On the Day the Angels Fell
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Chelsea Panameño On the day the angels fell, there was nothing but ash-colored clouds and the after-scent of rain and rust, like the taste of blood when you bite your cheek, like a summer storm. The wind blew westward, and the trees shook with it. The workers kept the tunnels going, and the children harvested leftover rainwater in rubber boots and stained buckets. They would filter it out through buzzing, whirring machines, then give it back to the workers, who would then drink and drink and drink until the dryness of Sundays faded and the shaking hands of Fridays returned. There was always something in the water. But that’s why it worked. The first break in the clouds all day came in the form of their bodies. Two and four and six- winged forms, sharp claws and long toes and one or eight or sixteen eyes in places where eyes shouldn’t be. Mouths, too, and tongues that might as well be fire. As they fell, they shifted – feathers turned to hair (though many would never lose their ruffled touch), wings faded into skin or turned to extra limbs, eyes and mouths that shut so tight the lines were no longer visible. Their skin ranged paper-white and crinkled to bronzes sealed with a reddish glow, tamed by fires (did they come from them? They may never know). They fell in twos and threes. Some landed on the roofs of makeshift houses, though they did not break. Some landed in fields, in trees, some dropped into the ocean and were said to have drowned and became the fish-things that would come to bleed them dry in a later year to come. None came from tunnels, but then again nothing came from the tunnels except rock and soot. At least, not yet. The notangels came before the worm-people after all. Not a single was bruised or injured in the slightest way. Except for one. When they tried to speak, when the elders had been called and frayed whips and spears were dug up from the bottoms of family chests and the children held their buckets as if still waiting for the rain, they spoke in harsh sounds through cracked lips, none of the lilting musical voices from the stories. There were a few, black-eyed and almost trance-like in their recently fallen state. But it was off-key. They did not know where they came from. They did not know why they were there. The closest they came was the few who, for a time, could not speak a human tongue. Many
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