The rain dripped off his wings,
but he felt nothing.
It was patrol night. Tuesday. A little extra time on his hands, and there was
nothing better to do. Into the streets he went. The streets of his people. There was no particular reason
these were his people other than the fact that he declared them to be.
A small bakery shop. The exchange of a few crumpled bills. The taste of a small pastry on his lips and the steam of a
hot coffee on his glasses.
A few blocks on, the pastry was gone, the cup was tossed, and
there was no longer any water vapor blocking his view. Sounds began to flood in from all directions. There was something about these patrols that made him feel truly alive. Every light seemed more vibrant. Even the passersby seemed to be giving off
a warmth he could actually feel.
Time would fly by and he would wonder
where the night went. Nights in the city energized him more than sleep. Two hours a night, that's about all he got now.
This had become
his second job. His second life. Daylight memories passed through his head like dreams. He was no longer awake during his normal life. Those hours faded into
an identity that was no longer his. Even
the occasional bite to eat on the streets gave him little satisfaction.
It seemed to be the street itself.
He could feel his body melting into the city sometimes. The crowds, the cars, the lights - whirling about him in a blur, yet snapping into sharp focus whenever he needed them to. In the moments when adrenaline shot through his body, he could feel time stop,
he could feel himself being lifted by a force behind him, a force he could never muster in daylight.
During those brief periods,
his mind would burn and his body would move among the pedestrians and bystanders as if they barely existed. He could accomplish anything, as long as he was focused. And when the adrenaline rush faded, time would resume, and
the world would return to normal. But he would be gone. On to the next leg of his patrol.
What was left in his wake no longer mattered. In those moments of focus, there was nothing else in the universe. But when he moved on, what remained was for the bystanders to pick up. He knew
they would be able to do it. That was the way of things.
They all walked different
roads that only crossed in rare instances. His road came with his gift, and was barely a part of material existence. He watched over his people, but they never saw him - perhaps from time to time when he purchased something, but he would never be recognized. And the things he did when activated would be over so quickly that they appeared to be accidents of nature.
A car swerves into a fire hydrant, barely missing a group of shoppers.
A man falls off a fire escape and lands on a heap of garbage bags.
Another man slips on the wet sidewalk and is taken to hospital where he is arrested.
These were all his people. Even the ones going to jail. There would be a road of redemption for them, but
that was not something he'd walk. When he passed by, his wake would be the catalyst for the next stage of their lives, if that's
what fate had in store for them.
He would appear on rooftops sometimes, not quite sure how he got there, watching the city below him. He had been to the doctor a few times, worried about his sporadic blackouts, but they barely affected his life,
so he stopped going.
Sometimes he could feel himself falling from those rooftops, but in those moments, his thoughts would usually be so focused on something below him that he would quickly forget
what he had just been doing. And when time started again, it would be on to the next thing, the previous events of the evening
left like just another coffee cup in a streetside wastebasket.
The blur of the lights, looking over the heads of the other pedestrians, the patrols that took him to more parts of the city than he could logically explain. He was past logic now.
It didn't matter anymore. He was doing what he wanted to do - he was living. Maybe
he had been dead before but never realized it, but he was truly living now.
The ghost of his body still went like clockwork to his day job, made the usual pleasantries to his coworkers. But those hours disappeared when evening came, when he was truly awake and truly alive. Everyone saw him during the day, but
few took notice at night - mostly when he made a few purchases at the bake shops.
No,
he did not know he had wings. Neither did anybody else who saw him. But he had wings nonetheless. And when it rained, the water droplets would run down the feathers and leave a trail behind him, but
you could never tell them apart from any other droplets.
And when he flew, nobody could see him. Even he would not realize what he was doing, because in those moments, noticing the rest of
the world was not his mission nor his assignment. All he knew was that
he would be tired when it was time to go home, when he would get two hours of sleep before
getting up for his commute to the office.
It was nothing new.