He was sitting quietly, the man across the table, grey haired, - disappearing to white, and starring at me with his unreadable frown. Tom’s Diner in the city was a quiet place sometimes. Outside the window we sat by, it poured, it fell like anything; the stormiest days of the year. “It was just one year ago” I say, to no one in particular, but he listened. A waitress came by and served breakfast; his gaze was lowered from me for the moment, he set himself to getting out his own utensils from a sandwich bag in his jacket. I waited for him, I didn’t really care for the same inhibitions as I just had my little pile of sausages, which I picked up with one finger and bit into as he got himself ready to eat.

My attention had been on my fingers as I licked them clean after the first one, but then I saw the man with his head down. “Religious?” I asked.

“Huh?” He looked up at me as if he didn’t hear the question, but then his eyes darted to his breakfast. “Oh, no, I was just cleaning my glasses.” He produced them now, old man’s glasses I thought they were at first, well, he wasn’t exactly young, I reasoned. It made him look less dangerous at least, a little more trustworthy if anything.

It was in that sense of security I began to open up, I barely knew him, but it seemed I wanted to tell him the story of what my life has come up to. “It was a little over one year ago now, the sounds of my footsteps echoed down these very same alleyways as my boots walked past them everyday. I knew that as time passes, things change. I knew that as I walked past these bleak streets filled with unloved wretches, shaking their heads at me, littering the pavement outside local garbage disposals. I knew that because these streets once were clean and safe, and the sun was always shining here; I remember when the sun used to shine, most of all, I remember the last day that it ever shone in this town. That was the night, everything changed, and everything was determined; every silent beat of the rain; every bloody tear that I was to spill.

I was a man of many ideas, dreams, and perhaps, many other things, but most of all, love. I was heartfelt and I always smiled when greeting the neighbors. I was a revolutionist, like many others were before me. I grew up seeing love everywhere, in the movies, in my parents and in my friends. I wanted to find it out for myself. Like many others before me, I left my home in seeking it. Armed with a head full of ideas, a strong heart and tools of my trades, I traveled around the English land, visited the Middle East and parts of the Americas. I finally resided in Canada, in a small town in the southern province of Ontario. It was pretty, and I thought I would stay here and put a temporary hold on my constant movement across the world. I did not expect to find anything here. “Big things happen in big places, if not in your mind” my grandfather used to say, but to my mother; not to me, I never knew him. My grandfather died shortly after I was born, and so I have no memories of him. My mother would often quote him like this. “A man of great words must have his words remembered, or there won’t be much greatness left in his memory.” I remember now, my mother always said that about him. One rainy day, I was taking a walk, musing about that particular bit of nostalgia. I had grown up in the tropical parts of the world, and for the little fireball that I was nothing had felt better than a stroll out in the rain. And as I walking the streets, the same streets I walk today, very abruptly, the rain stopped. The sky closed down on my pleasure and I immediately gazed towards the negligent heavens, questioning their reasons. It was then, I saw the most glorious vision in the clouds; I saw the face of an angel. Not the wonderful winged type who glows with forbiddance. Not the kind you cannot touch or approach or speak to, but the kind of angel you yearn to touch, yearn to speak to, and yearn to feel... Such a passion was driven into me that I couldn’t help but be in love. I remember, I felt the last drop of water drip down from my hair, the sun, shining through the parting of the clouds towards my face, felt the thought running through my mind, ‘what if… this will all be over before I know it? What if this is… this is only a dream? What if…?’ I couldn’t sleep that night, I was still standing in the same spot, and she was descending, her neck tilted just so, her eyes closed in innocence. It was all I could have ever asked for.”

My thoughts returned form my day-dream, he was back to starring at me, in between, he would glance at his plate as he cut up his breakfast into little square pieces.
”I didn’t know it then, but what had crossed my mind in those seconds, scared of the idea as I was, stayed with me to this day, I can’t help it,” I closed my eyes to stop my own tears, “I was in love, how was I to help it?” I waited for a moment to regain some of my composure, and then I continued again.

