Angels
by Willie Hewes

It is noon. The sun burns down mercilessly at the ant-like tourists that swarm the squares of the Palais du Louvre. The glass pyramid casts its evil eye on any who venture out without a pair of sunglasses. In the shade the tourists and pigeons clutter on the ancient steps, sweating, eating, resting. It is mid July, and the air in the City of Love shivers and shifts, making the pompous buildings look like fragile illusions.

But in the small metro station of Louvre-Rivoli, it is dark and cool. The replicas of statues and hieroglyph-walls are lit by dim spotlights, making the place look like the inside of a pyramid. It is a place of eternal twilight.

This is the place where Angel sleeps. At the end of the quay, where hardly anyone ever notices him, he spends the hottest part of the day. Cropped up against the wall, his arm flung over his backpack like a lover. And although the trains roll by only metres away, he does not hear them. He is deaf to their rumble and to the hushed sounds of people getting on and off. He sleeps through the monotone buzz and mechanical clicking of doors; his sleep is deep and dreamless. Late at night, he roams the streets, ancient bridges, doorsteps, and parks. Early in the morning he makes his way here, to Rivoli, and he sleeps.

He is invisible, untraceable. No one here knows him, and he knows no one. Paris has adopted him, and provides him with everything he needs. At four o' clock, long before the stifling heat yields to warm evening weather, he takes the metro to train-station Lyon. An old wrinkled lady smiles at him and lets him in at no cost. She reminds him of his mother, although her realm of power stretches no farther than the walls of these toilets.

Under the sign that states in three languages that the basins are only to be used for washing hands, he washes his face and makes his hair wet. He takes off his T-shirt and shorts. Then he starts putting on his make-up and costume. After all these years without a sun tan, his skin is as white as an albino's. He paints his eyebrows and lashes white with a little sponge, as well as his lips, his nipples and the insides of his hands. He outlines the shape of his bones in white, and blurs the edges with swift little brushes of his fingers.

The effect is eerie, even in this light. He looks as white as the moon. All his lush black curls are gone; the short spikes that remain are hidden beneath a white plastic wig. Around his hips goes a white piece of cloth, shaped after his body and solid with plaster. He has small white sandals for his feet, and a pair of plastic angel-wings that he straps to his hairless chest. He turns to his mother, who smiles approvingly. The magic done, he takes off his amulet and stores it in its leather pouch. He stuffs it into his backpack with the rest of his clothes, and takes out the tiny bow and arrow. Now he is Cupid, he is the statue of love and a hit with the tourists.

He has made the costume himself, with the help of a street-artist in Rome. He moved to Paris in May, out of restlessness, and because he wanted to see his old home again. But perhaps it would be very long before he moved again. Perhaps he would just stay here for the rest of his life.

He had travelled so much already, and for so long. He had searched for a way to lift the curse he had called over himself, had crossed vast spaces in Africa, the Caribbean, Jamaica. In Paris, he was admitted to a modern group of sorcerers after a long time of prying and begging. Other organisations had refused him, although sometimes individuals offered to help him. Often they wanted vast amounts of money for their help; others took parts of his heart and soul. They all taught him, but in the end the answer to his question was always the same. You submitted to this curse willingly and knowing; it cannot be reversed.

Finally, he went back to New Orleans. Many there had known and feared his mother. Some remembered him. He was hated by many, but not quite outcast, for fear of the dead. He watched the city from the sidelines, the dullness of everyday life growing heavy on his brain. He had learned a lot on his travels, and he started to play with his powers. Cruel games of cat and mouse. Wise people grew to hate him even more; fools came asking for his help. One of these fools was an old childhood friend of his. His request shocked Angel. He was an old man now, one that could hear death knocking on his door. He asked Angel to put him under the same curse he suffered from himself. Angel would have to reverse the progression of age not a few years, but decades, and then freeze time on that magical moment in a boy's life; the very threshold of manhood. "Make me young again, Angel, I know you can do it! I have heard all about you and your travels, your powers. Do it for me, Angel, I know you can! We can be best friends again; it will be just like old times for us! Forever!"

The old man was right; Angel knew how to do it. At the funeral, he stood aside, some meters away from the family and friends, even though these people lived blissfully unaware of what went on in the darker alleys of the darker quarters. They had no idea of his name or his reputation. He stared at the mourning; children, grand-children. He cursed under his breath. "You thought you could have it all."

He packed his bags and left New Orleans, and he had not stopped packing and leaving since. The only things that interested him now were things of beauty and youth. Nothing else seemed to matter anymore. He had lived for so long, it was too late for anything new to happen. He was too old, and so was the world he lived in. He tried to drive away the stifling ennui by playing his games. He learned how to control and manipulate boys. He liked to make them fall in love with his subtle charms, and watch them rake themselves apart on his sharp edges. But after a while, even that became a bore. He grew jaded and careless. When two of his boys slipped from between his fingers, he got so fed up he decided to move back to the old world. He visited Moscow, Vienna and London. He spent almost a year in Amsterdam, where the boys were as sweet and omnipresent as the locally grown marijuana. He watched with amused boredom the remaining marks of Berlin's schizophrenia, and the never-ending, multinational house parties of Ibiza and the Spanish Costa Brava. And then, after a long winter of roaming the Spanish countryside, he went to Rome.

