before us lies a
village.
many people used to live
in this village.
the people farmed for a king
and if they farmed hard enough,
and woke early enough,
and fought enough,
and bled enough,
then the king would
be happy,
sometimes.
once in a while,
if the king was happy enough
and for long enough,
then he would
take the time to
speak to his people
for a
little while.
and when he did
he smiled at the people
and waved at the people
and thanked them for their
hard work
and then
stepped back into his
royal chambers
and slammed shut his
gilded balcony doors.
~
a meteor hit this
village once.
we do not know
when it came
nor
where it came, but when it
hit–
local astronomers
called its tail
“Majestic!”
~
sometime after this
meteor hit,
one of the
commoners
turned into an angel.
wings sprouted
from her back
electric arcs,
iridescent.
she turned her head smiling,
hovering,
and
to some of her friends she was a
“whole new person” but
to others she was
“just the same.”
and the king saw
this golden angel
from his balcony view
and
–enraged–
he ordered his men
to destroy it.
these men,
they did not
question him.
~
and the men
took away the angel
and
took away anyone else who
thought that maybe
they could be an angel too.
and after that there were
signs
big signs
all throughout the village,
and they said things like:
“there are no angels in the village.”
“angels have never existed.”
“angels cannot exist.”
“we cannot allow angels to exist.”
some time later,
the villagers started
to make their own
signs,
and they made them all
for free, first
with their own paint
and later
with their own blood.
~
some time later
a woman in the village
tries
to walk down a dark side-street.
in the distance,
she hears a whisper.
“did you hear?
‘king says
you’ll get a
coin
if you catch one
all by yerself.”