”I met her a few days later, at one of those jobs I got just to pay my rent. She had been there for quite some time. I should have met her before, but for some reason, I had never seen her until that day. It was as if she had been invisible to me, and the heaven’s little stunt had revealed her. I knew I was in love; there was no barrier, nothing between us as we got to know each other. For several months the only voice that spoke this love was my eyes; I couldn’t bring any courage to bring voice to my expressions. ‘What was this feeling?’ I asked myself once… You might have expected such a romantic like me to know first hand. Use words that described love with wings and bits of feathery stuff like that, but no. I answered it without the aid of such foolish tools. This is love I said. This, plainly, whatever I’m feeling, even now, this giddiness that I relish, this over zealous joy. I had been in search of this my whole life! I thought this was what the world needed to change, if the world had this, I theorized there would be no more wars, and there would be no more misery in any part of the world! I was excited, and naive; I wanted to show the world, - had to show the world love, my love and the love that could be theirs too. I wasn’t thinking. Such moments of excitement tend to suppress rational thought, but of course you know that, I figure as much that’s why you rarely ever act without thinking. I know now, however, too late, at least I know now, things would not change; nothing would have except for me, but I thought then that I had to try.

It was near the time of new beginnings. My love was recently planning to go to her homeland to visit her relatives there and come back. She mentioned that she would bring me back a souvenir. It was probably to be a little trinket, a simple toy. And yet, it felt as if she was bringing me the world! The very idea itself made me feel like I had truly found someone that cared for me, and maybe something more. I decided that I too would get her a token of our love. By now I had explored her mind a little; I knew something of her likes, and I shopped accordingly. Looking back, I feel so stupid putting so much of an effort into it, you have to realize, this was probably something meager to her, I just wish I could have treated her the same way.
Anyway, five days after the New Year, she came back. We then exchanged our gifts then.
’Arigato Saru-Chan!’
’Ah! Merci mon dieu!’
’Oh cara…’

Oh, the things we used to say to each other… It was a new interest to me. I had already known a bit of the world but now; it was more of an appeal. She knew it as well and I learned it from watching the subtitled tapes that appeared in the convenience store. From one show I had watched, I had given her the nickname Saru-Chan. It meant monkey-girl, quite literally, in Japanese; well, she was just as playful as one. She was, as we may have had a dozens spin-offs of, my monkey-girl. It was just one of those nicknames, to laugh and play about, and to kiss, to hold hands, and to look deeply into each others eyes in the sunset, side by side on a park bench.”

I smiled to myself at the memories as I recited them… “I longed to kiss her, longed to touch her, to hold her as close as she was already at my heart. I longed to feel this love coming from her. I longed for her to feel this love like I do. But for the longest time I felt that it was never meant to be, naught meant to be anything but a word, used by dreamers and fools. Finally, after what seemed like moments after an eternity, it happened. It was just one week before the sky chose never to light up again, and I found myself next to her. Smiling shyly at her moonlit silhouette, all my effervescent feelings were surfacing as I saw her soft gaze and her gentle lips contour. I reached for her hand to hold, she gave it to me without any further thought. It was obvious, we shared something that night, and I would never forget it. In the light winter evening, a soft wind had begun to blow; my own hands were warm so I offered their gift to her. She smiled again to me. The night air was quiet, we were alone and that’s all we wanted. I was still too shy to kiss her, but there was no hurry. I was more than content holding her hand, being close to her, the closest I had ever been to anyone, and unfortunately,” I said as my eyes closed in pain, “the closest I would ever be to her for the rest of my life.”

When I opened my eyes again, he was starring at me blankly.
“Listen, it looks like you’re going to take a while, and we are also waiting for someone to join us, so I’m going to order a second breakfast, you want anything?”
I looked down and noticed I had only eaten one sausage. I took hold of another with my fingers and thought about it while I relished the flavor off my fingers. “No… but thanks,” I replied.
He called a waitress over to him and asked for seconds, she looked at our tab and nodded, and then she went of to fetch the cook, smiling and assuring us it won’t be long.

’What is love?’ people ask, I asked him now; asking for the sake of asking. The old man gave me the most perplexed look then, as if I already didn’t figure out ‘love’ wasn’t his specialty. “We all know that words have much too little value”, I said to him and closed my eyes again, traveling back in time. “She knew that. She knew it too well. She waited maybe just for the purpose of making me realize that the hard way. She crushed me in my moment of weakness to show me that we, as people, don’t feel this love. We don’t feel it, just like her.

