of angels...

Author's note: This short story is part of a series I started several years ago... enjoy.

"Why won't you leave me alone?"
Sean stood with the toes of his shoes hanging over the edge of the platform, several stories above the river below. It was a beautiful summer night, and the sounds of the city were all around. The traffic on the bridge had slowed down considerably, and somewhere off in the distance he could hear church bells chiming the hour.
The quiet figure next to him sat perched on the railing of the platform, precariously balanced with no apparent effort at all. The position was both beautiful and terrifying, with hands clasped near his face, as if he were praying in the dark.
"So, how far have you thought this out Sean? Did you at least leave a note? There will be so many questions, so many people left trying to understand why you decided to throw yourself off this bridge. All of those questions, Sean. It can be so annoying."
Sean's dark skin showed silver in the moonlight, as the light came down from the heavens, struck the water and bounced up toward the pair. The reflection shimmered beneath them.
"What's there to wonder? Another black man that can't take living in this fucked up world. It's nothing new. Hell, I bet you some psychiatrist out there even has a medical term for this shit, like black rage. Been held down all my life. Only makes sense to end it by my own hand. I say when and where. I'm in control."
Raphael tilted his head back and smelled the water, the cheap cologne eminating from Sean's clothes, the sweat that was beginning to soak the young man's clothes. He smelled something else, something much more important at the moment. He smelled fear.
"You're afraid, Sean. And rightfully so. All those Sunday mornings pressed into those tiny pews with your grandmother, praising God and the Holy Spirit. You remember what the preacher said. You know where suicides go."
Sean was staring over the edge of the platform. For the life of him, he couldn't figure what purpose the small, grated platform on the edge of the structure served. Maybe a way to reach the pipes that were under the bridge, or a place to tie off scaffolding when it came time to paint the monstrosity.
When Sean was 8 years old, his older brother, Michael, had taken him here and shown him the spot. His brother told him he liked to go there when their parents were fighting. The constant, dull roar of the cars helped him think.
About 13 years ago, Michael had lept from the same spot Sean was standing. The police said he died on impact, that the fall had been so violent he never even had the chance to fill his lungs with water before he went under. It took them nearly a week to find him washed up with some brush about 12 miles upstream. When Sean had seen his older brother in the morgue, he couldn't get over how peaceful he looked.
"Look, Sean... If you do this, if you take your own life, you're going to throw events into motion that create death and suffering around everyone you've ever loved, everyone you've ever cared about," said Raphael, looking out over the water. "Each moment we grow near to something... something awful. And these events in this life, they are like tumblers in a lock, all lining up for one big show, one big finale. There's nothing we can do to stop it, but we don't have to go racing into it with our hair on fire. Each decision you make is one of those tumblers, and the wrong decisions will bring a world of hurt down on the people you care about."
Sean looked at Raphael, who was half cloaked in the shadows of the bridge. One one hand, he was a beautiful man, but Sean had come to understand a long time ago he was anything but human. He had seen the wings and the decorative scars all over his body. He had seen the cold, deadly gaze of a hunter, a trained killer, in his eyes. There was no doubt Raphael was an angel... and a figment of his imagination.
"You've been following me around for months now," said Sean, now looking down at the water again. "Every time I look into a crowd, you're there. I look around the corner, you're there. I look in a mirror, and I swear I can see you behind me somewhere. You're like some sorta fuckin' ghost!"
Raphael watched as Sean moved closer and closer to the edge, but he never moved from his perch. It would be so easy to just reach out and grab the young man, wrestle him to the ground and show him what was coming. An angel could share his second sight with a human, although it was almost always a traumatic experience for both. One glimpse of what was to come, and Sean would have fell to his knees and begged for forgiveness.
Unfortunately, all Raphael could do was watch. Anything else would simply make things worse.
"Think of me as your guardian angel, Sean. I've always been here, been around you, watching and looking after you. I watched when you got your first kiss from that little Puerto Rican girl up the block. I was there when your best friend, Enrique, overdosed and choked to death on his own vomit. I was there when you and Wanda made it in the back of that abandoned Chevy. I was even here, on this platform, when your brother died."
Raphael could see the anger growing in the boy, and instantly he knew the mention of his dead brother had been a wrong move. Sean swung at him, but missed high. His momentum quickly shifted as he got ready to throw another punch, but he would never get the chance, as his foot slid off the edge of the metal grate. In one swift motion, Sean was now holding on to the woven metal as his body swung over the powerful river below him.
He screamed, but not for help. It was anger.
"Sean, if you ask me to help you, I can," said Raphael, never moving from his perch. "But you have to ask. You have to ask to be saved, just like you did when you were a little boy in your grandmother's church."
"Fuck you! You're in my head! You can't help me!" Sean yelled, trying desperately to swing his body back up on the platform. There was nothing for his feet to grab ahold of, however, and blood began to ooze from between his fingers and the metal grating.
As their eyes locked, Sean could see the pain in Raphael's eyes. For the first time, he could see something almost human. It was compassion.
And, as that thought raced through his mind, Sean found himself falling, the wind rushing by him as he desparately grabbed for something to save him, but there was nothing except the quiet sounds of the water rushing up to meet him.

Raphael sat on his perched and watched Sean die. His body hit the water with a sickening snap, the young man's torso twisting at an odd, almost comical angle. It was almost as if he had hit a concrete floor as the water quickly rushed up to engulf him, to drag him down to the depths.
"You know, you could have saved him."
The voice came from a dark figure, perched somewhere in the darkness beneath the bridge.
"All you had to do was reach out to him."
Raphael knew the voice. It was the fallen one, and he had been there all along, watching and waiting.
"If I had, it would have just made matters worse," said Raphael, pulling his coat tight around him.
"Yes, yes... all those silly rules. You know, Raphael, I'm no fan of rules. Come to work for me and we can just say hang the rules and do things our way."
"I have work to do, Lucifer," said Raphael. "Stick around though. I hear this spot's popular with the jumpers this time of year. You never know, you just might make a friend."
With that, Raphael spread his silvery wings and was gone.