I meet the angel outside the gas station this evening on my way home from work. It is getting dark and I can see puffs of condensed air with every exhale of breath from my lungs. She is leaning against an old pickup truck, the rust around the front and rear bumpers dry and crumbling, and the light throws odd shadows across her face. She holds a single cigarette gently between the first two fingers of her left hand. The other holds the pack, the cellophane crinkled at the edges, freshly unwrapped.
"Got a light?" She asks as I come out of the station clutching a mountain dew and a cliff bar. She blows the cold between her teeth as if the smoke is already alight and I dig through my pocket to fish out the boxy silver lighter I keep. I quit smoking years ago but some habits never die and I can't make myself get rid of the little lighter even now.
She gives me a slow even smile and holds the cigarette between her lips, pursed around the yellow edges, waiting for me. The tip flares up, a burning ember in the night and she sucks it gratefully, gracefully, and steps back, offering up the pack in her right hand with a soft crinkle of cellophane.
I shake my head but she grins as she takes the cigarette out of her mouth and blows the smoke in my direction, shaking the carton again. I blink, inhaling the smoke and holding it in my lungs before I shove the cliff bar into my back pocket and slide a thin cigarette out of the pack. She leans forward and I light mine off of hers.
"Heaven is empty and all the angels are here," I say, breathing easy at the familiar feeling of a light in my fingers and smoke in my mouth. I watch as her mouth quirks up in a smile, the smoke floating up around her head to haze the light of the neon and fluorescent sign advertising two for one candy and twenty five percent off of a case of bud light.
"You can't smoke in heaven."
I suck again on the smoke, watching the bright end fade into darkness and then tap the ash to fall to the ground. I shrug, "that's fair."
She shifts her weight against the door of the rusty pickup and gestures for me to join her. I do so and she tucks the carton of cigarettes into her coat but leaves her hand in the pocket, curled gently into a fist. There is a swirling tattoo that snakes up from the back of her hand and her wrist to disappear beneath the edge of her sleeve. She is dressed for warmer weather but she doesn't look cold here, only tired.
"What do you believe in?" Another puff of smoke, this time it curls downwards as she drops her head forward to avoid the mist that is starting in.
I let my head fall back instead, the cigarette poking out of my mouth as I crack the plastic cap of the mountain dew bottle. "I believe in caffeine," I say as I switch the cigarette for the bottle and take a generous swig. "I believe that my wife is going to be making lasagna for dinner and it's going to be a little bit burned but she got the nice mozzarella from the cheese lady so it'll still taste good." I offer the bottle to her and she only smiles and takes another drag on her cigarette. "I believe in the songs of Johnny Cash and I believe that you should always bet on tails in a coin toss. I believe this weather sucks and I want something warmer, but I also believe that tomorrow will be sunnier and I'll be wishing for rain again soon. I believe in God and not-god and my wife and myself and you. Is that enough?"
She is finished with the cigarette now and she drops it to the ground and scrapes the toe of her boot over the bright ember remnants. She looks up at me and shoves her empty fingers into her other pocket, and there is no tattoo on that hand. "What a strange faith you keep," she whispers as the mist blurs her face.
I can't help but frown down at her. "It's the only faith I need," I say, "plus I don't think you have much faith left if you're hanging around here."
She gives me a rueful smile and shakes her head. "This is the only place left I suppose, the only place where faith is worth anything. Not a lot of good it does up there, and of course no one down below cares about anything, faithful or otherwise."
"But that's not the point is it?" I blow the smoke in my mouth in her direction and idly shake the bottle of soda in my hand, the sugar is already kicking in and the cold is starting to get to me. "Faith is useless if it's worth something, what's the point in believing in something just to treat it like currency, instead of believing in something just to believe?"
She laughs now and the sharp bark of sound makes me jump a little and rust crumbles from beneath the door of the truck. "You're weird, and I like you." She pushes herself up off of the door and I can see the tattoo more clearly now, the dark lines across her skin a stark contrast to the glow of the neon that light up the night.
"We'll see if you're right," she says, and her fingers are smudged with ash and she reaches up and pats my cheek gently, condescendingly. Then she spins gracefully and pulls the door of the truck open without a sound and climbs in.
The mist turns to rain as I push myself off of the truck and let my finished cigarette drop to the ground to join hers, the embers hiss out as it falls into the slowly forming puddle of rainwater from overhead. The tail lights flare up to join the rest of the neon and I take a few steps back as she slowly backs the truck out of the parking space. Her window is rolled down and I can see faint shadows within the cabin behind her, but she catches my eye again and throws the cartoon of cigarettes at me. I catch it neatly in one hand and stare at it for a moment before looking back up at her.
"You take care, and thanks," she says and then she downshifts and drives out of the gas station with a spray of rainwater on the pavement.
I watch her tail lights blur out of sight and walk slowly back to my own car. The cliff bar is missing from my back pocket so I shove the packet of smokes there instead. The rain is pouring overhead now and I am soaked and smelling of smoke, but I drive home anyway. It's late and after all, it's lasagna night.
My attempt at poking at some existential content but failing epically and coming up with some mildly weird and random poetic prose instead.
:) Kathryn