It was one seemingly starry night, I received a letter, and in it, she admitted it to me. She had felt it too, this amazing force that kept her always looking for me. It called from deep inside, for her to seek my face when she passes, to share her heart with me. Everything must start somewhere, I thought. The world was to be a garden that follows in the example of a beautiful rose such as her. This was all I needed to summon up my own courage. I told her then that she wasn’t alone. I felt it all too. I had been waiting for her here…

And all of a sudden, I found that I couldn’t breathe. My insides burned like a sea of turmoil. My body was aching with a fire to be set free of torment from nothingness. Tears flew out like a sudden clash of thunder, and they came flowing like a river. The town rained for the last time that morning, but it rained through out the day; through out that entire week actually. Everyone stayed inside, glancing out their window, and saw nothing in the now ugly streets. No one walked outside that day, no one wanted too. That day was, to most people in that town, the most depressing day in their history. Stores closed early and employees left unpaid as they were let off ahead of schedule. No one found happiness in this rain, and me, the least of all.

I had received a telephone call as the storm clouds had just gathered. The voice was pained, and it cut through to my heart. She wanted to end our relationship. I was quite dangerously afflicted; I had never been prepared for such a situation. I had never thought of the consequences of love. From what I had heard of it, it wasn’t supposed to come with any. Wasn’t it supposed to be heaven? Wasn’t it the company of the soul’s pleasure?” I yelled at my lunch mate then, I suddenly felt the couple other faces there on me and my face turned red.
“You tell me,” he replied, “it’s your story not mine.”
For a few minutes, all I felt was sadness. This reality became more like the chaos that had torn its way through my heart before… and even everyone else’s; this was what had stolen the hope of millions of people. As I sat there looking out the slithering window, I tried to fit the pieces of a still broken heart together. I continued, my voice cracking from the flood of memories and emotion.

“I could have begged of her forever to take back those words, to have listened to her heart. But I was too out of fire to will it. I couldn’t even stand the thought of her refusing and my options, or my lack of them, then. I knew as well as she did, that nothing would change her mind now. I took out my guitar, ancient strings that remembered the family that played them for years. It was a constant companion, or one among a few, in my travels for love, often giving pleasure to whichever soul that heard them. I wished my fingers would pluck the strings like before, comforting me in ways I had done for many others who had also felt this pain, but the sound came distorted. The chords echoed my sadness and my pen wrote nothing but poems, full of pain and sorrow. It was then that I curled back into the insecurities of what I was to come to know as the facts of life; back, I was thrown, to the meaningless existence that would be the rest of my toils. I found myself curling back to the same slums that the world suffered from. I understood now. The world has had its share of love. They have been heartsick, loosing the one they put their trust and soul into. And in turn, the ones who took it away were suffering just as well, with guilt and remorse for what they had done. I saw, it was more than any man or woman could take. But we are still here, each and every one of us. That was our strength. Despite losing love, which was, to some, the only lifeline, we continued to exist. This world was truly something and it grows more amazing with every day. But still, the sun would never shine again to most people. No matter how much they look up all they see are the dark shadows, like smoke filled skies, reminding us that this is all there is left to ourselves. As I walk these empty streets, I feel like an empty puppet, held up only by invisible strings of misery. Whatever I hang from is just as angelic as her, and like her, as heartless.” I broke off into a dream like voice as I rested my face against a napkin on the table. My gaze was centered on a man who had just walked out of a grocery store opposite the diner without an umbrella.

“A drop of water falls on him, one man looks up to see a face in the clouds, - like many others did before. He longed for her, - like many others did before. He longed to meet her, to wonder about her. He started to feel something; he felt love, - like many others did before, like no one does anymore. As I watch him now, from this window, I can’t help but shake my head at him, - like many others did before.”

