The Messenger of the Lord

Chapter One

Chapter One:

I am trying to achieve the look that I like for the face of the angel, but even though I do not feel comfortable with his appearance. I know that the face is angelic, I have no doubts of that, but something is still missing. It is the artist touch that gives the appearance of wisdom to him without seeming conceited. His face was of reverie, but it lacks the touch of wisdom. My mother had approached the drawing before going to sleep and when she looked at it, she was amazed. She was nonstop praising about the drawing. She said that it was a blessing from God to our home.

"Mom, I feel even though it is not perfect... It still does not have the look I desire... that special expression, that in my head, but I can't draw it on the paper." I expressed trying to tell her so that she could share my desires.

She looked at me with the same tenderness which she comforted my anguished efforts to refine my drawings.

"Anthony, my beloved artist, it does not need to be perfect" she said with an angelic voice, "No child in the entire Bavaria or even in Germany can draw like you." Her eyes were wide opened as if she was looking at something amazing.

She concluded with her customary religious solemnity: "You have a treasure that every mother would love for her child. The blessing of a divine talent." My mother was just about to leave the room, but not before telling me her advice: "Do not draw until late!" But as always, I drew until sleep won the battle with my eyes which strove to keep open.

"That aspect... that expression... how can I get it? " Today upon awaking, I started repeating to myself those words incessantly. A thought which questioned my ability. Suddenly, a bolt of brilliant energy flowed through my mind.

"It is that...!" I said out loud without being able to contain the exaltation. "How did I not realize?" It is that, I could draw with total precision anything that I looked at, but now, I do not have the object in front of me. There was no angel in front of me with that expression. My discovery, more than brings me comfort, magnified my anguish. Obviously, the perfect solution was to have the angel with that characteristic expression in front of me. Where shall I find such personage?

The vacuum that I had felt front me became an abyss, to see the reality I faced. I should have the artwork done for the Christmas concert and tomorrow it would be the Christmas Eve. An icy torrent went down through my backbone and froze my stomach. I could assure that it was colder than the winter wind that blow outside. It is the year 1890, the first one of the last decade of the century, and the winter was not less cold than last year.

"Do you not think to eat your breakfast today?" she asked to come in to my bedroom. I immediately remembered my cold stomach and I did not know how to respond. At the end I only yelled to tell her: "Mom, please, bless me! How are you today?"

My mother approached my drawing table, and delicately took the drawing with her hands, and it drawn in her face the same expression from last night. I looked at her, standing in front of the window, where I was for quite a while.

"It will be the perfect host for the Christmas concert!", she told me among laughs of admiration and joy.

The Messenger of the Lord" was drawn on a paper of 50 inches high and 30 inches of base, which had been brought from Hamburg, especially intended for drawing. The Christmas concert will beparticularly special this year, as a choir will sing and will play an orchestra composed of very talented children and young people from across the country. I had been selected for my outstanding talent in drawing, which was already famous in much ofGermany.

At twelve years old, already my "uncanny ability" "to extract people, animals, and landscapes in pencil", (so my sister Hannah called my skill in drawing), it was really appreciated. I was fully aware of the expression that the angel should have, but not so, I had not the ability "to extract it from my pencil"

"Anthony, you could not concentrate neither develop your skills if you do not eat your breakfast," my mother assured me by using the same words of Dr. Weismann.

At that time, I smiled, and I left my deep thinking, to see in my mind the image of the pleasant and fatty Doctor Weissman, when imitating the whistle of the train would say "¡More coal! More coal to the boiler! Full steam ahead! CHUGACHUGA CHOO CHOOOOOOO!", and he appeared to be the skilled engine driver. I had never been able to contain the laughter when I remember the plump doctor Weissman. I agreed to go downstairs for breakfast at the insistence of my mother.

I ate herb bread and drank strawberry juice, my favorite breakfast, but almost without noticing what I was doing at that time. I had only one thought in my mind: "The Messenger of the Lord". It was precise and necessary that reflect holiness, majesty, goodness, love, and wisdom. I could not wait to continue searching for the solution, so after breakfast I went back to my bedroom, to continue.

While I was retouching his hands and his suit, I only reached the cyclic conclusion: How to express such qualities without looking at them, without having a visual reference, only a feeling? Impossible for me until now. I needed to look at an angel. I had to get an angel to pose for me.

"Excellent conclusion!", I screamed and released the pencil on the table with unbridled frustration. But quickly, I made efforts to remove that feeling of myself. It was not consistent with thecommission which was to be performed at the Christmas concert. How to achieve an image that would be worthy of those beautiful pieces of music?

I opened the window and a spurt of frozen wind slapped me with rudeness.

"I NEED AN ANGEL! I shouted with desperation.

Some people who were walking at the end of thestreet turned their head to see. They were far away, and I think that they did not understand what I screamed to heaven.

"I NEED AN ANGEL!" I screamed again, more with the intention to put out my frustration, that waiting for the attention of an angel above in theheaven.

Amazed by my screams, my mother and my sister came upstairs to my bedroom.

"Anthony! What is happening!?" my sister exclaimed in totally anguish.

"Son, why did you scream!? What happened to you !?" my mother asked me with not less anguish.

When I turned back, both of them were gripping my arms. So, I paid attention to their anguish and I felt a shudder of shame.

"Anthony, what is happening to you?" I scolded myself mentally.