City of Angels

Chapter 3: Immortal Mortal

The sunshine was a guilty pleasure of mine whenever I had the opportunity to experience it inbetween my travels. It had a certain warming effect on my being as I bathed in the temperate light, which somewhat reminded me of my home in the hereafter.

The town square had gotten busy and bodies were weaving past one another, back and forth, back and forth, never knowing the true potential of a missed encounter. Like ants, humans tended to bustle about, antennae constantly bouncing off one another to transfer information, but so rarely stopping to actually look at - to truly see - one another.

All the world seemed blind.

I had spent some indeterminate amount of time (after all, what were mere minutes more than dust in the vastness of eternity?) seated on a bench on the grassy square. I was patiently observing my passenger and her company from afar, intensely aware of the approaching moment.

The smiles were frequent, along with the curious head tilts. There was a nervous fiddling with empty sugar packets by unsure fingers, though I could not understand why. Neither woman was showcasing threatening behavior, and neither of them seemed to be experiencing fear.

The range of human emotions were often foreign to my understanding, though I had gotten better over the ages.

It was not much longer until they eventually departed from one another. There was a lingering handshake and a time-consuming staring of eyes that seemed to long for something more. The brunette beauty slipped something into my passenger's pocket and departed reluctantly, looking back several times before turning the corner of the street. Her attempt at catching final glimpses of what could possibly have been were endearing, had it not been for the stray dog a few blocks away.

Breaking loose from his leash, the hound bounded into the street; a street down which a young executive was speeding because he was late for work due to the fact that he was up most of the night, cheating on his unsuspecting wife. As he rushed his red convertible through an intersection and swerved for the dog, a vacuum of air was created and quickly filled again, creating a force of movement that shot up the side of an old building that should have been closed down for repairs and renovations months ago.

The sudden surge of air up the wall, of course, dislodged an ancient model air conditioner box that still hung upon the bricks precariously. When the final screw came loose, the box fell six floors to the pavement below.

It took my passenger six steps after catching her final glimpse of the beauty from the coffee shop to come to pass across the exact spot that the box gave way to gravity.

There was a moment right before impact that I stood before her on the sidewalk, the world frozen around us.

"Which is the greatest human emotion above all else?" I asked her.

She was frightened, but circumstance would not allow her to move. Her eyes shot around her in fast uncertainty, but I allowed warmth and light to surround her in comfort and peace to soften her anxiety. As I unfurled my wings before her, I let her know that she was to be lead away to a better place. They were broad, white and magnificent and the mere sight of them could calm even the wildest human spirit.

"Which is the greatest human emotion above all else?" I asked her once again.

She answered... "Love."

As I ferried her soul to the other side, a gnawing realisation overtook me. I felt the sudden insatiable desire to know more about the human experience and it would not let me rest until I've tried to embrace it myself.

I had to feel, touch, taste, hear and smell with my own senses in the same way a mortal did. I was aching for a mortal experience that transcended what I could ever be aware of as an immortal being.

Little did I know then that it would mean my complete and utter undoing.

But callously I collected my passenger's body, healed it through divine intervention and selfishly claimed it for myself. I tugged at the unfamiliar garments that clothed my new vessel, slowly familiarising myself with the strange sensation.

Slowly sliding my hand into the blazer pocket, I removed what seemed like a business card from the pocket of the jacket I was wearing: 'Dr. Sarocha Chankimha, DVM'.

'Only for a little while', I swore to the unheard voices, not bothering to heed their warnings.