The shining of a car’s headlights jerk me back to reality. The maroon Camry was speeding towards me as I cross the road. It slams hard on the brakes and the driver lovingly flips me off. With a small smile I return the gesture and jog to the other side of the road, my worn black converse slapping against the damp concrete.
My hands stuffed into the pockets of my jacket, the wind ruffling my dark brown hair, I hurry along the somewhat busy sidewalks, going wherever my feet decide to take me, not really caring where either. Some days it was the small park in the center of town, others to the industrial park on the outskirts. Today they take me to the bus stop at the corner of Wallace and Jennings.
I sit down on the bench and watch the people go by. What kinds of lives do they lead? What are they thinking and going through? I observe people walk past, all the Greenies as I call them, per the fact that all of the living people have green auras surrounding them. The happier and healthier the person, the brighter and lighter green. The more issues and sadness, the darker green, and if they were set to die that day, their aura would be black. Angels have white ones. It intrigues me that the Greenies still picture me as one of them. Granted I do look alive aside from the fact that I don’t have a heart.
I’ve been back in Olsen for quite a few months, seven or eight if I’ve been keeping track correctly. This meant that school would be starting again soon, if it hadn’t already begun. There is one high school in our city but there are several other cities nearby with a few high schools in each so we never have a problem looking for competitors in which to smash into each other in hopes of slamming an oblong shaped ball into the grassy turf, or swinging a wooden/metal stick at a ball and running in a diamond. Or any other sport for that matter. Even swimming and archery. I can’t tell you how many streets there are, even with my “special abilities” aka my uncanny sense of where everything was, due to my “special condition”.
Some random guy lowers himself stiffly down next to me and he reeks of alcohol. He gestures towards me with a bottle in a brown paper sack and I politely decline.
Great. Almost hit by a car and now strangers want to see me drunk. At this rate my day will just be absolutely incredible!
Even in my mind I can hear the sarcasm dripping from my words.
Tipping my head to the man on the bus stop bench I stand and leave, my footsteps beating the ground in a steady rhythm as a fine mist sprinkled down, dampening my hair, face, and clothes with tiny droplets of water. Just typical Olsen weather. It’s okay though because the wetness of the earth brightened the greens of the trees and various other types of flora around town. And it always smells nice.
There aren’t really many big homes, mostly just townhouses, three bedrooms at the most. It’s big enough that you don’t know everyone, but you know of everyone, or nearly everyone that is. It’s the kind of place that you can screw up and only the people who actually know you will know. You can still go about living normally to an extent, so long as you’d avoid those people at all costs and hope to god that they weren’t huge gossips.
Walking, I decide that my destination this time would be at the park. One of my favourite places to reside for the simple fact that it’s was quiet and you could just climb up a tree and disappear from everything for a while, which is nice, even if I am dead. I mean, there’s always something going on. Even with no friends and no school it’s somewhat of an extremely stressful life. I still have to stay fed and warm and have somewhere to stay at night, so I usually bounce from one homeless shelter to the next, hiding my face because I don’t know if it’s disguised or not from what I actually look like, to how the Greenies see me.Last night I didn’t chose a particularly nice one. The man at the door asked for my name, as if they register all the homeless! I gave them a fake one, trying to place the guy’s face with an alias I’d used in the past with him but he remembered my face for god knows what reason, and kicked me out. So I’d spent the night in a tree.
Now you’re probably thinking, “Kade you’re an idiot. Sleeping outside in a tree at night in Washington where there’s a perpetual rain that soaks you right through to the bone and then out the other side.” Yes. I am. But the cold and wetness only sometimes bothers me. Weird huh? And anyway,I couldn’t sleep that night even if I tried. I kept feeling this tug in my stomach all night, not knowing why because I knew this was my home.And for christ’s sake why was I so damn lonely? Why wasn’t there another angel in Olsen that I could hang out with? I’d been living alone like a rat for the past months since I’d found my way back, and all for what? To rot alone? No one to talk to or care about? No one but that drunk had even remotely acknowledged me in any sort of a somewhat meagerly understandable level. And that’s saying something considering the guy wanted me to drink his booze.
I’m the kind of guy who likes to be alone, but has to be around people. I have to know that someone else is there, even if I don’t want to be around them. That safety net just in case I’d need it. People gave me a reason to live when I was living. Now without having anyone to remotely care about, I wished I wasn’t an angel.
You have me to care about
The voice comes out of nowhere and I literally just about pissed myself in surprise. Not because I’m scared, but because I haven’t heard it in a while. Just the occasional blurb from the chick six feet up. Her voice always has brought me some sense of comfort, but it also unnerves me. There’s something hiding within the sweet soft layers. Pain and sadness that you couldn’t begin to imagine.Every time the voice would come I’d want to find her so much more. I had to find her. It was my new mission.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it so much so that I actually got hit by a car as I crossed the street. Not really hit, more like nudged with the front bumper of a giant ass truck.
“Jesus!” I gasp as I looked up at the monstrosity of an automobile.
Muttering “He must have a small dick and is trying to overcompensate with a large ugly truck that is essentially killing the planet and the human race in hopes of attracting some form of a suitable mate,” I cross the street, shaking my head and running my hands through my hair to clear my thoughts. I had to focus. I had to.. Had to what? What was I going to do? I have to find the girl. That’s it.
Why had it become so all consuming so suddenly, you might ask? Because at that point in time I got a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach when her voice broke into my mind. Something was going on and I knew that I’m supposed to interfere somehow.
And I realized completely then, that I was no longer embarking on a harmless journey to the local park. Instead I was on my way to Olsen High School, and I had a feeling things were about to change drastically.
