The Deliverer

by Amelia Mitchell

Daniel didn’t feel like an angel. 

He didn’t feel like it when his mother used to cup his face in her warm hands. “You’re my little angel,” she’d say, with a smile so big it closed her eyes. She’d say it on a wide array of occasions: when Daniel brought her crayon drawings, when she bandaged his scraped knees, when he burnt the pancakes he’d surprised her with. “You’re my little angel,” she’d say, even after a visit to the principal’s office, where they’d sat across the table from another boy and his angry parents. He didn’t feel like an angel when the purple marks on the other boy’s face reminded him how much his knuckles ached. 

Daniel didn’t feel like an angel when the world decided that’s what he was. 22 Year-Old Male Grows Angel Wings, Shocks World followed him everywhere with cameras and microphones. Before he isolated himself, he became familiar with the pinpricks of strangers grabbing and plucking his feathers. For the first week, he sat curled up in his childhood bedroom, listening to the crowds gathered outside, his trembling wings brushing the walls. His father turned people away. The two of them didn’t speak. 

Daniel didn’t feel like an angel when they powdered his face and led him, with gentle but firm hands, to a brightly lit armchair in front of a studio audience. The talk show host asked him all about his religious beliefs, what he’d done to get angel wings, and what this meant for the world, if anything at all. Daniel worried not even the makeup could hide his exhaustion. He worried his non-answers would give away his utter lack of faith and that he would disappoint the masses. Daniel didn’t feel like an angel when they cut to a commercial break. He exited the stage and, looking back, caught the host staring into space, his face fraught with desperation, or envy, or fear, Daniel wasn’t sure. 

He didn’t feel like an angel when he dressed in black for Anthony’s funeral, only to be told it’d be better not to cause a scene. He didn’t feel like an angel when he sent all his belongings crashing to the floor, banged his wings against the walls, and sank as his bones rang with a dull pain.  

Daniel didn’t feel like an angel the night it happened. He stumbled through the tall grass. The world spun. He broke out in chills and fell to his hands and knees. Heat surged across his shoulder blades and an incredible weight pushed him down. He didn’t feel like an angel when the heat seared his skin and he cried out through gritted teeth. Daniel gripped the grass, dirt sticking to his sweaty palms. Two hot bars of iron pressed into his back. He fell onto his side. Hands reached from inside his body, clawing at his flesh, desperate to be free. His shirt pulled tight, the collar suffocating him. The claws tore through and he screamed. Then followed the sensation of arms stretching outwards from his back. They cracked like they’d been folded near his body his entire life. The night breeze was especially cold on these new arms as they were caked in a thick liquid. He stared at the moon, half obscured by the grass that swayed above him. He listened to his own frantic breaths. He didn’t feel like an angel when he finally looked over his shoulder to see two enormous wings splayed out, the feathers matted down with blood. 

Daniel didn’t feel like an angel when he finally visited Anthony’s grave. It was the same cemetery where they’d buried Daniel’s mother. He’d flown in at an hour where he figured the whole world must be asleep. He had to feel around in the dark. He placed a bundle of tulips on his mother’s grave, his wings were tense and folded tight. 

Daniel had it in his head that being an angel would grant him some connection to God, to the heavens, to the afterlife, if any of those were real. He thought that maybe his head would fill with some cosmic frequency that he and his angelic brothers and sisters–if he had any–and the Father Almighty could tune in and out of. He thought that maybe he could talk to the dead. He was ready to believe. 

“I’m here, Mom,” he whispered. 

At the foot of her grave, Daniel closed his eyes. All he heard was the breeze and his own breaths. The only thoughts in his head were his own. He kneeled down and pressed his head to the earth, as if getting closer to his mother would adjust the frequency. He pushed against the grass with his palms. His wings spread out and laid against the cool green earth. As the silence stretched on, anger slowly built. He could hear his heartbeat now. 

He stood and bid his mother goodbye, a flimsy attempt to pull himself together in case this was her last impression of him. 

Daniel didn’t feel like an angel when he towered over Anthony’s grave. The grass had just begun to poke out of the dirt. He didn’t feel like an angel when the sight of fresh daisies made his fists clench. His wingtips brushed the ground. He flinched and lifted them up, only for the left wing to hit a nearby tree. He recoiled and took his bruised wing in his hands. Despair roared in his ears and coursed through his limbs. He cursed Anthony for the wings. He cursed Anthony for the pain. He even cursed Anthony for dying. He didn’t feel like an angel when a sound that was a mix between a growl and a scream burned his throat. What should’ve released his adrenaline became fuel for it. He stood there, breathing hard, with all this energy. He didn’t know where to put it. He didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t know what to do with it. 

Finally, there came a warm pressure on Daniel’s face. Blinking produced tears. He thought of those days before it had happened. He thought of Anthony’s smiling face, never handsome but always genuine. He thought of Anthony singing and playing the guitar. What had once annoyed Daniel now seemed overwhelmingly human. In his outburst he had shed a few feathers. He picked them up and stuffed them into his pockets. Then he tended to the daisies, removing the few whose petals had begun to wilt. 

Daniel didn’t feel like an angel when he finally fled his hometown. Going out and doing everyday things proved to be impossible. The attention never waned, like news of a devastating earthquake or a case of social injustice. No, the speculation and requests for examinations and medical tests grew with every passing day. His eyes glazed as he skimmed letters from journalists, biologists, priests, politicians, authors, psychologists, monks, even cardinals. He didn’t feel like an angel when he finally met with his friends again. He didn’t feel like an angel upon finding out that they couldn’t forgive him yet. 

Regardless, they would help him. There was a place just off the coast. There, he could live a secluded life where no one would bother him. He didn’t feel like an angel when he was packed into a car with the last of his belongings. His friends went with him on the boat that shipped him across the river. They accompanied him up the stone steps and into the tiny village. He didn’t feel like an angel when he finally dropped his luggage in front of a sun-bleached house and shook hands with the unsmiling old woman who owned it. He didn’t feel like an angel at her first words to him: “Don’t worry, son, they won’t bother you anymore.”

Daniel hadn’t felt like an angel hours before he got his wings. He and his friends had been staying at Anthony’s summer home for four days and four nights and had one more of each to go. They maintained a slight yet constant level of intoxication, took over the beach, played a mutilated form of beach volleyball, invited crowds of beautiful strangers up to their home, slept with a few people, slept with a few more people, and decided, on their fourth day, to kick everyone out and keep to themselves. Daniel kissed his last stranger goodbye, a handsome man about his age who had pulled his hair a little too hard. Lying with his friends in the sunshine, it was easy to ride the high and ignore his tension-induced headache. 

By the evening, Anthony was irritable and moody over an internal plight he never seemed to be able to resolve. Daniel’s headache wrapped tightly around his head. Annoyance gave way to anger. 

He didn’t feel like an angel when he made Anthony’s problem into something for all of them to laugh at. The look on Anthony’s face didn’t make him feel like an angel. Neither did his final hissed words: “Go to hell, Daniel.” He shut the door and wandered out into the night. 

Daniel turned to his friends. “He’ll cool off.” 

The minutes passed. Glances toward the front door became watchful stares out the windows, into the blue-black night. 

He didn’t feel like an angel a few hours later when they heard a knock at the door. Thinking it was Anthony, Daniel rushed to answer. Instead, he opened the door to a wide-eyed woman, asking if he knew the young man whose body had washed up on the rocks. 

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