Paraffin Angel

An apology

 

 

 

PARAFFIN ANGEL

           

By

 

Michael A. Wolf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            Arlanzo's wine had been banned from the house before, but somehow always worked its way back into Warren's good graces. It was the berry that changed his mind each time, sweetness and comfort like a warm blanket worn on the inside, covering a shivering cold that worked its way out to unprotected flesh. It still hung in the air and Warren closed his eyes to it, drawing in the rich texture of the drink and allowing himself the conceit that his enjoyment was as much a thing of aesthetics as it was self-deception. The bottle in his hand was overturned and the remainder of Arlanzo's homemade elixir was vetoed down the sink.

            In the diffused light of early evening, Warren stood on the balcony and viewed the valley below. The sloping hillsides, dotted with homes now looked nothing like it had when he'd bought his four-bedroom Spanish Style. Over the twelve years he'd come out to admire his view, he'd seen the houses coming, one by one creeping into the valley like shake-shingled lesions on a diseased landscape. And he asked himself if he was any better. His neighbors had purchased their land and homes with money they'd earned just the same as he. And doubtless, some of them too were smart enough to see opportunity where others didn't. It was as simple as that. Even money quickly-amassed is money earned if the person who accumulated it was smarter and faster than his competitors. Warren allowed himself this conceit as well. He walked back inside wondering if he had emptied the last of Arlanzo's bottles.

 

*

 

            The leather-bound book sat at the top of a stack of twenty. They varied slightly in size, shape and design, but their purpose was all the same; paper-form confessionals with no ecumenical presence or promise of absolution. The pages of the latest were more than halfway filled with what had to be said. He took up his pen and found the book's marker.

            There was one light in the room, and furious writing. The scratches of ballpoint on paper were loud and rhythmic. He sat on the bed to do this, his back against the wall, his head bent in communion with the words. They came as fast this night as they'd always done, flowing like heart-blood from the tip of Warren's red pen. Apologies upon apologies stacked more than three hundred pages thick and twenty volumes high. And Warren knew it was still not enough. His fingers hurt. They hurt every single day when he wrote, and as they cried out for some measure of relief, Warren answered them with further composition. Compulsively it went on, tears that fell and dampened the pages notwithstanding, and it would continue until she heard what he had to say.

            The single light gave up its valiant efforts, and the room was left in all forms of darkness. It took a few seconds for Warren to notice, and as he lifted his head, it came in contact with the wall.

            "Warren?" The whisper came from the dark.

            He blinked in response, not truly registering what he'd heard. He blinked a second time as his eyes began to adjust.

            "Warren?" It repeated, the voice that happened in the darkness, and from across the room the sound of something falling to the ground.

            He reached toward his nightstand, and pulled a small flashlight from the drawer. It clicked on to illuminate the fallen object, another book well known to Warren. The beam swept the room, past the open door and momentarily into the hallway where it shone on a glass-sculpted pair of wings, then back into the room across walls and floor where nothing, save the fallen book, was out of place.

            Warren replaced the single light bulb and picked up his leather-bound tome. On top of the stack of nineteen others it went, red pen lashed to its side; a sword much mightier. He forced himself to bed; another ritual, another apology.

 

*

 

            In the dream, he ran as fast as he could from the oncoming light. It burned the back of his shoeless feet, and threatened to blister his neck, but he ran and cried and begged for the strength to outpace the light. His hands, fused to his sides, ached and bled. The air grew thin and as he felt his heart pumping furiously, the voice urged him on. The light began to encompass him, coming from all sides and relentlessly searing any part of him that was exposed. Then his legs stopped, and he fell. And as the light poured down on him he saw a face through the whiteness and pain. It smiled to comfort him, and he sobbed to it, pleading for relief, but his hands would not respond, and as the face beckoned to him, Warren pulled at uncooperative arms, wanting to tear them free from his body. The light would not allow him the time he needed, and it burned him to death as he screamed, face-down and helpless.

 

*

 

            The books were gone when Warren awoke, and he tore the room apart looking for them. Tears rolled down his face, dead wings, and crashed to the floor. He was frantic, his apologies lost, and rage began to swell, clenching his fists and grinding his teeth, blood moving through him like unforgiving magma. He screamed and ran from the room.

            As he entered the hallway, his arm swung, catching the tip of a glass wing that stood sentinel near the bedroom door. The sculpture rocked, lost balance and impacted the ground in crystalline rain. He ignored it and ran to the living room, toward the light, and escape out the front door.

