The chalk figure smiled gently, an impression of understanding somehow depicted in its simple lines. “I bet you can think of many other ways to describe them,” it intoned.
In response, the old lady’s expression hardened. “I certainly can,” she said harshly, “I can think of many, many things to call ‘em, and ain’t none of ‘em include what you say you was drawn by.”
The figure did not change its conceptual expression. Almost, there was a feeling that it looked sidelong at its elderly conversation partner, as if to gently tease her. “But you judge these children without knowing them, perhaps,” it observed, “and it may be that an exterior that appears brash and confrontational on the outside does not signify the entirety of a character -”
“Geezer lady! Who are you speaking to?”
The voice was mocking and cruel, and cut through their exchange. The pensioner turned and saw that a group of teenagers were looking at her. And the smiles that she saw did not hold kindness.
There were two boys and a girl. The two boys wore sports tops with hoods that covered their heads, and the girl wore a tartan mini-skirt and sported a haircut that was partly shaven.
“What are you talking to you old bag?” shouted the tallest boy, who appeared to be the leader of the little gang.
"What is it to you?" answered the old lady irritably. It angered her that she was meant to be justifying herself to to these strangers, quite apart from the abuse she'd received.
“Mad old bag speaks to drawings on the wall!” said the girl, in a screeching voice as she joined the mockery. “Silly, stupid, mad old cow!”
"Why don't you leave me in peace!" said the old lady angrily. "I've done nothing to you!" But her remonstrations fell on deaf ears.
The third delinquent looked to his two comrades. He was shorter in stature then either of them, and slightly overweight, but his expression of contempt was just the same. “Let’s do her,” he urged them.
The leader of the gang renewed his smile at this suggestion and took a few steps towards the elderly lady, his eyes gaining a threat as he stared at her, “Oi, wrinkly, you got any money in that handbag?” he asked her, his voice growing in menace as he spoke.
The old lady turned back to the drawing on the wall. “You see?” she complained, “Is that the kind of language you’d hear from a ‘little angel’?”
The drawing did not reply. Its attention was no longer drawn to its conversation partner, and almost, it seemed, its approximation of a smile had faded.
“Oi!” said the gang leader again, his stare now full of aggression, “don’t you turn your back on me you stupid, senile old -”
But the teenager never got to complete his threat - because at that exact second, everything changed. At that second, a sound rang out.
It was a sound that filled the world, and yet echoed beyond the walls of everything that is. It deafened them, and it deafened their minds; it even deafened their imaginations.
It was the sound of a dimensional bridge being crossed.
The old lady stepped back and covered her face with her arm as the drawing before her was replaced with a blinding light that blasted out from the outlines on the wall. And then the drawing disappeared, but the light remained – and something began to emerge, directly from the wall. But it was clear that the wall was not where this thing that emerged had come from. Rather, the wall was where a portal was situated; a portal to the higher dimension, or dimensions, from where the terrifying visitor was come.
And the gang of teenagers were frozen in place as a shining figure emerged from the wall and was made incarnate before them.
The figure stepped onto the pavement, and the sound gained in depth and in heights that deafened their memories and their dreams. The being had not yet emerged fully from the world beyond, but still it walked towards the terrified, unmoving children.
And as it walked, it grew.
By the time it stood before the three juveniles, the Angel was fully formed in this reality.
It towered above them. It towered above all of the buildings of the town, standing hundreds of feet tall. Its wings stretched away from its golden frame, and to their terror stricken eyes, they stretched infinitely in either direction, and cast an all-encompassing shadow over everything. In its right hand, the Angel held a flaming sword that shone with a terrible brilliance. And when it looked down upon the teenagers, its gaze pierced their flesh, and cut through their bones and their internal organs, and their spirits, until it studied the core of their beings, as one studies microscopic creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. And still the indescribable sound blasted out, beneath which, impossibly, a choir could be heard singing.
For a moment the Universe held its breath; and then the moment passed, and the Angel released the teenagers from its grip. Brash and confrontational they were no longer; and these frightened children turned and they ran. They ran for their very existences. They ran until their bodies screamed in pain and fatigue; they ran until they felt their lungs would burst from their chests; they ran until the streets they fled through were no longer familiar to them, and they knew they were hopelessly lost. But still they continued to run.
And they never, ever spoke of what happened again. Not to anyone else. Not to each other.
But in the dead of night, when they were all alone, when all they could see was everything they were, and their souls were laid bare…
At night, they would remember.
The higher dimensional being watched the juvenile gang depart, and then turned and regarded its conversation partner. And suddenly there was silence.
Then it spoke.
“No,” it agreed, “that is not the kind of language you would expect from little angels. I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
The old lady shrugged and looked down. “S’alright,” she said. Then she continued on her way down the street, her pace slow but doggedly persistent.
