2. Naive Circuits

"She loves everything and nothing at all." -The Boom Circuits, 'Everything & Nothing'

Her feet were in pink fuzzy socks that were big on her feet, kicked up on the desk. She held a worn book in her hands, her index finger picking at the spine of it. She wasn’t reading it, but staring across the room at a fixed spot on the wall. There were no windows, and rope lighting and desk lamps were the only illumination. The room was massive, and randomly placed bookshelves in the middle of the room created a sort of maze. Altogether, she had nearly as many books as Gabriel did, strewn on the dusty concrete floor. It was just a single room, cut into sections by screens with painted trees and stars on them. The walls had peeling wallpaper, and no matter how much Jia bugged her to change it to something light and airy, Amelia enjoyed the darkness and closed-off-ness of her living room/bedroom. 

She tossed the book onto the desk, no longer interested in it. She took her short dark brown hair and tied it up in a rubber band that was on her wrist. She heard her door open, but because of the dozens of bookshelves, she couldn’t see who came in.

Gabriel stepped inside and closed the door, “Amelia?” He called out into the dim maze-like room. He grinned as he spotted her in one of the farthest desks, in a big sweater he’d gotten for her birthday a month ago. He couldn’t understand why, but he felt like this room was more home to him than his own living quarters upstairs. Perhaps it was the girl, rather than the room, that he had an affinity for. 

Amelia’s pink lips went upward. “Gabe, good morning.” She replied in her soft soprano voice, “Is it the morning already?” She raised her eyebrows and ducked her head. 

Gabriel leaned on the desk, examining the book she’d tossed away moments before. “It’s nearly ten.” He turned the book over so the cover faced the frail girl, “How long have you been up reading this?” 

She pointed to the book and her mouth made an ‘O’ as she spoke frantically, “That book is messy, Gabriel! It’s…” she made a twisting motion with her hands.

"It’s… twisted?" He offered, raising her eyebrows. 

She nodded exaggeratedly, “Yes, yes. T-they send children into this… what’s the word… arena! And they make them war against one another. To the, the death!”

He chuckled, tossing The Hunger Games back onto the desk, “Yes, I know, I’ve read it. Murder is a peculiar concept.” He looked away.

She nodded, “Why’d you come?”

He met her gaze again, “Oh, yes, another angel arrived this morning, with no prior alert.”

"That’s odd," she said quietly, playing with her fingers in her lap.

Gabriel sighed, realizing that the few moments he had to really talk to her were fleeting, and she was retreating back into her mind. “Amelia, you could come out to meet her. She’s really nice.” He offered. 

She only kept playing with her hands, as if she couldn’t even hear him, and it was possible she couldn’t. 

He looked to the ground. How pathetic it was to be in love with someone who could only really speak for a few minutes at a time before receding back into silence. He remembered finding her sobbing and muttering about demons in an alley, after someone had taken her sanity. For a human to be aware of demons and angels, you’d have to be outside of your own mind, and into the realm of insanity. Amelia floated in and out of it. He leaned over and kissed her hair. She smelled of cinnamon and kindness. Detaching himself from the desk, he took a piece of paper and a pen and scrawled a note that she had went away before they were done speaking, and she could call him with the phone he’d given her if she wanted. 

Taking a cigarette out of his pocket, he lit it, and when he exhaled the smoke, he used his Angelic abilities to shape it into a flower, and laid it on the desk. When Amelia touched it when she came back, it’d dismember, but that was always what he left when she’d gone. He stubbed out the cigarette and slid it back into his pocket before walking away with a heavy heart. 

There’s a saying, that it must be horrible to love something death can touch. It’s even worse to love something that instability can touch.