He had walked a long way that day. He couldn’t put a distance to it. This was wild open country. It was without measure. He reached the crest of yet another hill; he felt weary from the day’s trek and found a rock flat enough to sit on. This was freedom. This was sanity, at last. Far from the madness of a poorly managed insurance office. Far from the whining and coping of two ungrateful children and a partner who no longer cared.
His life had gone downhill fast. First there was the guy next door learning to play the saxophone, then the leak in the toilet that he couldn’t fix; both his kids were hooked on drugs, his wife was now a full-blown alcoholic, his car was in for repairs, his eczema had come back, and now he was plagued with the Hopkins account. His eyes watered as his thoughts settled on the Hopkins account.
Heaven preserve us, he thought. Even out here, in the middle of nowhere he was thinking about the Hopkins Account. He felt the tension build up again; a weird, unreal sensation. He felt as though he was on the edge of something. Not perched here on top of a hill, but teetering on the edge of a precipice; the precipice of reason, on the very threshold of madness.
He squeezed tears out and kept his eyes closed as the cool drops tracked down his cheeks. He sat, like that, not moving, but in a kind of lonely oblivion. He knew what he was doing… knew he was shutting it all out. The job, the debts, the family, the neighbours, the car… it was endless. That’s why he was here, wasn’t it? That’s why he had contrived to disappear for the last two days of that stupid seminar; the group-bonding drivel he had been sent to. Sent… by a manager who had never bonded with anyone in his whole, God-forsaken life! No. He wouldn’t think about the Hopkins account; Higgins would have to look after that. Poor old Higgins; what a fool! A typical old retainer… gets all the dregs of the office work and never complains.
He kept his eyes tight shut. He was aware of feeling tired; tired from the cross-country walking, weary from all that he has, for the time being at least, left behind. Solitude took hold again, and he straightened his back and sat in a monk-like pose.
Suddenly, from nowhere, there was a rush of something moving past him. He tried to open his eyes, but found that he couldn’t. They were clamped shut; held closed by some strange force that was alien to him. Neither could he move. It was as though he had been drenched in some fast setting glue that had hardened and held him fixed. It, the something, went past and around him again and again with a great swirling of wings, yes that was it… wings! They now stroked his face, fluttered against his neck; great feathered wings. He sat with amazing calmness as, without opening his eyes, he saw the angel stand before him, still flapping, still creating soft, soothing eddies across his whole body. As he took in the visage, he noted that the wings were black. He felt something stir in his chest; a sting. His hand went up to feel for an answer. He toppled off the rock and lay very still. The flapping of wings grew faint.
It was several hours before he was discovered in that lonely landscape, and several more before he was lying on a stainless steel table, being looked at by two men dressed in greens. They were momentarily startled by a strange noise; a flapping. Then some unseen thing moved across the room and they looked at each other; neither wishing to appear foolish. At first they made no comment, but this was followed by a murmuring sound.
“Did you hear that!” said one. “I certainly did” came the whispered reply.” It sounded to me like ‘whinging bastard.'”