Guardian Angel, Chapter Three

Chapter Two:

    The red LED clock read one o’clock in the morning when I awoke to the sounds of somebody creeping in my room. “Cash?” I asked, taking the knife from my pillow and opening it with a faint snapping sound. “Yea, Krist. It’s me,” his voice was calm, but tired. “You can put that away. It’s okay.”

    I set it down on my lap as I sat up, and picked out his silhouette from the faint light in the room. “Where were you?” I asked. “What was that fight about?” With a yawn, I heard Cash’s covers being pulled back. “Just another petty one. Nothing big – but the cops had to be called in when they started involving some other people. Minor cuts and bruises, no one’s dead.” Cash sounded more tired then I’d originally thought. “Okay, I guess,” I sighed, then closed the knife carefully before sticking it back under my pillow. “Good night, Krista,” he said, and then lay down, turning towards his wall. I took my turn to be quiet, and then returned to my dreams.

    Then the light hit my face. “Wha-?” I said, covering my eyes as I realized it was daytime already. “Wake up you two, it’s already eight,” the female voice belonged to the harsher of the four supervisors, and she was snapping at us already. I shoved the covers away from myself and hopped out of the bed as rapidly as I could. Cash had already done the same, and when Mrs. Hicks had left the room with a couple final warning glares at the two of us, we both sagged back onto our mattresses. “Where are you going today?” He asked.

    “Dunno. Maybe the park?” I sighed, rubbing my eyes. “How about you? Where are you working this week?” I asked, and looked at him. His blond hair was disheveled, and his dark eyes were bleary. He looked a little grungy, like he’d allowed himself to hit the ground when helping the staff deal with the fight. Even though Cash looked light and agile, he was fast, and as far as I could tell from the wiry muscles that occasionally showed under his barely olive skin. What kids like him were doing here, I didn’t know; he refused to tell me anything about how he got here. He refused to tell me anything about his past, not in a rude way – he just always avoided the questions. “I’m not,” he sighed. “So do you mind if I come with you?”

    I shrugged. “No problem, I guess.” I said, and then stood up and went to get a fresh set of clothes. Jeans, socks, a long sleeve tee, and my sweatshirt. My fingerless gloves and a scarf that someone much have returned during the night sat on my small dresser. “I’ll buy lunch, too.” He said, and then stepped out of the room for a moment while I changed. When I opened the door and allowed him back in, I was fully dressed. He already had his shirt off, but clearly had no intention on taking his pants off. His muscular shoulders flexed while he reached for a fresh shirt, and I had to watch him for a second to remember that it was actually a human in front of me.

    “Ready to go?” He asked, tossing me a granola bar from his stash when I’d slung my guitar over my shoulder. “Yep,” I said with a sigh, and then made my way with him out the door.
The building was most of the way vacated by now, but a few stragglers seemed to have been awakened in the same manner that Cash and I had. We didn’t linger for much longer than we had to, but as we left the door, something made me check my pocket for my knife. I’d remembered to put it there, and so with a sigh, I left the halfway home.
    “So, Krista,” Cash asked after a little while of walking towards the park. “What’s bugging you?” He asked. “You seem to be bothered by something.” His dark eyes were concerned, but playful as he poked me. “I don’t know, to be honest. Just something gnawing at my mind,” I sighed. “Maybe I’m just hungry?” I asked, and pulled out two dollars and trotted over to a street vendor. “Churro, I guess?” I asked, before Cash reappeared over my shoulder. When I got it, and payed, we started walking again.

    “I hate this city,” I said, after a while. Cash eyed me like I’d said something really strange. “Then why are you even here?” He asked. “You came here by yourself, no one made you.” His point stung briefly, but I knew my own reasoning.  “It’s easy to disappear here, though. It’s one of my biggest irritants, but I needed it for a while. I didn’t want my family to find me, once they regretted their decision.” I stopped walking, and played with a loose strap on my guitar case. “It’s just that, you could disappear against your own will here, and not many people would care. There are too many people, and it’s a claustrophobic environment,” I said. “The violence, too, is just ridiculous.” I looked up at the sky, but even here it seemed blocked out by tall buildings.

    “I understand how you feel, then.” Cash said, but then grabbed my hand. “Come on, it’s going to be a good day. Don’t think about negative stuff, okay?” He said. Something about his words seemed falsely optimistic, like he was hiding something. “Okay,” I said, swallowing my fears, and walking on with him. The park was occupied by the city mothers and their kids, but a few people stood outside that group: the jobless, and wanderers, but others seemed shady and on the outskirts, but with Cash’s encouragements only a few seconds before, I chose to put my better judgements aside.

    I began playing my normal routine of songs, before deciding to work on some of my own songs. While Cash had once been able to weave his melodies in and out of my songs, he seemed now to have paused, then he continued, weaving his own song in.
                       

















So just when I found myself again,
I lost the dirty ground.                   

Sing your beautiful requiem,
I’ll shelter you from all of them.

Searching for the ones that aren’t lost
But won’t soon be found

In my arms, please rest your head,
And if you want, I’ll sing with you,

 Your requiem.

Drifting in a frigid sea
That people say once was part of me

A world of vacant promises,
And biased unbalanced hypothesis.

Can’t say that I can disagree
But ‘perfect’ is something we’ll never be.

True freedom lost to the tyranny.
It’s here that we see the true bigotry.

Sweet requiem - here we go again
To sing when the faith descends.
Like a figure in the opera house,
Disfigured and hidden - though known about.
I’ll sing to you when I need you most,
For you are my words - and I your host.

 
    When the song ended, I realized that many people had stopped to listen to the two of us, and that my open guitar case had a fair amount of coins and more than a couple dollar bills in it. Cash lounged against me, and sighed. “You didn’t tell me you were that good, angel,” his voice was slick, and amused. People applauded for a little while as Cash stood and gave small bows to amuse them further. I simply smiled and shook my head at him, until he finally sat down again. “Do you know how to play this song?” He asked, and then whispered the name in my ear. Slowly, I picked out the riff.

“Falling slowly, eyes that know me, and I can’t go back.”