            There they sat, spread across the rug in a card-fan, some open, others seemingly secure. Warren could read some of the words from where he stood, and the relief he felt was mixed with anger and confusion. Then he began to feel something else; cold fear. Not at the knowledge of a stranger in his house, but at the thought of someone other than her reading his apologies. He wasn't finished, wasn't nearly done, and now his work had been opened and read.

            He moved to them, separating in his mind those that had been violated, and those still pure. His hand went to the closest open book. The page was cold from the previous night's exposure, and the marker sash sat neatly in the crease. They'd stopped there. Whoever found themselves skulking through Warren's work, his life, stopped reading on the exposed page. He lifted the book, read the words laid out in the open, and then closed it softly. He began to gather up the rest of the books just as the light filled the room.

            This was no dream, and there was no searing pain. The light didn't burn him, and he had no desire to run. There was a softness to it, an embrace that comforted and soothed him; the babe newly born in this place, a trespasser to Valhalla. Then the voice came again, softer this time, but the same voice.

            "Warren?"

            And as he opened his eyes to the light that refused to blind him, he answered.

            "Yes?"

            "Are you hurt?" It asked, and with the question, a face emerged from the glow. It was beautiful and shone its own radiance even against the brilliance of the light. The woman who moved forward held out her hand to Warren.

            He recognized her, or thought he did, and had no hesitation in taking her hand. She helped him to his feet with a touch soft and reassuring, and Warren tried to remember her question. "I'm not hurt." He answered as it came to him.

            The woman smiled, and with it came sound that, save her voice, had been absent from the illumination. "I am glad." She said with equal amounts of expressed emotion and self-description. "You must forgive me for my intrusion. But the books drew me here."

            Warren looked to the floor for the briefest of moments, the books were nowhere, the floor was nowhere. The light was all, and he was not afraid, but he wished he could see his volumes of work. "I can't find them." He said.

            "They're in your heart, Warren. All the words are there…and here." She told him, spreading her arms slowly and smiling.

            "I know you." He whispered. "At least, I think I do."

            And with that, the woman frowned, and the light began to fade. She stood; looking at him as her form grew faint, vanishing into the white and giving way to the room once again.

 

*

 

            He'd spent the entire day crying, frustrated at the thought of losing his sanity, and the sadness brought on by the knowledge that what he'd experienced was too real to be true. The heartache was fresh and deep and physically painful, in his bones like hammers that pounded at him relentlessly. His body fought him, the front line soldier for his broken heart and damaged soul. And as he sat among his books, searching for solace in their pages, he heard her speaking, but this time only in memory. "…the books drew me here." And with that recollection a new pain, coupled with fear. He told himself he would never finish the job he'd started so long ago. 

            He found resolve in tears and determination in agony, and as he stood the soldier battled him, his legs awash with throbbing soreness, his arms and chest on fire. They had spurred him to action with their attempts at destruction. But he would choose the where and the when. 

 

*

 

            The books and words and apologies had proven to fall short of enough by a wide margin. They served to drive him over the edge, and nullify everything he'd ever accomplished. The money and power and knowledge and work would pass into tragedy as supports for a wasted endeavor. Twenty years of doing what had to be done to make up for a mistake that cost the life of a beautiful girl whose only sin was in knowing and caring for Warren Stafford. 

            She could have forgiven him, and that was the irony of this state of affairs. Like the others, she would have said that there was nothing anyone could do, and that it was nobody's fault. But Warren knew better. He learned to see the truth, finding eyes that looked deeper into things and beyond the veil of what everyone else accepted. He examined his actions and mapped out all other possible outcomes with the precision of a physicist. The angles were there, they lined up, proving to him that what happened could have been prevented, should have, in fact, if he'd only acted differently. But he didn't, and because of that, a delicate young existence was ended. 

            The fact that no one blamed him only made it easier for him to blame himself. He would go to sleep every night telling her how sorry he was. He wrote a letter and placed it over her heart as she lay in her casket. He wept for her in contrition, stinging tears that threatened to never stop. And it was they who opened his eyes to his penance.

            The letter was the key, he reasoned. As it sat with her in the coffin, it acted as a conduit. He would write more words, more apologies more letters. The flow from his pen would make direct connection to her spirit in whatever reward awaited someone as good as she. He knew the plan was destined to succeed, and as he attacked his work he fueled his train of thought with pieces of his soul, vowing to burn it out rather than stop what he'd set in motion.

