Pure Love of the Fallen
Alina Popescu
Copyright Alina Popescu
https://alina-popescu.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.
Cover art by M.P.Revita - https://mprev.weebly.com/
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. In other words, if you think this about you, it probably isn’t! But as an Internet meme says, if the shoe fits, then lace it up and wear it proudly!
No angels, humans, animals or other living things have been hurt in the process of writing this short story, but my dog has probably been neglected a bit!
A big thank you goes to the beta readers of the short story and to all those supporting it on Facebook, Twitter, email, phone, etc.
A few words before you start reading
Hello everyone! *waves* I am Alina Popescu, the author of this short story, and I have been writing since childhood. After treating writing as a hobby for quite a while, I decided it was time to take it seriously, hence my spending the past few years working on my first novel (which turned into a series). I write fantasy and sci-fi, and the trilogy I am working on right now is a vampire story.
The short story you have downloaded (big ‘thank you’ for that) is inspired by several (fallen) angel stories, movies, and comics. With a little inspiration help from Tartini’s Devil’s Trill, I wanted to write about my take on angels, humans, love, and what it meant to find one’s way.
Hope you enjoy my story!
Ramiel looked down at the overflowing ashtray. He barely had any room to put out the cigarette, but he somehow managed to squeeze it in without making too much of a mess. “I should really throw all this away,” he thought. “Eh, never mind! Later, it will be just the same...” He was bored and the continuous puffing wasn’t helping much. While his body stood still, his mind kept wandering, taking him back, back up there, where he never wanted to go, not like this, not just with his thoughts. How was he? Was he still as beautiful? Was he still as cold? Who was he spending his time with? Still so self righteous? Still so unmoved by the loss of his lifelong companion? Everything was probably pretty much the same in his former home, he decided, and lit another cigarette.
It was the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday. Dreaded time! Nothing to do, no one to see, they were all busy getting ready for the new week. He always got depressed on days like these because he had too much time to think of everything. How he had loved, how he had lost his beloved, how he had been banished for it... What a cruel fate, to still have all his powers and waste them all on this Earth! He lacked nothing and he lacked everything. What he had meant nothing to him, what he wanted was unattainable. He had one thing of importance, he remembered, and mentally slapped himself for having forgotten. His friend, the bright eyed girl that was always cheerful. Clumsy and positive, a little lonely and somewhat shy. Cute, he thought, lovable in an endearing way, emanating warmth through all her pores, even when she’d get terribly angry. She was his silver lining in the end... But even she had her own life to worry about!
The cigarette had grown cold between his fingers, he noticed. Damn fire prevention rules! They always tasted funny after being lit again! Or maybe it was just something he had heard about the taste being altered and had taken to heart?
Noisy, he thought, rubbing his stomach. He should eat something soon, he needed to feed properly on Earth. Ah, he missed the days when he needn’t worry about such trivial things: shower, eat, get dressed, drink... Although food was fun, so was alcohol, not to mention cigarettes. Just as he was contemplating the sensorial pleasures of his current world, the doorbell called him to the entrance. If they were selling something on a Sunday afternoon, he’d be really pissed.
“Come on, move it, Ramy, open up the freaking door!” A familiar voice accompanied the impatient knocking.
“Hold your horses, little girl!” he shouted back and chuckled. What was she doing there?
“Ramy, I swear, I’m gonna slap you one of these days! Stop calling me little girl!”
“But that is what you are,” he teased, enjoying her pouty expression.
She dropped the takeout bag in his hands and slid past him into the room.
“You got cold beer, right?” she asked, but did not wait for a reply, already busy inspecting his fridge.
“Did you run out of beer at your place? Isn’t the store closer than my apartment?”
“Sorry, Ramy! I wasn’t really planning on coming here,” she said, looking away from him. “I just wanted to clear my head, so I went out for a walk. I’d been just moving aimlessly for a few hours when I eventually found myself in front of your building.”
“Is everything okay?” he asked and then mentally slapped himself again. Of course it wasn’t! Why else would she walk around and come there on a Sunday?
