Wings of Boden

By E.S. Lehman

Copyright 2012 Erik Lehman

Smashwords Edition

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Message

Angelic light lingers behind your eyes.

We are together.

We are angels.

We have descended from all that is good.

Swept up into the turmoil of life.

So take back your wings, without despair.

To feel your wings, open your heart.

Drop the chains of illusion.

-- Celeste Soepheea

****

Have you taken care of your wings today? 4
out of 5 doctors recommend preening twice a day and conditioning
your feathers with Dr. Danyell's Feather Gloss; The preferred
choice of angels since 2065. Pamper yourself and shine. —The
advertisement from the new April issue of Angelic Teen Magazine,
spread open on my classroom desk, held my interest.

My choices were slim, flip through the pages,
or jam a quill in my eye, while the geography professor went on,
and on, with some coma-inducing story we’d heard a hundred times;
the volcano story. One more option dawned on me, I could slap
someone, anyone, and run out the door. Hmm, yeah, an intriguing
idea, I mused. Then flipped the page to see a shampoo advertisement
that asked, Do you have split ends?

“Elle?” the professor called on me.

A question came to mind as I swiveled my gaze
around the room; how can such a bright, big classroom feel like a
closet with no doors? The entire class waited for some kind of
answer from me. Did he say Elle, or Al? At the back of room and to
my left, Albert eyed me with a grin.

Ugh. Tucking a loose strand of blond hair
behind my ear, I turned back to the professor, then pushed my toes
back into my heeled pumps and folded my hands on my skirt. It was
then I realized I really had to pee, so I clamped my knees together
and tried to put it out of my mind. The giant fruit smoothie from
Luscious Berry Yogurt shop at lunchtime might have been a bad idea.
I pulled my dainty necklace out from under my V-neck, held the
heart charm between thumb and finger, rubbing it to distract me
from the urgency.

Sunlight streamed into the room, particulates
floating on beams of warmth, reminding me of the freedom outside
the windowed wall. Pungent male body odor forced me to wrinkle my
nose and take shallow breaths to hold down a retch. It was so nasty
I could almost taste it. Hello, stinky male, ever heard of soap.
Angels shouldn’t stink, that’s just not right.

“Elle, what do you think?” the professor
asked from the front of the room. His folded wings showed such
feather neglect, dull and unkempt, peaking over the shoulders of
his button-down shirt. Shame on you, professor. He tapped his
pointing stick to the marble floor.

Tick, tick
… Whatever.

The boy in the next chair snickered! I cut my
eyes to him, stretched out a white wing, smacked him on the back of
the head and snapped out, “Shut it, little boy.” Chuckles and
comments sprinkled the room even as a pang of guilt knotted my
stomach. And I still had to pee.

“That’s my girl,” Vyn, my boyfriend, said
from the back of the class.

“That’s enough,” said Mr. Stearn, in his low,
end-of-semester drawling voice.

Because the professor’s story had lodged in
my mind, my gaze went over him to view the artwork hung on the wall
above the blackboard—artwork depicting cities before the volcano
catastrophe. Angelkind had descended to help clean up the mess.
While staring at the artwork, I couldn’t help but wonder why we had
to listen to the story, yet again. As if we could forget about the
demon spirits that the storm of volcanos and earthquakes had
released, I mean, all we have to do is walk outside at night and
there they are, smirking at us.

The clock beside the paintings taunted. The
flappin class was two hours long, torture by a second hand. Just
when I was about to voice my opinion, maybe, the second hand swept
over the twelve and the bell rang out, sounding the official
beginning of spring break.

“Thank Source,” I said on a sigh of relief,
then sprang from my desk.

Students herded toward the door, chattering
about vacation plans. As I joined the traffic jam of angels, Mr.
Stearn’s voice phlegmed out behind me, “Elle, may I speak with
you?”

Ugh, what now? The fruit smoothie seemed to
be out of patience with my bladder, and wasn’t going to wait much
longer for freedom. With my books held to my chest, I spun around
on my heels, clicked my way across the marble floor while my angel
classmates nudged by me.

Mr. Stearn lowered into his chair as I stood
before his desk. He began straightening his mess of papers. The
boy, Aalek, approached with a humble smile, exuding his brainy
innocence. Dark hair flopped over his forehead and ears. His skin
held a pubescent oily sheen. He stood a little less than my height,
maybe five ten, in slacks and short-sleeved dress shirt. The poor
guy had a set of small wings too. They would grow in a few years, I
knew, but it must’ve been difficult for him, what with the shallow
females and their affinity for large wings. Probably didn’t matter
to him, though, too busy with his brain.

“Elle, here’s your quill,” Aalek’s young
voice crackled while he held out a feather in his hand. “It dropped
on my desk when you smacked me.”

So sweet, why did I do that? “Oh, thank you,
Aalek. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“That’s okay. I understand. Spring break an’
all.” The corner of his mouth twitched into a blushed smile. “Um,
okay then, here ya go.”

“Just keep it, sweetie. It’s my fault. Write
me a poem with it. That’d be so nice.”

His eyes glittered. “Really? Thank you, Elle.
I will. I will do that.”

“Okay,” said Mr. Stearn, steel gray eyes
lurking under bushy brows, “that’s a start, but you’re not getting
off that easy, young lady. I’m sure your father wouldn’t want the
Soepheea family represented that way.”

Whatever.

Shifting my books to one arm, I did a mental
eye roll, adjusted my purse strap on my shoulder. Then wiggled my
hips, clamped my knees and tried to keep moving in the pee
dance.

He opened a desk drawer, looked in as he
said, “Tell me, Miss Elleria, do you think your sister would have
reacted the way you did.”