            Twenty years later the cost of his strategy had become clear; madness. It confused as well as hurt him. He'd taken all the precautions necessary, aside from being in the right from the formulation of the plan; the angels in the room were protectors from failure. They sat as guardians in all of their varied forms; glass, wood, plaster, wax and metal, collected from places he'd traveled, places he'd taken his books, his apologies. The words were written there, in the towns and villages and cities where he found the angels. They were a part of the places and a part of the words. They could do nothing else but protect. And yet they stepped aside at the crucial moment, allowing Warren to go mad rather than accomplish his task.

            He wrote all that was in him to write, from every angle and with all the words he knew. He apologized in every way he could think of, save one. One way that shouldn't have been necessary, the big gun in his arsenal; the way to say he was sorry that he hoped he'd never have to use, but knew just the same was inevitable.

 

*

 

            The box on the coffee table contained all that was needed. Twenty years had at least served to accumulate the necessary tools for the last resort. The books sat in the fireplace awaiting flame, the letter he'd penned was ready. Warren looked around the room and smiled. A host of angels now sang to him from every corner, their faces bright and wings outstretched. His choice was right, his decision approved of. 

            He'd asked himself one single question for twenty years. How many apologies were enough? It haunted him as he wrote, with each word the query grew louder until it was a screaming he could not stop. So he said he was sorry, and wrote his apologies and filled books with remorse, all in the hope that he would find the magic number, the amount of repentant verbiage sufficient to reach her. But that number never came. Instead, the more he wrote, the greater the distance he found himself from her forgiveness. And then, the vision of his own psychosis came to taunt him, forcing Warren to wake up to the obvious and final conclusion. The answer to his question was simpler than he'd ever thought. How many apologies were enough? 

            And he said aloud, "One."

 

*

 

            Warren locked all of the doors and lit the fire. The books burned slowly and the smell of the smoke was sweet. He drank the glass he'd prepared for himself, reclined on the sofa and placed the letter over his heart. Sleep came quickly, and he found himself bathed in the same white glow as before.

            The serenity of the light was even greater than the last time; no fear and no uncertainty. And as he opened himself to it, she appeared once more; this time wearing the frown he'd seen when she faded away.

            "Warren, what have you done?" She asked.

            "There was only one answer." He said. Then he looked at her striking features, the novice attempting to divine the hidden meaning in a master's portrait. "I do know you, don't I?"

            She closed her eyes and bowed her head just a bit. "I am Michelle." She said softly.

            Warren smiled and breathed in the warmth he felt, exhaling with the relief of twenty years of trying. "You're here. You heard. But…" and he paused, "You're not you."

            "I am as I was in essence." And as she spoke, her smile returned, but this time there was a sadness to it. "You have taken your own life. Why waste such a gift?"

            Warren didn't hesitate. "It was the only way to truly make amends. You were there, where I should have been. You stood in because you cared about me. And when the accident happened, you died when I should have."

            "You can't say what should or shouldn't have happened. The accident was just that. No one's fault, no one's responsibility." She moved to touch his face.

            "My responsibility, Michelle." Warren said. "I called you 'Angel' back then because you looked out for me, loved me, and shone oh so brightly. I was to blame for putting out that light, and this is my way of putting things back together." He took her hand from his face and held it gently in his. Tears welled in her eyes and the light began to die away for the last time.

 

*

 

            The sweet aroma filled the room as the fire glowed evenly, crackling and sending light-angels dancing over everything. The headache was terrible and limbs were battle sore, but there was no other choice than sitting up. A letter fell to the floor in the process, catching the attention of bleary eyes. It was retrieved, opened and read.

            Michelle wept at the words. It was not a long letter, just enough to let her know what he'd done and why. He told her of the box that he'd built and filled with all the things she'd need to re-enter the world. Explanations, he called them, reasons and excuses that would allow for her to have what he'd created, the wealth and home and comfort he felt he'd robbed from her so long ago. A fair trade, the letter said, and no one would question too far. Her answers would always be sound; he'd seen to that. She closed the letter, and opened the box.

 

*

 

            In the dying orange of a summer sunset, Michelle could see the shadows of the day assimilated by approaching dusk. She gazed out at the canyon as she jogged down the quiet street toward her Spanish Style home. The evening was warm, holding the valley in soft solitude and asking nothing more from the world than reflection and thankfulness.

            Michelle showered and dressed in comfortable clothes for the night. She retrieved her earlier purchases and sat out on the balcony. Arlanzo's wine had been poured, and the small paraffin angel gave off just enough light for the work to be done. She opened the new journal and began writing her first apology.

 

THE END