matter how hard he tried to lose himself, he found himself again at the bottom of every bottle. No matter how hard he tried to block out the pain, there was always another day, its cold horizons unwelcoming. Better no horizon than a stormy one. Better no life than a wretched one.

He fell from heaven to walk an earth unprepared for him; he was an unheard preacher, an unseen messiah. His golden words have now turned to lead, crushing the deaf ears on which they landed.

Last night, he stood here, watching the people lurch to and fro like puppets on an omnipotent string. Last night, he stumbled over this bottle, thrown as a parting gift from some violent drunk; someone who will never know his name, nor even see his face.

Last night, another desperate angel lost his faith.

His story will remain unspoken. The man who eventually finds him, acknowledges the fallen angel lying in the dirt, will dismiss him as just another dead junkie, overdosed on hate and self-loathing.

The nation will crowd to see the corpse of immortality, but they will know only his body, wasted and shrivelled from months of abuse. They will recognise the bruises, black-purple, on his arm where he knotted a belt for a tourniquet, the way his veins bulge from his translucent skin.

But no-one will ever see this angel’s torn wings. They will never notice his crown of thorns, the demons lacerating his mind. He sacrificed himself to their sins, but they do not realise. To them, he is nothing special. Today, he is yesterday’s news.

He is a ragged angel, and tonight, he is dead.