055. I thought angels would be prettier

“Did it hurt?” he said, slurring more than he meant to.

“You know. When you fell from heaven?”

It was a terrible line, even he knew that. But it was getting close to closing, and pickings were slim. She wasn’t pretty, but she was just-pretty-enough, and the feather tattoos poking out from under her bra strap had inspired him.

“You know,” he leaned in, attempting what he thought was a whisper.  “Because you’re an angel. It must have hurt.”

He was as surprised as anyone when she said yes.

It had hurt. The first fall – from the gates of heaven – hadn’t been that bad. They prepared you for it with a month of crash training and a set of disposable wings. No, in the end, it was the little falls that got you.

The tacos didn’t taste as good as everyone said they would, and shop assistants were rude. There were awful things scrawled across the back of toilet doors, and the men on internet dating sites always lied to you. They kept showing the same shit on TV – M.A.S.H. reruns and episodes of last year’s Big Brother – and it was hard to get comfortable on a couch you’d picked up on the side of the road.

The worst thing was the grey. There was so much of it. Up there, all anyone could talk about was walking, barefoot, in lush paddocks. But for some reason, they’d buried all that under a blanket of grey.

She looked around. The pub was a dive, and tonight it all hurt more than usual. So she let him kiss her and it didn’t surprise her that he tasted like stale beer and disappointment.

That’s the thing about falling. Once you start, it’s hard to stop.