The Angel Flies

This story was inspired by two photos on Flickr: Angel of the North and Smoke From a Rocket Launch.


THE ANGEL FLIES
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

When the Angel of the North uprooted itself and stretched its vast, rusty red and girded structure, the tourists didn't scream or run. They snapped shots with their phones and digicams. At worst, some cursed the light as dusk began to settle over the English highways. The people didn't fear it, they trusted it completely and they knew the angel moved for some higher purpose. Its now separated legs pounded the ground to tremors as it ran across the countryside and the angel lowered its torso to warp the wind around its aeroplane wings. The contrails of multiple rockets foamed the air and before anyone noticed, the angel's last foot had left the ground. It flew into the distant west, to right some unbearable wrong. The people stood silently, some within the open doors of their cars on the sides of the road. They had witnessed something that wasn't for the tabloids, wasn't for the BBC or any dry history book. They had witnessed something for themselves. Something that had changed them and would continue to change them for the rest of their long lives. Streaks of smokey icing smeared themselves across the sparse clouds in the darkening purple-orange sky. It would be dark before anyone headed for home.