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It is centuries, now, since the angel began her work with humans, and being close to them has invoked her curiosity, if not her admiration. They are just so many stories patched together, so many forgotten days encased in bone and meat.
One might unearth almost anything with enough searching. Being a muse is mostly this—a sifting through of memories to find something of merit, hauling it to the surface where it can shine. The endeavor has, at the best of times, an exotic appeal. Forgetting is a concept the angel knows only through observation. Every moment of her long existence echoes through her like the unfading peal of a bell, things she would rather forget every bit as loud as those she would remember.
“A writer, are you?” Galileo said. “Cursed, even more than an astronomer. Full of strong opinions that will leave you cold in your old age.”
“It is so. You’re too young to know. Learn to smile in the daytime and write your heresies by candlelight, or you’ll live to regret it.”
Before he became blind, John would never have let someone else write his words down for him, not even an angel. The words were too important.
A boy who cares more for the freedom to direct his own gaze than for the master’s anger is a rare creature indeed.
The man working the counter is wearing a black suit and a crisp white shirt and has the haughtiness so common among people who serve the rich for a living, as if they are superior just from being near other people’s money.
man named Bashir shouted out all the names they used for God, and commanded us to repeat them: the Compassionate, the Merciful, the Controller, the Strong, the Abaser, the Avenger, the Forgiver…
Ninety-nine words that were foreign and clumsy in our mouths. While we prayed, Bashir paced back and forth. If he thought someone was not saying the words correctly or not paying attention, he hit her with a stick or shouted in her face until she cried. We were so afraid of him then, as if being shouted at was something to fear.
