Angel, Treasure of the Gods

Angel, Treasure of the Gods

The world outside Angel’s world began to brighten.

Angelina, she thought, but no, it was always Angel, not the name she claimed, the person she felt she was inside.

Angelina, she wanted to scream, then bubbles would froth from her lips, choking her words, as they tumbled into the turbulence of the surrounding world.

Light flickered overhead, dim at first, scattering rivulets of flowing luminescence across the rough, gravelly ground. The interplay of light and shadow was a dance of this and that, day and night, yin and yang. Overhead had been dark, despite the increasing light filling Angel’s world. Angelina’s world.

Still, it was beautiful, and calmness filled her thoughts for a time. Then, movement in the outside world. Angel turned, her attention captivated, and she blindly shifted two muscles, a twitch here and a push there, and moved as close as she dared. As close as she could, which was as close as she dared. To jump the wall—to try for more—to reach the outside was certain death. It had happened before . . .

Others, the Big Ones, moved about, growing larger, casting a shadow over her world, filling Angel with an element of awe, then a wave of desire that was analogous to hunger, or at least she thought of it as desire, and only when it was satiated did she know it had been hunger all along. She could now differentiate the two, but the desire was overwhelming, and she felt a haze of disappointment dull her desire . . . her hunger . . . when the Big One moved further afield without recognizing her worshipful desire, her need, her longing for what only the Big One could provide.

The light overhead brightened further, as it always did at the start of each day, a gradual increase in lumens, filling Angel’s world with crystalline sparkles she felt she could touch, swim through, bask in. In the distance, the Big One took notice and turned her direction. The Big One drew closer—a giant—and Angel caught herself backing, moving away, until she brushed a leafy wall and could go no further.

No hiding, not from the Big One. She felt exposed, giddy, although in reality, it could have been hungry. Anticipation and fear were wrapped into one.

Then the Big One hovered just outside her world, so close, so close, so close. He/she/it . . . God . . . the source of all, the provider of food and life, the life giver. Angel quivered, sending the light around her swirling into circlets on the ground, spreading like ripples into rivers of shade and shadow.

Then the Big One . . . God . . . tapped the outside of Angel’s world, the border between her swirling haven of life and warmth and safety and the Big One’s mysterious miasma of otherness, and Angel heard God speak.

“There you are, my beautiful angel. You are a treasure. You must be hungry. Here, some breakfast.”

And manna, looking very much like brine shrimp, fell from the sky, and Angel partook of as much as she desired. For a time, she was happy to be Angel, treasure of the Gods. Then finished, she flicked her tail and darted through her watery world, calling out to everyone she came across, Angelina! I am Angelina! Angelina, Angelina, Angelina!

Today, she could be anyone she wanted. After all, Angel was the treasure of the Gods!