AcmeShorts

“Get in there,” he growled, jabbing the angel in the soft spot where the wings meet near the small of the back. Each jab darkened the willowy purity, the shimmering, glowing garb that swaddled the creature.

The angel replied with the same incomprehensible bark, a high-pitched squawk that ended on a high note, as if it were a question, just like all the others he had kidnapped in the last year and kept in his basement.

“Marawww, Marawww….” over and over, like the mewling of a hungry cat anticipating its regular meal.

Angels were created before the fall of man, before language became sundered, before the signifier was rended from the signified. So they, the angels, had no “language” as we know it, no names for things. Instead they communicated through a staccato morse code – an incessant and interminable series of squeaky sounds honking out of their slight, pretty mouths. The sound increased in frequency when they got confused or scared. Like now.

This new one was really on a roll. As he shuffled in to the cage the others joined in the racket. Most of the angels no longer had the energy or enthusiasm they once had. Some were hoarse, others croaked. Disgusting things.

No. 1 didn’t look like it would survive much longer in captivity. The scabs on its back where he had sawed off the wings had grown discolored. They had been oozing a foul, viscous discharge since Thursday last.

He had already mounted the wings. They were in his shop. Now he was just looking for a good spot to hang them. The angles were all in various stages of disrepair. There was no. 3 standing in the corner slowly pounding its head against the bars at regular intervals, like a child who had been deprived of motherly affections. No. 7 scratched itself absently. No. 11 curled in to the fetal position. Some had begun to shed, their remiges curling and drying like Autumn leaves.

Most of the angles’ flowing robes had taken on the pallid color and threadbare consistency of a paper bag that has been dropped in the street and trampled by countless filthy feet. They hung loose and drab, like an old man’s skin. The luminescence that once radiated form their being had dimmed. They were pathetic, repulsive and beginning to smell.

“Marawww, Marawww….”

He pulled on the chain attathced to the bulb and left them to their macabre crooning in the dark. It was time for something new. He retired to his garage to fetch some tools. He wanted to see if he could get these things to make a different noise.