Fugue
Jay Caselberg
Jorge had been thinking for a while about how he might change his world. The problem was that the world seemed to have a mind of its own. The skinny fingers of circumstance plucked at his thoughts, discomfiting and constant, but there wasn’t a thing he could do to shift the feeling, nor to shift himself from the place that he seemed to be stuck.
He sat now upon the sea wall, watching dirty foam swirl around the edges of boulders piled by unseen hands a hundred years before memory. Cold, cold, the gray-blue water crashed against the man-made barrier, sucking back to leave traces trickling between the cracks, the hint of salt spray casting a thin veil over sky and sea. On a day like today, he could almost be guaranteed his solitude. This was his place. His alone. The collar of his dark coat was turned up against the chill breeze, his thinning hair blowing in strands back and forth against his face. Lifetimes could pass here without him marking their passage and that was one of the things that drew him here. Back home there were…things he’d rather not think about while he was here in his place of refuge. But he had to think about them. Knowing what he had to do, he tossed a pebble into the water and watched it sink from view.
With a grumble deep in his throat, Jorge clambered to his feet, shoving cold, pale hands deep into the pockets of his thick coat. Steel-gray waves rolled in toward the sand, blanketed by a dull sky above, the stiff breeze whipping white spume from their tops. Back along the beach, a solitary figure walked, a mere smudge against the flat expanse.
With a sigh, Jorge turned from the faded pastel beachscape. Fine spray from the waves pattered icy droplets against one cheek, but he was immune to the cold. Up at the beach end, thin wooden slats had been laid across the dunes between the tufted grasses to form a walkway, the wood turned white and rimed with salt, making the pale strips look old and desiccated. He was hunched, negotiating his footing slat by slat, when something made him stop, pause. Slowly he lifted his gaze, sea-gray eyes fading into the wave wash behind as if one might see right through his head to the horizon.
“We are indeed the hollow men,” said the angel with a smug grin.
Jorge worked his mouth, but nothing would come. He frowned, blinked a couple of times and ran the tip of his tongue over wind-cracked lips, but still there were no words. What did you say to an angel? The sun was starting to slip behind the mountains, casting a fiery corona around the being’s wings, making it difficult for Jorge to make out a face. He hadn’t expected wings made of leather. No, not at all. Now he could smell, it too. Deep and rich, the scent of tanned hides and deeply stuffed couches. The wings stirred slowly, languidly, seemingly unaffected by the breeze that rippled invisible fingers through the grasses and little trails of sand around Jorge’s feet. So, this was an angel. He could tell it was an angel. The white robes and everything. It wore sandals on its feet too. The sun drifted a little farther, giving Jorge a better view of the angel’s face.
“All right?” he said and started to head for the top of the rise and past.
One leathery wing stretched out to block his path.
“This is the way the world ends,” said the angel.
Jorge shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He stepped past the outstretched wing and headed on up the trail and over the rise, leaving the angel behind.
Anyway, how could he take seriously a creature that was spouting misplaced T. S. Eliot at him? Eliot and Prufrock. Well, it wasn’t Prufrock, but it was all so appropriate in a way. He thought briefly about rolling up his trouser legs, taking his shoes and socks off to feel his fish-white toes squeak through the sand before he reached the grassy park leading across to the road proper, but knew he wouldn’t. It wasn’t in his nature. At least not now. Especially not after seeing the angel, Eliot or not.