“That’s a lovely poem, you write that?” He interrupted my nostalgia, and brought me back to the present.
I gave him a momentary pout, of course he didn’t understand, - the age gap. He seemed to be more interested in breakfast than in me, but looks often were deceiving with people like him; anything would be with a politician like him. “Just yesterday” I continued, “I saw a newspaper in the street as I was walking home through the rainy streets yesterday, it was listing the forecast and the day after tomorrow was to have one bloody thunderstorm. – Thunder and lightning, and hail, the whole parade, bigger than the storm whose anniversary it marked. While I don’t even remember the reason I go out for walks every time it rains, I seem to find one on my way. This time I found a newspaper. I picked it up and put it inside a folder of its own. I even ended buying a blow dryer to save it, or just to keep it for a while. The very same Friday, mid-March, - I never forgot the date. That was also when you first took notice of me, and that’s why I’m telling you all this now, all because you asked me to kill an angel.”

He looked up form his meal then, “so you randomly assume this is the same angel you know?”

“I only know one angel.”

“I know of another,” he replied, in a whisper, I looked up to see him having leaned in as to not be overheard. “And he is far crueler than any angel you may ever meet. Your angel has only smitten you for your foolishness in letting your emotions take control of your life, the one I speak of has committed the crime of thinking he is a God. He judges and condemns as if it were his power, you were only half killed, the angel I speak of will not spare you the same, if you let him, he will obliterate you and spare nothing to do it.”

“I never assumed anything, old man,” I retaliated with slight annoyance, “I was only sharing my experience with angels.”
“Don’t call me that, you haven’t the right.”
“What? Old man?”
“Before you start calling me old, prove you can do something I can’t do, and then I’ll let you.”
“Well what do I call you? I don’t even know your name, you just came up to me one day and told me o meet you here.”
“Yesterday, did I ask for your name yesterday?”
“No.”
“Did I ask for your name today?”
“No, but-”
“But nothing, I’ll tell you my name when I ask for yours, those are my rules, got that?”

I was debating through grit teeth to either respond dryly, or swing a punch and walk out, but before I could even complete either thought, he was back to eating his meal, cut up into tiny neat squares. Just then, before I was able to get a word out, I was interrupted by the arrival of a dark man wearing a white suit and a wickedly thin smile, his hair was shaggy, and of a short to medium length. He held a small brown paper bag in one hand and walked directly towards us. I didn’t realize until he came to our table and stopped that he was the one we were waiting for. The first thing I noticed about him was his clothes and that fiendish grin; his clothes for one, contrasted sharply with the colour of his skin, he seemed to be of some Asian descent, heavily tanned, he could have been part Indian. His grin stood out too, not because it contrasted, but it seemed to be his defining feature, either he looked naturally wicked, or he must have practiced smiling like that in front of a mirror.

The new stranger put the paper bag on the table in front of my host of the morning and addressed him “Here you go Boss, you left your medicine at home again. Your wife also says she won’t be home this evening, madam and her lady-friends will be out late”

The old man hadn’t noticed him at all until he put the bag down, at which point he hurriedly chewed and swallowed what was in his mouth and threw out a quick “oh, thank you” in between the bites. He drank a little bit of water to clear his mouth, and then emptied the bag by holding it upside down over the table. Little brown bottles with various pills fell out and rolled around, I lifted a finger to stop one from rolling of my edge. Then I let it slip off the edge into my waiting hand and put it on the table. As the old man then arranged the bottles and picked out a couple to take, I looked at the new visitor, he still smiled, I wonder if his face was stuck in that position, a thought ran in my mind as if his face would make a creaking sound if he were ever forced to wipe that freakishly malicious smile from his face. From my angle, his nose seemed like a large hooked canopy to his mouth, his arms seemed to fill his suit, but he seemed lean, so I assumed he worked out quite a bit. Nothing I couldn’t take on, came the stray thought, - I twitched. The stranger looked at me just as I looked away, but I could feel his gaze at the side of my face, and then down my arm as I felt the goose-bumps settling in.

The old man finished with his medicine and marked it by loudly putting his glass down. He hadn’t finished his meal, and neither had I. Realizing this, I took another sausage and ate it in a similar manner. The stranger seemed to watch this exchange of events with an interest I couldn’t follow. Right about here, I suddenly felt that the silence of words had gone on too long and I was about to open my mouth when the old man cut me off as he wiped his utensils clean and packed them away. “Well, we’d best be leaving now that Joshua has arrived. Before that, I’m going to ask you what your name is.”

