by Shira Haus
“But still. Still. Bless me anyway. I want more life. I can’t help myself.”
Tony Kushner, Angels in America
An angel touched down on Jacob’s property last Thursday to tell him
he wasn’t going to make it to next week. You’ll never believe this,
but listen: flat-broke son of a TV repairman and a Sunday school teacher,
kicked out of the house at seventeen, survivor of attempted
murder and heartbreak and too many dead friends,
Jacob shoved the guy into a chair and said listen buddy,
that all you got? People been saying since I was a kid
that I was too fucked up to live for long. It was a joke
but the angel blinked all six of his glowing eyes,
kissed Jacob on the mouth in apology and smashed
a vase just because he could. Jacob closed his two normal eyes
looking almost as sick as his blood, and the angel smelled sour
defeat. Aren’t you going to wrestle me, the angel prodded
in a super-sonic frequency only Jacob and the mice under his cupboard
could hear, and Jacob said what’s the point. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck God.
And the angel stopped dead (and you’ll never believe this) but he said:
say that again. He whispered it. Please, say that again. Blue blood
dripped from the angel’s nose, burning holes in the carpet.
In another world Jacob would cower and wait for the sky to come down,
but here the springtime robins remained perched on the oak swaying outside.
Here, in the godless place, there was only breeze kissing ragged curtains
and dust settling on wooden floorboards. Believe it or don’t.
The copper kettle whistled on the stove and Jacob poured the angel
some instant coffee in a beat-up mug. Fuck God, Jacob said again, louder,
with bravado, and the angel smiled, bleeding freely, and drank a sip of his coffee.
Shira Haus is a writer from Michigan. Her work has been published in places such as The Albion Review, Capsule Stories Magazine, Grim & Gilded, Antithesis Journal, and Black Spot Books, among others. She is the senior editor of The Allegheny Review.