The saddest Angel

A guardian angel watches over a crying girl

The Saddest Angel

The angel looked sad as he watched the girl cry. He longed to touch her, to wipe her tears away. He sighed knowing that revealing himself to a human was forbidden. He was a guardian angel, he could influence things in the mortal world but from afar, never directly. The angel continued to watch the girl, her sobbing had quieted but the tears still flowed from her eyes. He knew how she felt, one of his angelic powers. Her suffering almost broke his heart. He could feel the pain in the girl’s head, it had been hurting for days. The angel knew the emotional pain in her heart, and he knew why she was crying. He watched as the girl pulled on a jacket, knowing that she was just cold, not leaving. Sometimes the angel wanted the girl to leave, but he knew that if she did leave she would find more suffering and pain. There was little that the angel could do for the girl.

She shifted into a more comfortable position, pulling herself into a tighter ball to keep warm. She stopped crying and wiped her eyes. An unexpected bark of almost hysterical laughter came from the girl as she looked at the black and green make up on her hand. Her make up was past saving. She didn’t care, there was nobody with her to see it, there never was.

The angel watched and his heart was so heavy with sorrow. He went down to the girl. He remained invisible but he sat beside the girl giving her warmth. The angel looked at the girl and he knew that she had made her final choice.  

The girl wiped her eyes for the final time. She wrapped her arms around her legs and looked at the angel, her angel. The smile she gave him was weak barely a movement of her lips. She pulled a razor blade from a pocket.

The angel watched as the girl played nervously with the blade. He knew that she was scared and he knew that she would do it. Killing herself was the release that the girl wanted all though, it was the farthest thing that the angel wanted for her. It was not his decision.

“You were always there for me, weren’t you?” the girl asked looking right at the angel.

“Never left you for a minute,” the angel said a little off guard at being seen.

The girl took a deep breath and leaned into the warmth of the angel's body. “Did I disappoint?” she asked weakly.

“Never”

Her smile got a tiny bit brighter and all the more sad. She nodded then ran the blade over both wrists.

The two watched as the blood ran down soaking her pants and dripping onto the carpet. The angel put his arm around the girl’s shoulders wrapping her in his warm embrace. They stayed like that as the girl's heart slowly stopped. As she died the angel lost his composure, he broke down into sobs. His tears ran down to mingle with the blood on the floor.

After a while the angel found that he had no more tears to shed. He looked at the girl’s dead body and he knew that now she was at peace. “Sleep. Dream. Be happy.” The angel left. His heart was broken and he still wanted to cry. He returned to heaven a changed angel.

The end.

Author's Note

just wondering what people think.
I wanted to keep this story short and I wanted it to be sad and emotional.

Reviews

[JayG]

I wish I had better news. But before I begin, a disclaimer: what I have to say has nothing to do with your talent and potential as a writer. My words are about the tricks of the trade and specialized knowledge we must possess if we are to move our story, intact, from our head to that of the reader.

• The angel looked sad as he watched the girl cry.
When you read this you have a huge advantage over the reader. First, you know who the angel is, and, WHAT an angel is, in terms of this story. You know where we are and what’s going on, In fact, you have a mental picture of the setting before you read the first word.

Look at the words from the reader’s viewpoint, not yours:

“The angel?” How can we have a specific “the angel” when we just arrived?

“Looked sad?” How can we picture a sad angel when we don’t know how sad, or why? And of most importance, who did the angel look sad TO?

“The girl?” Is she not important enough to be named? Story isn’t about events and generalities, it’s about the personal struggle of the protagonist. Story, with a capital S is an overview, a history, and every bit as interesting as any history book. But story with a lower case S happens in real-time, it’s not talked about. It lives in the heart, and the decisions the protagonist makes. But there’s no protagonist here, only a dispassionate external observer reporting a series of events, and explaining them to the reader. That can’t work for several reasons:

First is that only you can hear emotion in the narrator’s voice, because only you know how you want it read. Problem is, you can’t talk about something in the story, and then add, “I said, forcefully,” the way you could about the character’s words. And readers can’t know what a given line says till AFTER the read it, and then it’s too late. Have your computer read it aloud and you’ll hear the problem.

Next, your reader can’t see your performance, so in addition to having no emotion in the narrator’s voice, they can’t see your expressions, gestures, and body language as you perform the story.

In short, because you’re “telling” the reader a story, the voice is external and, of necessity, dispassionate. And because you are “speaking” in the viewpoint of that storyteller, one who knows the story and the characters, you’ll tend to leave out detail the reader needs to have context for the action you see in your mind’s eye.

As minor points, plot-wise:

• How can we have someone known as a “guardian angel,” who is incapable of guiding and advising? If this is her guardian angel, he would have known this was coming for a long time, and not be as moved by the events. I know that plays hell with your story-line, but readers will see that, and the story has to make sense to them.

• You don’t run a knife across the wrists to suicide. The blood vessels are buried between the bones, so the knife would draw blood, but hurt more than kill. But don’t spread that knowledge around. That misconception has saved many lives.

That aside, think of why you read fiction. Isn’t it to be entertained? Do you want to be told that the girl is sad, or do you want the writer to make YOU sad for her? Do you want an informational experience or an emotional one?

Facts inform, yes, but they hardly ever entertain. Want proof? How often do you read a history book for entertainment? How often do your friends? But why not? History books contain intrigue, romance, mystery—all the elements that make a novel exciting. The problem is, that’s all they contain, a list of events and their significance. Using that approach, the reader of a horror story would know that the protagonist is frightened. But…use the techniques that have been developed for fiction—techniques not even mentioned in your school day classes—and you terrify the READER. And that’s what the reader wants. They want to be made to feel, not just “know.” A reader who is worried about what is happening to their avatar, the protagonist, is a happy reader.

So it’s not something you’re doing wrong, or a matter of good/bad writing. It’s not even about talent. It’s that in our school days we’re taught only the skills of nonfiction writing to prepare us to hold a job: author-centric and fact based writing, whose goal is to inform. To entertain, we need to add the emotion-based and character-centric writing skills the pros take for granted to our tool-set. And they’re not hard to find. Your local library system’s fiction writing section contains the view of successful writers, publishing pros and agents, and respected teachers. I suggest you begin any one of three authors:

Jack Bickham: As the newest, his book, Scene and Structure is the most likely one to be found. It’s a good book, but was written by a professor who taught commercial fiction in a university, and as such, not the easiest to read.

Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer is an older book, though I like it better. The drawback is that he does go pretty deep. Like Bickham, he taught at a university (Oklahoma for both of them), so it can be a bit dry. But it is the best I’ve found. You can download it from any bookseller. And if you’re still in school, reading it will probably get you better English or undergrad CW course grades. (but read any of them slowly, with plenty of time for thinking about how each new point fits your writing, and for practicing that point

Debra Dixon: She was one of Swain’s students, and is a successful writer. Her GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict probably won’t be found in the library, either. It’s a much easier read than the other two, but doesn’t go into the same detail. Still, it’s a good first book.

For a sort of overview of the issues, you might want to dig around in the articles in my writing blog.

Keep in mind that writing isn’t a destination, it’s a journey—one that lasts a lifetime. And with each new thing we learn we improve the ratio of crap to gold in the direction of gold.

So whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

[Bare trees]

If you were looking for sad, you got it from me. This was a touching story and I'm glad I didn't pass it up.

[nightshade]

thank you for reading in a weird way I am glad that it made you sad

[Bare trees]

I know what you mean.