Rome in the spring of 1999 was a city under construction. While Berlin was being rebuilt, Rome was being done up, so that all its monuments and piazza's would look their best in the holy year 2000. Many buildings and statues were hidden behind scaffolding and gently heaving gauze. Angel thought of them as veils, and the implied secrecy fascinated him. He decided to stay awhile. Slowly, he became obsessed by the many statues in this city. He stared at them for hours, wondering why they seemed so significant. In Rome, statues are everywhere, towering over the piazzas, spraying water in enormous fountains, gods and giants. He stared at them, forgetting the time. He admired their beauty, their elegant poses, their serious or dreamy expressions. He mimicked them, often standing as still as they did while he memorized every perfect detail. He started to realize slowly that in some ways, he was more like them than like other humans. They were not affected by rain or cold or time. They could stand there for years, centuries, unaffected by anything going on around them. They did not age, they were eternal. And they were at peace.

He decided he would become a statue himself. And what had become a curse so long ago, became a blessing again. He would never grow up, he would never age. When he stood still on his little wooden pedestal, people would stop to stare at him. Such a young boy, they would say. Children would mistake him for a real statue. Look at his eyes, honey, parents would tell children, men would tell their girlfriends. He does not even hear them, he just stands. And this he could do anywhere. Wherever there were tourists and street-corners, and that meant practically everywhere.

Paris is a city swarming with tourists, and full of good places to put up a show. Angel stands near the Notre Dame, or sometimes on Mont Martre. A couple of times he stood in the park under the imposing finger of the Eiffel Tower. He is not the only living statue, but he is the youngest, and he is the best. Anyone can learn how to stand very still, how to move very slowly, how to pose with children while parents take their pictures. Angel never moves or smiles. He is not a mime; he is a statue. He steps up onto his wooden box or onto a stone bench somewhere, and he freezes into a state of suspended animation. He wills his heartbeat down, his breath slows to a shallow ebb and flow, then stops altogether. He hears the flow of his blood slowing, slowing down. His brain stops thinking, his eyes stop seeing. His joints glue themselves together until he can't move even if he wants to, and his muscles slowly turn to stone. He is a magician; he can do all this. Not an eyelash moves.

And then, from this state, he surfaces into another kind of consciousness. He does not need his eyes anymore. He can feel the square around him, the buildings, the water flowing under and around them. The city opens to his awareness like a delicate flower. He feels the people too; the chatter in many languages, the black men selling key rings and post-cards, the eternal portraitists. They are now as insignificant as the busy, untracked movements of ants around a dustbin. The entire city is Angel's body, he can feel its towers and buildings stretching towards the sky, highways reaching out like arms into its surroundings. Deep under him ride the metro trains through tubes complex as veins and arteries, bringing life to every cell of his body. He feels the beating heart of the city, and he beats with it.

Meanwhile, the small china bowl at his feet slowly fills itself with coins.

A man gets down on one knee to take a picture. He takes his time; his camera looks expensive and elaborate. Another joins him, a boyish figure, with the voice of a spoilt child. "Laaaine! When will you stop working? This is supposed to be our vacation!" They are Americans. The young man's face looks familiar, but Angel's clouded brain cannot grasp the memory, makes no effort to. They move away again.

A little boy is staring at him, the pink, wet lips parted. He wears a magician's hat with Mickey-Mouse ears. His father joins him and says something in a language Angel does not understand. The intonation tells him enough. Is that guy real? the father asks. That cannot be.

Time passes by as people pass by. It is getting dark, but Angel will be here long after dark, as long as there are tourists left, and sometimes longer. He imagines being a real statue, a man of stone. Unable to feel the rain or the pigeons that land on him, unable to see the swarms of humans, the difference between night and day. Perhaps one day Angel will be like that. Perhaps one day he will not even need to bother with the make-up, he will not have to go to find a place to sleep. Perhaps his feet will grow into this ancient bridge, and his blind eyes will harden into glass. Dirt will gather in the crooks between his fingers and in the frozen folds of his cloth. Road-sweepers in dark green will sweep the pavement around his feet. And he will finally be at peace.

Willie Hewes, 23, born in Holland but currently living in North Wales, is halfway through a degree in English Literature but taking some time off to write, learn computer programming, and practice the art of doing absolutely nothing. He specialises in erotica for ideological reasons and has been published in various online magazines and archives. Mr. Hewes also writes background material for World of Darkness roleplaying games. Williehewes@yahoo.com.

Image: Eros of Tespia, 2nd Century AD, White Marble, The Art Gallery of Ontario, "Angels from the Vatican," © Vatican Museums