bending_sickle | Take the time to imagine the impossible: that maybe you survive.* (Reply)

Nano: Oh gods, make it stop.

“I fell,” said Icarus, his voice muffled under the sweater. Chip pulled the wool further down and out emerged Icarus’ head, his hair wet with sweat and what little blood had trickled along the nape of his neck whilst Chip was staunching the bleeding. “There was a storm the night Clarence Saunders found me, a storm that coincided with my fall. He was wrong in assuming that the storm caused my fall: it did not. It echoed it. My wings and my grace were taken from me by the celestial winds. These wounds I bear,” he gestured to his back, “are the sign of my lack.”

This confession seemed to go hard on Icarus. He closed his eyes and lifted his chin slightly, his face upwards, to the car’s roof or to the sky or to some plane of existence closed to Chip. The fallen angel took a deep breath and held it, his expression both pained and hopeful, as if listening for something he knew he would never hear. As if he were praying.

Chip’s hands were still gripping the edges of the sweater, forgotten mid-act. Embarrased and feeling as if he were intruding, he recollected himself and awkwardly pulled the sweater down, smoothing it against Icarus’ sides.

He heard Icarus exhale slowly and lifted his eyes to meet him.

There it was again, that unearthly blue in the angel’s eyes that had faded from Icarus somewhere along the highway that night. It was clearly visible in the darkness of the car, shimmering like a butterfly’s iridescent wing. That colour could make Chip believe anything.