Learning to Sleep

The next time Michael went to Nexia, he found her awake, a worried expression on her face. She was sitting with her legs crossed; open books were scattered across her bedspread and bright light flowed in through her window. She didn't’t notice when he appeared.

“I thought you’d be sleeping?” he said, a questioning tone in his voice.

“'There is no peace,' says the Lord, 'for the wicked’,” she quoted dryly.

Michael cringed slightly at the carefree way she quoted the Bible.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he moved a large leather-bound book from the bed, and seated himself in its place.

“Working,” she said.

He rolled his eyes and gave her an annoyed look. She looked up at him briefly before returning to her book, “I’m going down again soon. I can feel it. And I need to read up on some things.”

He studied some of the books: censuses, diseases, sciences, atlases, wars; old newspapers and journals were mixed in, and he saw she had circled names and dates in black ink.

“I never realized you needed to research like this.”

She gave him a look crossed between surprise and annoyance. “It’s a tough job, you know. I can’t just flap my nonexistent wings and know exactly what to do, whom I’m supposed to help. I go down there essentially clueless.”

Michael didn’t say anything, just continued to flip through her books. They stayed like that for a while accompanied by the sound of turning pages and annoyed sighs.

“Being an angel isn’t easy either,” he said melancholically. "You said it yourself"my job's hard too."

“I know,” she sighed and looked up at him. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just really tired.” She closed the book in her lap and rubbed her forehead.

She got up and started gathering the books in her arms, and placed them in neat stacks on her dresser. Michael kept reading the book in his lap, not really absorbing any of the words, until Nexia took it away from him and placed it with the rest of the large tomes.

The sunlight dimmed, as Nexia retook her place on the bed. She leaned back against her headboard and kept her gaze on Michael’s face. He picked idly at the quilted bedspread.

“Why do you watch me sleep?” Nexia finally whispered, a small smile adorning her face. “I mean, I know you think sleeping is, like, the strangest thing, but doesn’t it get boring?”

Michael didn’t answer right away. Nexia reached forward and grabbed his wrist to stop the inevitable hole he was going to tear in her blanket.

“Does it bother you? I’ll stop if it does.”

“It doesn’t bother me. I’m just curious,” she told him, the small smile still playing at her lips.

“I think,” Michael paused, “I think it’s because I don’t understand it. I don’t understand what it feels like.”

Nexia laid down flat on her back, as she willed the last of the sun to disappear.

“Lay down,” she whispered to him. Michael gave her a perplexed look and didn’t move. “Just do it,” she said as she rolled her eyes.

Michael hesitantly complied. He mirrored her position, placing his head on the pillow, but he placed his arms stiffly against his sides.

“Relax,” she told him, and she felt him go lax next to her. “And close your eyes.”

“Gently,” she added when she saw how tightly his eyelids were clenched.

“What now?” he murmured, waiting for further instructions.

He could hear her steady breathing, and for a minute he thought she had abandoned him for sleep until a loud yawn elicited from her.

“Now,” she said, “If you could sleep, you’d feel your consciousness slowly drift away from you, like it’s becoming dormant. Your thoughts slow down, and nothing is coherent. You can hardly feel your body. And then you’re asleep.”

He still didn’t get it, but he did feel much calmer. Like he was meditating.

“I still don’t really understand it,” he spoke so quietly, he wasn’t sure if she heard him.

“I know,” she said just as quietly.

Nexia sighed, and turned on her side to face him, placing her right arm under her head. He opened his eyes and turned his head toward her. He studied her face carefully. Her skin was smooth and pale white, and fragile looking. Her lips were pink and worn from the constantly chapped state they were in. Her nose was small, and the tip of it flared upwards slightly. Loose strands of white blonde hair hung in her eyes.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” he asked her.

“I’m too tired to sleep,” she yawned as she said it.

“I don’t understand that,” he told her.

“You wouldn’t. You’re not human,” she smiled a little when she said it.

“Neither are you,” Michael argued.

Her smile got bigger. She did that a lot"smiled. Most of the time he didn’t really understand why she was smiling. She was complicated and difficult to understand, and she fascinated him like no one else he had ever met. She wasn’t an angel, and she wasn’t a human. She was something in between. Angels rarely tried to understand her purpose; they just simply accepted her existence.

Michael didn’t even know how powerful she was. He’d never really seen her in action; he didn’t know if she was strong, if she could fight. He didn’t even know if she was good at her job. He just knew that she tried.

“God never told me, you know,” she said after what felt like hours of silence, interrupting Michael’s pondering.

“What?” Michael blinked as a mask of confusion adorned his face.

“What to do. He never told me to help humans the way I do; I just assumed.” She paused for a moment, and then continued, “When I’m down there, it’s like I’m one of them. I make friends…and enemies. I feel all the emotions they feel. I laugh and cry and scream and fight. And love. But I don’t know if that’s what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be so"so human.” She stopped and cleared her throat.

She had a pained expression on her face. “I fell really in love with one of them once,” she mumbled.

“What happened?” he asked her, genuinely curious. Michael waited for her to respond, but she didn’t. Instead, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.