One Breath

“Please. Let him live,” she said.

The bedroom was scattered, dank and dusty. Crisp cobwebs shuddered as a flustered house fly swiped at them with a blue feather sword.

The purple scrubbed, trainee angel hovered in the book — strewn corner. Finger in her mouth. Scrappy nail down to its bloody quick. Black hair sodden with sweat. Glistening brown face creased and etched with the history of guardianship. Light from her golden aura spewed shadows and slender fingers across the blood sodden bed where the Earth woman lay.

Naked. Disfigured. Alone.

Alone except for the still creature on her heaving breast.

Alone in her pain.

Alone but for the unbidden, unseen guests in the room.

She could feel them. Their power seesawed across her weak awareness. The warm embrace of life. The chill breath of death. Billowing blossoms of purple-pink-orange flowers trailed and tripped away from the feet of the Angel, filling the air with sweet scent, before they shrivelled and shrank in defeat around the pitch black cloak of Death.

An angry howling wind tore at the doors, rattled at the windows and slithered down the chimney. A bright silver, tiny rattle sparkled in a cardboard box bed on the stained, holey carpet.

“Alright, I’ll take the woman instead,” said Death.

The woman exhales a last shimmering breath that grows, swirls and swallows into the open mouth of the mite. His little chest swells as his bright grey eyes open, and flicker with recognition as the three old souls sigh.