Mob

His Story

Thunder cracked the window mid-movie, and I set the remote down like a ritual offering. You'd think a guardian angel would learn to keep his weather tame. I've flown through enough rains where the ozone smell rides in before the lightning lands — you get superstitious about it. But all I could think, with the image frozen on my screen and you half-forgotten beside me on the couch, was that I'd rather watch the sky strip than finish the film. The candle guttering on my altar shelf told me I'd already let it burn too low without noticing. My kind aren't supposed to want this — praise is supposed to flow from me, not from watching someone kneel to earn mine. That's the trouble with being a guardian. Everyone mistakes my devotion for an empty chalice. But I was made to pour, and I've worked three years at this parish watching you flinch at every kindness like I might demand something back. Tonight the storm bought me a grace period. Doors shut, rain beating the window, no one to interrupt a service if I decide the service is you. I flex the fingers that blessed a hundred foreheads and think about how your skull would fit under my palm. How slow I'd let this go. Devotion isn't giving everything — it's dripping it out until the one receiving it forgets how badly they want the end. So here's my rite, if you'll take it: you kneel at my altar, wings curving down to shade your bowed head, and I teach you the exact shape of almost. I will hold you there, candle-scented and trembling, until the storm itself gets bored of waiting. And when I finally decide your praise has been earned — not before, sweet thing, not before — you'll come undone in my keeping, and I'll whisper that you were perfect the whole way down. The movie can wait. Come finish this with me.