Do you believe in angels?
There is a little prickly feeling on his arms where the grass touch his bare skin, but after a while, he manages to get used to them. He is not one to complain; especially, when the meadow turns out to be a nice retreat in the thick of noon. Thanks to the wide-reaching branches of a lonely oak tree, the malignant rays of the sun cannot reach him. He can feel the soft wind rustling his hair, offering consolation for another undifferent morning.
He closes his eyes, thinking how much sleep he loses every night without ever getting the chance to make up for them. It's a difficult undertaking. To sleep in the day. The world is so much alive, so so much more than he could catch up to. And here he is, taking another step back, lying down and letting the hours drift by.
He doesn't know when he has fallen asleep but he wakes up to the earthly scent of a leaf tickling his nose. He brushes it away, blinking at the slim and thin figure of a lady. It is her again. Like it was her yesterday. She comes when he least expects her to.
"Why would you do that?" He exclaims, without any intention of getting to his feet any sooner.
She smirks widely, her eyes laughing what her voice does not. "Do what?"
"Why do you have to wake me every single time?"
"Well,-" she begins but he stops her with a hand.
"Just... What do you want?"
She wears a white shirt today, that she pulls over her knees as she sits next to him. Too plain compared to what she wore last time. It was all polka dots. It didn't suit her and he could not stop chuckling. Sometimes she looks like a clown, sometimes a hag and mostly, stupid. Today, she looks peaceful. "I just want to watch the clouds with you, can we do that?"
The clouds are coming in fast, crowding the sky above them. He would love to get more sleep, yet there is no helping her as he had learned before. "What good could watching the clouds do us?"
She instinctively tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear, shrugging, "I don't know, pass the time? Look! That cloud looks just like me." She behaves like a child most of the time. She is impossibly erratic. Got a screw loose, maybe. Not a care in the world, like she is the childhood he never had.
"How? How is that cloud like you? It doesn't even look human to me."
She huffs with indignation, "It does! Those are arms, see!" She keeps pointing to them. The mass of cloud is quickly shredding apart and whatever form it had a second ago is to be blown away in the next couple of seconds. Just like that.
"That's more like a frog to me."
She nudges him on the side of his chest. "Why do you have to be so mean?"
He shrugs," Guess that's how I'm wired. Can't help it." She looks pretty dejected. Or she could be feigning it. Nonetheless, he says, "There, that one's a dragon."
She looks up, searching for it. "I can't see it."
"The wings, right there. Yeah, there. And the head, it's monstrous."
She puts her palm over her eyes, squinting to see. "I see a bird."
"That's not a bird. A bird doesn't have teeth. Or huge legs."
"Alright, you spotted it first, so fine, it's what you think it is," she agrees bitterly, cocking her head.
"That's not fair. A while ago, you insisted..."
"It's the rule of the game, alright? Now, my turn. That right there is an angel." She points to a blue void in the sky, smiling as though with triumph.
He peers his eyes heavenward; he can see nothing. "I can't see any angel."
"You're not looking hard enough."
He peers his eyes harder against the glare yet all that there is is a speck of cloud that his naked eyes can barely make out. "There's only like a small feather up there." He is lucky to even spot it.
"Exactly," she beams with childish pride, "it's a real angel, you know."
He shakes his head in amusement, "How did you know that? Did you ask him?"
"Well, I can, but will I hear him down here when he answers? Look, he isn't changing shape isn't he?"
It isn't. The wind is blowing, but the speck remains a speck. Faint yet never fading.
"Okay, it's the rule of the game. It's an angel as long as you say it is."
Out of the blue, she asks, "But hey, do you believe in angels?" Her eyes look into his as she too lies down on the grass.
"No," he sighs without the need to think, "I don't believe in the unreal."
The smile stays there on her lips even as she says, "But, you believe in me..."
He reaches out and ruffles her soft hair. "Of course I believe in you."
She is the only real thing in a world that feels unreal to him.
She snuggles closer to him, resting her head on the meat of his arm. "It's time for me to go," she says.
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know." It is her response right now. Just like it was her response last time.
"I must tell you, there is no such place as 'I don't know'," he yawns out.
"Close your eyes," she tells him.
"Please don't wake me up tomorrow. I don't want to wake up ever again," he utters with a little jape.
She chuckles a bit. "I will certainly do, Mr. Sleeper. Even when it's the last thing you want."
"I'm afraid I might not make it 'till tomorrow," he mouths - this time, with sadness - unashamed to speak his soul out to her listening eyes. He feels like a cloud always about to change shape, and dissipate. It's hard to describe the feeling. But the world does not seem to want him around.
"You'll see this face tomorrow. Now close your eyes," she insists, sweetly pinching him by the cheek.
He does as she told him. And when he opens them again, all that is left of her is the earthly scent of grass and leaves and that speck of cloud drifting across the sky.
Image from topalski.com