Behind These Wings

Baby Hairs

One blade.

A four metre wingspan.

Three quarters of an inch and she would have been dead.

Drew stared at the face of his wife.

He couldn't believe it when Bernard had told him the chances of a throw like that.

One in more than he would like to think about.

From Bernard's estimations and Drew's interrogation of the rebel who made the throw, the pair determined that the rebel was a trained killer therefore nighty nine times out of hundred he would have made that shot.

Andrew couldn't be more grateful that for some unknown reason Izzy had been that one in which he missed. Thankfully she had awoken after a few hours of unconsciousness; even so Drew couldn't help but worry about her whilst she slept.

Looking at his wife with more scrutiny than before he studied the dark circles beneath her eyes and wondered what had caused them. He noticed the slight discolouration around her cheek bone and thought about all the ways she could have received the bruise. Had she fallen? Had someone hit her?

Why didn't he know the answers to these questions?

He should know.

He studied her eyelashes as they caressed each other, observing how one eyelash half way in on her right eye was a millimetre longer that the others. He beheld the way that a few baby hairs, just beginning out their life, sprouted from her roots and fell haphazardly across her forehead, not adhering to the partition that the 'adult' hairs were subject to.

Those baby hairs had always frustrated Izzy. She felt that they made her look unruly, unkempt. How could anyone put their faith in her to lead all angels if she couldn't even manage to keep her hair under control? But Andrew had taken a very different stance, he found those wisps of hair to be endearing, he loved the way they would grow to frame her face and he loved how they obeyed no master.

He envied them sometimes, free to act according to their will alone. They were not judged or interrogated. It was understood that they were in their youth and that, one day, they would grow up and it would only be then that the rules would apply.

The problem came in defining when these hairs were 'grown-up'. Was it when they reached her eyes? Was it when they began to take sides and meandered down to her chin?

Andrew had been called an adult from the age of fourteen.

His mother had died and from that moment on, he, along with everybody else, no longer viewed him as a child. They believed that at this point Drew had seen enough of the world, he had felt enough pain, to understand what it took to be an adult and so his childhood was swept away overnight.

Sometimes he wondered if that was one of the reasons he was drawn to Izzy. Whilst he had buckled under the pressures that adulthood had brought him and retreated into his shell here was a woman who had entered the mysterious lands of adulthood early as well and yet she was confident, graceful and beautiful. She was the embodiment of the perfect woman to Drew and maybe her skill at mastering the elusive 'adulthood' had made her stand out to him.

But no matter how much he believed her to be accomplished at adulthood he had been reminded now that he should never forget that they were still young and had so much of life left to live. It was moments like this that made him wish for another life; one in which life wasn't threatened on a weekly basis.

Drew didn't believe that it was fair that their childhoods had been taken so early. He liked to see those baby hairs grow far down Izzy's back before he would class them as 'adults'. He would not rob others of the chance of living free.