She sighed deeply and went to lean over the window frame, taking in the smell of the linden flowers outside his apartment. Those trees and the large apartments were the best things about the old and squeaky building where he lived.
“Isn’t this the day you go out with your girlfriends?” he kept pressuring her.
“Yeah, but everyone was busy today. I ended up spending the whole day watching crime series on my computer.”
He smiled thinking of her undying love for crime series and movies. She had at a point explained that she loved seeing the bad guys caught and put away. She watched so many episodes of such TV shows that she could now eat without any need to stop to at least look away if not throw up while watching bodies being cut into by coroners and limbs oozing blood being put under the microscope.
“I hate Sundays!” she said all of a sudden.
“Really? I was just thinking that before you came,” Ramiel let the words slip without even realizing. “Everyone decides to either spend time with loved ones or shut themselves inside and get ready for the new week!”
“True,” she agreed with a quick nod and turned to him smiling. He smiled back, although he didn’t feel particularly cheerful. Her smiles just happened to bring out his, every time. It was that continuous warmth of hers, he knew very well.
“Ramy, let’s make a pact,” she proposed, her eyes aglow. “Let’s spend Sunday afternoons together! Let’s stop enduring this cursed time of the week alone and just have fun or quietly hang out, the two of us!”
“You’ve got yourself a deal!”
“Awesome!” she beamed. “Well, if you fall in love with some hunk, I’ll let you be!”
“I am done with love, you know it!”
“Don’t say that! Shamsiel couldn’t have been the only one for you. Another love will follow.”
“I’m not like everyone else!” he snapped, and then regretted it. “Sorry!”
“That’s alright! I know it’s a touchy subject.”
Always so understanding, this girl!
“Besides,” he tried to soften it. “It does not necessarily have to be a hunk. A beautiful woman would do just as well.”
“Huh?” she said, and came over to him quickly. “Say what now? I thought you were gay!”
“Umm, not really! I think we’re beyond sexual orientation. Gender is irrelevant to us.”
“So all angels are bisexuals?”
“If you want to use a word to define it, then yes. Although... I’d say the majority are asexual.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” she confessed frowning.
“Most think carnal
pleasure and any physical expression of love are the attributes of lower beings. So they keep it platonic. Frustrated little bastards, if you ask me, and Shamsiel has always been their king.”
“That immersed into his beliefs, huh? Then you should take great pride in your achievement!”
“What achievement?”
“You got the king to bow down to you and let you become master of his body... make a mess of him and bind him to your touch, something like that!”
She was making fun of him, he could tell by the smile she was trying to hide. How sweet and refreshing!
“Yeah, but that got me thrown out and forced me to find a new home outside the Pristine Gardens! A few orgasms somehow don’t seem that cool when they’ve lead to my angering the Supreme Being.”
“Eh, stuck up Supreme Being! Punishing you like that, just when you had finally gotten busy with your lover!”
It finally hit him, just then, hearing her say that. He gasped, rubbed his forehead and suddenly needed to sit right away, which he did where he stood.
“Hey, Rams! All good? What’s with you, suddenly turning all pale and sitting on the floor? I thought angels didn’t get sick...”
“Sorry, I just somehow overlooked such an important fact! It was weeks after the deed that the Supreme Being called upon me and told me to make myself scarce.”
“Maybe he or she or whatever was distracted with other important issues and didn’t get around to it sooner?”
“It doesn’t really work like that!”
“Anyway, let’s eat before the food gets cold and worry less about things of the past!”
She was right, no point in poking around the hornets’ nest! He went to bring bowls and chopsticks and set out the Chinese takeout on the coffee table in front of the TV.
The food was good, but not stellar, and the movie failed to distract his mind. Why would the Supreme Being wait to banish him? Why not do it right from the start? Was he given time to change his sinful ways?
“Kiddo, tell me what’s going on with you,” he decided to ask. Her chatter was always fully disruptive.