He looked at me expectantly, and Joshua turned his smile on me as well. I replied by gritting my teeth through the annoyance of being interrupted twice before; “You first.”

“Those aren’t the rules,” he said, shaking his head, “You tell me your name, and then we decide what happens from then on, savvy?” He lowered his head, his blanks stare remained fixed on mine, and I was forced to blink first in what must have been the most ridiculous, unspoken blinking contest in the diner.

“Hiu- Fung, Hiu-Fung Chan.” I replied as my throat cracked again. Joshua barked a laugh and the old man smiled for the first time.

“Good, good, now we’re getting somewhere, just remember to do as I say, and that’s how everything will work out perfectly.” He pulled out a piece of paper that seemed to be stacked. It was a contract. I stared at it and looked at him.

“What’s this for?”

“You know, Hiu, may I call you that? You don’t seem like someone I can call Mr. Chan.” I nodded my head in annoyance, forgiving the obvious pricking of his words. “I was quite entertained by your story, so revealing about what it’s like to be you for a second, especially after Joshua here, had told me about your past.”

My what? A sudden sense of fear and panic rushed into my head, and thoughts, unfamiliar ones, lost ones, started to flow, take the big guy on, he’s not as fast as you, the back exit, take his glass, his fingerprints are on it!

“Your past, Hiu, it’s quite ironic that you should be looking for love, but understandable, I figured you’d be looking for a way back into the system. After all, you’re wanted for murder in 16 different states and provinces in North America alone, quite extraordinary isn’t it, that you’ve been unfound so far? Half the national service is looking for you, but I suspect it has something to do a bit of fear; you took down some powerful people by yourself. So listen, I’ve got an offer, refuse it if you want, but as long as you know that I know who you were, and well, I’ll be blunt, I want you to be that person again, for me. If you don’t want to do it, that’s fine, I’ll be off, and the next time you get stopped on the sidewalk, they’ll have less diplomatic notions, but if you want to work under me, then sign right there.

I was too startled to answer as I looked down a the contract, it seemed written like any other high office position contracts with the exception of surrendering some rights, but it was too wordy for my mind to make head or tail of it. But I understood one thing, if he knew, then other people could also know… and that meant he would have to run again, and risk dying like he did before, or work under him, with whatever protection he seemed to be offering, and go out and risk his life again... No matter which way he put it, death was on the bill, one might as well take the path that offered him what he wanted or now at least. He picked up the pen and signed the contract heavy-handedly.

The old man, looked on with a mildly amused look. “Good, good…”

Once the deed was done, Joshua produced a thin folder and the contract was put in, and while the two were preparing to leave, I brought myself the courage to ask the question, “Who are you, really?”

“You don’t watch the news do you, son?”
I shook my head, no.
“I’m the mayor of this here state son, but I’m going to be much more than that.”

“Welcome to the Pride-land, Junior,” came the amused growl from Joshua, “You’ll be under me, so come along, we’re going to pack you bags.”

I grinned, subconsciously; I seemed to be enjoying this logical discord. None of it seemed to make sense, but I figured I might as well dance to the music I selected. “There is no point,” I said, “I’ve nothing left in this world to tie me down.”

“Well, what are you waiting for,” Joshua flashed his teeth through his evil grin, I almost thought his other line of descent must have been fiendish, fanged, and white, his smile would have petrified most men in their tracks; I laughed again. “Let’s go angel hunting, mate.”

I walked outside and was struck by a drop of water, one which marked the end of the reign of cold, dark times; I found the storm over, and the clouds parting as dark specters and shadows floated away from the bottom of the clouds. I gazed up to the negligent heavens once again, to question why they disappointed my expectations of a storm… Before my eyes, the arrival of a majestic and blinding illusion, a lost vision of glory that hadn’t appeared for since the dawn of pain, since forever and a day.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Whispered Joshua behind me, He wasn’t smiling.

“It’s the sun” I agreed.

~ Fin ~