GREY ANGEL
Chapter One (first page)
The water was searing cold. At 5
a.m. no one had drunk from the silver metal fountain for hours, the water
had taken on a throat-numbing chill. David felt the frigid outline of his esophagus as he swallowed, he could sense the upper reaches of his stomach as the
cold rush swept the oxycodone tablet down. The clock was running, in less than
fifteen minutes the first warm wave of the opioid would wash over him.
He turned from the brightly lit, empty
emergency room and passed through the oversized gurney doors out onto the
ambulance bay. Beyond the protecting pergola the vacant parking lot was wet
from a passing spring rain, he walked slowly across the staff lot towards the
stairs that led to the larger upper visitor’s parking area.
A distant observer might have wondered at
the age of the man climbing those stairs. Was he 70? Or perhaps 80? What
arthritic disease so wracked his body that he had to haltingly and carefully
ascend the staircase?
Thirty-four-year old David Iverson
reached the threshold of the upper lot just as the rising sun cast a pink glow
across the damp tarmac. The pavement rose evenly across several hundred feet to
a stand of maple trees at the upper edge of the parking area. Up there at the
top, a path led through the grove to a small corner park and his neighborhood
beyond.
David began a slow, measured walk up the
incline. With each step, he added a few centimeters to the length of his stride
and felt the deformed muscles of his lower back stretch as he transferred his
weight onto the upslope leg. This dawn ritual relieved some of the accumulated
stiffness from his desk bound midnight shift spent sifting endlessly through
patient charts.
He was no more than half way up the empty
lot when he first noticed the figure under the trees. Too early for the local
dog walkers and there weren’t any homeless in this part of town. The man was a
bit too deep in the shadows to distinguish; the dawning light had not chased
away the shaded area under the stand of trees quite yet. As David moved closer,
he momentarily thought the man was part of the shadows beneath the trees, a not
quite a fully formed figure. A few more steps and he realized the murky effect
was enhanced because the stranger was dressed entirely in grey. Grey slacks,
grey jacket, even grey shoes and wait what?
Were those really?
David stopped just short of the
tree line.
“Very nice,” David said, in a
voice tinged with mirth not quite laughter.
“Could you be more specific?” said the
shadowy figure.
“Nice wings?” David replied.
The stranger came forward out of the
shade and there standing just under the lowest boughs of the tree was an angel.
To be more precise – an all grey angel.
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