No, she’d have punched him in the forehead;
the thought made me curl a grin.

“I’ll see you later, Elle,” Aalek said.
“Thank you.” He shuffled off to join the others. Near the door, he
showed some friends his new quill. “Really, she gave it to me,” he
said to a doubter. How could I not smile for that? So cute.

Mr. Stearn bent over in his chair, searched
through a lower desk drawer, no doubt looking for some sort of
punishing homework. Sparse gray hair encircled his head, and the
top was so shiny I could’ve used it as a mirror to touch up my lip
gloss.

Homework? It was spring break, how could he
do that to me?

“Um, can this wait? I really have to use the
restroom.”

“This’ll only take a second, just relax.”
Another drawer opened. His search continued.

Knees clamped tighter. Hips wiggled. Weight
shifted from foot to foot. Oh my Source, I’m gonna die. Even as I
scrunched up my face at Mr. Stearn, I tried to take my mind off the
restroom, so I thought about the plans to go visit my dad at his
home near Boden—a mountain wilderness city. A visit with my dad
would be nice, in addition to the bonus reason for the trip:
Angel’s Closet, my dream store, had finally made it to Boden! Get
outta my way, here I come. No, seriously, get outta my way.
I
need to pee!
I snatched the paper from his outstretched hand
and streaked out the door, heels
click-clacking
the marble
at a frantic pace.

****

“Why do I have to say this every day?” I
asked Vyn as I stood in my dorm with an angel mantra paper in hand.
Hints of feminine charm sprinkled the room. White walls with peach
trim, a few inspirational posters hanging. My dressing table held
various perfumes, creams, a small bin of hair ties and accessories,
along with a stack of fashion magazines. The student desk held a
scattering of pencils and open textbooks. A puffy down comforter
and matching pillows covered my bed like a welcoming cloud. The
scent of flowers infused the room; lilac was the candle of choice
for this week, next week would be cherry blossoms.

Vyn sat hunched over on the edge of my bed,
elbows on jeaned knees and chin propped on fisted hands, eyeing his
crumpled T-shirt that lay on the carpet in front of him. Scruffy
dark hair fell around his face as he reached down and scratched his
ankle. “You wanna pass, right?” he said. “Maybe you should’ve
listened to the lecture instead of messing with your feathers.”
When he lounged back on his wings, and clasped his hands behind his
head, I saw the infinity symbol birthmark on the left side of his
bare chest. All of us have the same birthmark, mine’s on my right
ankle. But for some reason his looked, well, yummy, and I felt the
need to bite it like a juicy apple.
Jeez, calm down,
Elle.

“I can't wait till school is finished.” I
reined in my thoughts, turned and stalked over to the second-floor
dorm window, gazed out over the night campus. Cottonwood trees
arched over the shadowed cobblestone path that snaked across the
lawn, lampposts dropped pools of light here and there. A few lamps
were broken, some flickering, others completely out. But a
maintenance angel, driving an electric cart across campus, seemed
to be on his way to fix them. “I just wanna move on with my life,”
I said to the window.

“I know, Elle, again. Do you have to do this
every Friday night?” He blew out a sigh. When I turned around, he
grinned at the ceiling, patted the comforter. “Come sit by me.”

“Is that
all
you ever think about?” My
wings flittered in frustration so I folded them tight to my back.
“Let's go for a walk, c’mon, please. It's almost Saturday and I'm
done with study. I need some air.”

“Well open the window then.”

With a slit-eyed glare, I folded my arms over
my chest, spun around and marched off.

“You can stay here if you want. I'm going to
see Angie,” I called back to Vyn while I stood on the carpet of the
walk-in closet, contemplating my clothing choices. I dressed in a
white, knee-length pleated skirt; a silk bra; and powder blue
cotton V-neck—the back shaped like an upside down T. After
buttoning the shirt’s wing-flaps on each side of my hips, I pulled
my hair from the neck hole and folded my wings to my back.

“Hey,” Vyn called out while I debated sandals
or flats for the walk to my sister Angie’s home. Vyn would often
tell me I should just go barefoot. That’s what your feet are for,
he’d say. No, not these feet. Besides, the shoe store Petals-N-Toes
had always been like a friend to me, I couldn’t just abandon a
friend.

Sometimes I wished we could fly at night, to
save my heeled shoes from wear and tear. Vyn, being a scientist,
had once told me that earth’s gravity is so strong that we can’t
sustain our flight without a constant supply of light. This is the
reason angels had first descended in the daytime. That was well
before my time, though, so I never paid attention to the specifics,
didn’t really care. But Vyn likes to talk about stuff like that, so
I listen, sort of.

“You going with me?” I voiced out as I
stepped into a pair of flats. After pacing over to stand in the
closet doorway, I saw Vyn hunched over on the edge of the bed
again. “How do I look?” I asked.

He lifted his head. “We’re you even listening
to me?”

“What?”

“That’s what I thought.” He gathered a
breath. “I was saying. Just wondering about, oh, never mind.” His
eyes went to the carpet.

“What, what is it?” Was he finally trying to
tell me he loves me?

Vyn looked up. “Just wondering if it bothered
you about my height, you know. I mean, we’re in college now and I
haven’t even reached
your
height yet.”

“Not this again, of course I don’t mind.
Besides, I thought you liked where your eyes end up when I’m in
front of you.”

Vyn’s mouth curled a small grin of
remembrance. He lifted off the bed.

After I stepped over to him, I realized, yet
again, the exaggerated worries of a male. Vyn, only inches shorter
than my six one, stared into my eyes like a pet asking for a
treat.