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The first time I saw her I was a few thousand feet above the Atlantic, blue sky above and pillows of clouds below. She didn’t have a harp or halo or wings, but she was definitely there. On the other side of the window. Hovering above the mist, yet keeping up with the plane. She looked straight at me, green eyes twinkling, smiling, as if she and I shared a secret joke the rest of the world would be too stupid to understand. Then she turned and was gone as if reality had suddenly noticed a breach of its rules and engulfed her.

The moment had lasted a few heartbeats at most, but I did not doubt what I had seen had been real.

My Dad snored beside me. No use waking and telling him about her. Adults struggled to believe perfectly well-crafted excuses; he’d have no hope with this. So I kept my secret to myself and pressed my face against the window for the rest of the flight, willing her return.

It was to be another ten years before I saw her again. I was in the supermarket, white knuckles gripping the kart, my pulse thundering in my neck, the shelves and their gleaming choices towering above me. I was only able to keep walking because I willed every step.


1. I realized she had been a he all along, and when the "woman" wearing red lipstick and fuchsia heels sauntered my direction, I was smitten. She could fly, swim, and strut, and we had many pleasurable adventures. My dad sure did enjoy her company, and he never snored again.


2. "Come along, Clive," the fair-haired vision exhorted me, grabbing me roughly under the arm and hefting me along. "People want to get home in time for today's supper, after all." Her green eyes shined with mirth and I saw my own reflection in the shine on her white teeth.

It was then I saw her pointed canines and realized how she flew without wings. Perfect. Wasn't bad enough I was the last non-mutated human male to survive the thermal holocaust. Now I had a guardian vampire.


3. My heart flopped irregularly in my chest. I'd been ignoring the warning signs for years. My heart hadn't.

There she was, next to me, those wise, infinite green eyes smiling at me. She grabbed my arm as I slumped to the floor.

"Richard." I heard her voice everywhere. "I tried to tell you that being an atheist wasn't the way to go, but you wouldn't listen. Should I return you to earth, or just take you with me now so I can drop you off in Hell?"


4. There she was, dripping beef blood from a cheap cut of sirloin on the floor in front of me as I pushed down the aisle. My angel glanced back at me with red-rimmed, green eyes that her grey hair kept falling into. Her hunched back bristled with cat hair, and she smelled of urine, but she was unmistakably my angel. My grip on the cart didn’t keep me from slipping on the greasy bits of a dead steer, and I landed sharply on my back, driving the air from lungs.

As I lay gasping on the slimy floor, her miraculous face hovered over mine, and she said, “I saved you from dying over the Atlantic," she stopped and shook her head, "I don’t think I’ll do it twice.”