There once was a man, a man whose days
passed in solitude and whose nights passed in loneliness, a man who had no
woman to call his own, a man who had no woman to love.
He was a good man, and the women of his
town, who allowed him onto the doorsteps of their hearts yet never past their
threshold, told him that one day the right one would arrive into his life, and
that she would love him for who he was, and that together they would be happy.
But she never
arrived.
Growing desperate with the years, the man
prayed to the gods in the heavens for a nymph, an angel whom he could care for
and pamper, a woman whom he could worship and love. He prayed within shrines
and within temples, before the sea and beneath the stars, to Aphrodite the
goddess of love, and to Eros and the mischievous darts of his bow.
Then one day, as the auburn sun sank bright
in the autumn dusk, across the fields of hay and the eventide bay, a nymph descended
from the heavens, a winged angel of such beauty and kindness as the loftiest
gift the gods could bestow on the world.
The man gaped at her radiance and, falling
on his knees, offered her his undying faithfulness and love.
But the angel, shedding her wings, and wrapping
her slender arms about herself, shivering nude in her now human flesh, shunned this
man, leaving him then for another, a man whose strength enticed the desires of many
women in the town, a man whose nonchalance made the angel feel warm inside, a
man whose confidence made her feel moist below.
For, having descended from the heavens and
taken human form, her breast beating with a heart pumping with desire, the
angel did not long to be worshipped.
-Freese, June 2013
