The Demon Gabriel

There are things I would have never said. The truth is I was alone for the majority of my human life. There were some who were there, but as a whole I was in the shadow of my own solitude. There was an age old haunting spirit walking beside me that was the peace I found in this isolation.

That was until I met her, until I met Mary. I had known her for so little before my first affections began to bloom. Until her, I was a hollow shell of results, a product of a monster without homes. She became my reason so see things differntly. She was my reason for light.

I was drifting aimlessly in a forest with shallow river. She sat beside it in a thin dress and set flower petals on the waters edge and watched them dance down the eddies of twirling waters. Her hair flowing gold spinning vines braided into a guilded fish tail, eyes as blue as the sky.

We had spent time as lovers in only in the forest. We would meet day by day and share all our secrets and dreams in our imaginary worlds. I became king of the woodlands and she my elemental goddess of green. We would dance and she would sing.

Once, upon my seeing her last, before my death and undoing, she brought a flute that she was gifted. She played me a melody in which she crafted herself. It was slow and as serene as she was. I never felt so in a peace as I did in those fleeting moments.

But this was my last sight f her before this. And though I know I should not, I had to find her once more. I had to lay my eyes upon her before I could no longer.

I found the town closest to the forest in which we danced in hopes I would cross her path. I began to wander the streets at moon rise but no sight of her still. I practice this search for weeks and she did not turn up. In between my day sleep I would recall my moments with her. It was as haunting, this peace, as my solitude underground.

I had feared the worst for a time and I had began to imagine a tragedy where she had moved to a distant land, found a new lover and had forgotten about me. Sorrow had struck me in these thoughts and the feeling of loneliness had found me once more. My vanishing had cost me more than I knew.

I wandered to the forest in which I had saw her first. I waded in the water where she sent the fleeting petals under the fullest of moons. The flow of water felt as crystal as the memory, an ash of the silhouette of time.

Then I heard it. My heart lept with a sense vibrancy. The Melody! She was here. She was playing.

I ran with more fervor than I did when I was freed from the wooden box. I ran a storm of relief.

Then I had saw her. She sat down the river, and played the melody with more glory than I had first heard. She sat in a thin dress her hair in an ivory fish tail. I approched her from behind and did my best not to startle her.

“Mary” I whispered.

She turned slowly to me. Her eyes wider than the moon.

“Gabriel.” she said shocked. Her face was wrinkled and fingers thin as bone. Her eyes faded with time. “I thought you had died.”

“I did.”

She looked me over from head to toe. “How can this be? You haven’t aged a day. It has been almost fourty years. But you still look as you did when we met.”

“It is a story I am not willing to share. Please forgive me My Lady of The Forest.” I looked into her eyes and saw that she understood. She did not press it for which in that moment I was more than grateful.

“Are you real?” she asked.

“I am.” I said “And I am here.” She touched my face still inspecting realities.

“I have come here every night and played that melody. I never thought you would return to me. For a time I could not forgive you because I felt you had abandoned me. I thought....”

I shushed her with a slow hiss. “I would not have forgiven me. I could not ask you to for I had been cruel.”

Tears swelled in her eyes.

“Can we dance?” She asked.

I took her by the hand and we swirled eddies in by the water. She rested her head on my chest and we danced.

It had been fourty years in the ground. It had not felt so long at all. It seemed it happened in moments. I had kept her waiting for me for more than a lifetime. Every night she played. Every night I had failed her. I had truly become some form of tragedy. I had introduced a nightmare in our imaginry land. I had been cruel.

I had been...

....and she kept believing.

“I love you.” She said softly.

I felt undeserved of such words.

“Promise me something.” She said loking into my eyes.

“The world.” I said. She smiled.

“Do no become an enemy yourself for the time we have spent apart. I loved you as if we had every moment together. You were in my heart for the time we had lost. I could not forgive you because I thought you left me because you did not feel the same as I did. But you came for me and that’s all that matters.”

My heart sank in joy.

“You are too kind My Lady.”

I had spun her and dipped her in an arch and held her there under the moon. I pulled her close and I kissed her. She embraced me as we did when we were young.

I felt the life fade from her. She had passed away in my arms. We had lived and died in that moment.

I had died again.

But there was no sorrow in this. I had not failed her. I was enough and she was what I needed.

I buried her under the tallest tree I could find, carried her like the flower petals she sent down the waters. She became the spirit of the forest in which we danced as lovers.

I played the melody on her flute. She is my fondest memory.

I whispered, “I promise My Lady.”