“Nothing much... I was just really lonely. I keep busy during the week, I go out with you or my friends on weekends, brunch with girls on Sunday is religiously kept. But Sunday afternoons... unless I get busy around the house, I get all gloomy and negative!”
“I’ve never seen you like that. I’ve seen you angry and that was somewhat scary, but never depressed.”
“I strive hard to keep it from you,” she said before realizing it, then stuffed her mouth with rice in an attempt to keep it sealed in the future.
“What?”
“What?” she mirrored, shrugging and pretending not to understand.
“You’re my only friend; I talk your ear off when I am melancholic or sad. Why would you refrain from doing the same?”
“Umm... well, you see...”
“Stop looking for plausible explanations!” he urged. “Spill it out!”
“You are emo enough as it is!” she finally said, but he had a hard time believing her.
“Are you trying to deceive and angel, kid?” he asked in a pretend-threatening voice.
“Yeah, what of it? Gonna strike me down or something?”
“I just might,” Ramiel said, biting back a smile.
“And risk being left with no friends at all? That would be smart!” She snickered.
“Please tell me what hurts,” he said in a low voice and a pleading tone that he knew she’d never resist.
“There’s this guy I’m in love with,” she decided to finally talk. “But he’s already in love with someone else, it’s never going to happen, so it’s slowly killing me, because I know he’s unhappy.”
“And do you think you could make him happy?”
“Didn’t you hear? He’s in love with someone else. At best, I could make him less unhappy. But I wouldn’t mind, not really. If only he’d look at me for a second!”
“If he’s not looking at you, then he’s an idiot,” he said firmly. She choked on her beer and spilled it all over her jeans, as she was laughing uncontrollably.
“That wasn’t so funny!”
“Yes, it was,” she mostly mimicked between bursts laughter. “You made it sound like I was such a catch!”
“That’s because you are!”
“Not to this guy, I’m not,” she insisted. Ramiel was getting angry. He hated it when she’d bash herself like that. The girl had a serious issue when it came to her image of herself.
“Jesus, kiddo! You know that rubs me the wrong way! I told you to start looking at yourself properly and realize your worth!”
“Rams, what’s so special about me? I’m average looking, I am pretty smart but not a genius, I have a decent job that’s not particularly boring. I am the quintessence of average!”
He wanted to slap her out of that nonsense, but he knew better. He’d hurt her without ever changing her mind.
“You’re the warmest person I know, you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve seen because they turn green in bright sun and almost black when it’s cloudy, you’re amazingly perceptive when it comes to reading and reacting to other people’s emotions, you emanate trust to the point of getting a fallen angel to reveal his true nature. You put others first way too much, but you can learn to change that, right after you stop putting yourself down!”
She gave in under his fiery stare, placed the bowl and chopsticks on the table and wrapped her arms tightly around her knees, sinking into the couch to the point of almost being swallowed whole. She looked so tiny and fragile that he couldn’t refrain from taking her into his arms. He felt her turn stiff the moment he touched her and when he forced her face to turn to him he saw tears flowing down her cheeks. He tried to hug her properly, but she pushed him away and stood up.
“Gotta run, Rams!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he said, getting up and following her to the hallway.
“I’ll see you soon, okay?” she mumbled, wiping her tears and putting her jacket on.
“I can’t let you leave like that! Wait a second, I’ll get my coat and walk you home.”
She nodded in agreement and he made his way to the dresser to pick up some jacket to wear. He heard the front door shutting behind her as he was putting it on and knew she had deceived him. He could have easily caught up to her, but the thought she didn’t want him around stopped him.
“Silly little girl,” he muttered, then pulled out his cell to text her. “Let me know that you’ve gotten home safely,” he typed furiously. What was wrong with that girl, she was never so put off by his touch! It must be that jerk she loved. What a waste of genuine and pristine feelings, he thought. Maybe he should help her somehow, he had to find out who the fellow was and push him in the right direction. That was his activity of choice on Earth, find some human that needed help and force things and circumstances to align in their favor. His precious friend deserved his attention more than anyone!
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