I am an Angel

When I tell people that I am an Angel they usually smile, vaguely. It doesn’t matter if they believe me or not. Because I am, and Denial doesn’t alter the Truth, however much it shakes its head. I don’t go around randomly shouting, I am an Angel, from the top of open air buses, or a crate in Hyde Park. But all the people I meet eventually ask the same question:

“Why are you so odd/ strange/weird/bizarre (I like that word it makes my lips buzz)/ kooky/ off the wall/odd?”

“Because I’m an Angel.”

Then, usually, I get one of two responses. The first one goes something like this:

“Sent from heaven?”

And I reply, “Yes.”

Though strictly speaking Angel’s don’t live in Heaven, because Heaven isn’t really a place. (Four dimensions are a little complicated to explain, and I am not very good at it. I know an Angel who can if you really want to know.)

Or:

“Do you really believe that?”

And I reply, “Yes.”

Because that is the Truth.

And they might say, something like:

“Delusions are a sign of personality disorders/ schizophrenia/ clinical depression and autism.”

And I reply, “Yes, I did know that, but thank you.”

I had a boyfriend once, such an odd word; Boy Friend. I don’t sleep with all of my friends that are boys, only the ones that make my groin ache. But he seemed to think that because he had this title, that made me, his. But I don’t belong to any one person; I don’t even belong to myself.

I tried to explain it to him, and he tried to understand, but as soon as I brought home, Ted, whom I had fallen in love with on the bus on the way home from work, he (the boyfriend) shouted odd things like: there’s doing it discreetly and there’s doing it right under my nose. And, at least try to choose someone better looking and younger than me. And finally, I thought you loved me? Of course I did, I told him, but I loved Ted too, and for that matter, Catherine who runs the Chemist and Angela who does the flowers at the church. Then he said, I make him sick, Angela is drawing her pension. So I said things like, age is irrelevant, and loving people is what life is about and that I had enough Love for everybody in the world. Then he said, you’re mad, you’re sex addict, and you’re mean and manipulative. And I felt sad, for him, because being an Angel is like being a mirror.

After that, I decided I would stick with ‘lovers’ which is a wholly apposite word and also sounds much better in plural and fits all the emics and etics; male, female, transgendered, lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, trisexual, metrosexual, quatrosexual, heterosexual, transsexual, bicurious, hermaphrodite, intersex, asexual, neuteured, castrated, eunuch, pillock, and the fetishes - (my favourite: Clown sex, I’m not sure if it’s the smiles or the jelly, but I always leave with a ‘laugh ache’ deep in my sides and a cowboy swagger that John Wayne would weep for).

One of my lovers is Rachel, she’s old she tells me, she’s past her prime, but all I see is fullness, she overflows with words and ideas that make my head grow and my insides jiggle. In her skin I see her past and in her eyes I see the present. Most people’s eyes contain the future; they’re always looking over my shoulder. Even when we make love I have to hold their faces tight and make them stay with me, in the now. I tell them the future is not yet here, they are staring into nothing. But they say they can see it, they can almost touch it.

And they say I am mad?

Things I wish I could change: (Angels can’t perform miracles, unlike Saints, but they’ve been thin on the ground in recent centuries.)
1) The people who hate me, because they hate themselves more.
2) The working week, (three days are enough.)
3) Monogamy, (overrated.)
4) Pain.
5) Fear of death.
6) Hangovers…

But I can’t. I’m only Angel. Oh, there’s Ralph. Have to dash, I’m off to try equine sex, apparently I have the perfect physique for a show pony. Now, where did I put my halter and reins?