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Alien Angel

Inspiration for this came from a friend ( Kichiko-19), a David Bowie movie named Labyrinth, a song by 3 called ‘Alien Angel’, and my imagination from there on. Lyrics are part of ‘Alien Angel’ by 3, on their album Wake Pig. It is also found on the Metal Blade Summer 2006 sampler. The poem is an original by me, the only change from its original context being the substitution of ‘night-dark’ for ‘thundering’to match the story.

I do not own Naruto, or any of its original characters, They are property of Masashi Kishimoto.

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Are you an angel whose ship ran aground?
Can’t get a grip on this planet you’ve found?
Never to look down,
I’ve traded my halo for feet on the ground.
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It started that night, the fires of comets flashing through the velvet sky in search of a less spiritual home. But maybe their search is in vain, maybe there will never be a place for them; never a place they can call home. It started then, as I thought how much alike we are; the distant spears of flame shooting through the sky, and me sitting here and watching them, knowing how similar my own story is to theirs. Even in our difference, we are alike. They search to find a place no longer in the heavens, no longer amongst their kindred. I search to find a place where I can be accepted, a place where there are people not unlike me.
“Oh I wish, I wish upon the shooting stars, flying meteors so far above, hear me from wherever you are!” My voice rang out richly yet emptily mocking into the still night, causing the birds in the tree above me to shift and softly whir at me from their nights roosting. “I wish that both of us could find a home! That you could find a home! That I could find a home! That we could both become one with our place in this universe! That is my wish! Hear me now and grant this wish that I have cast to you!”
I moved from my position of arms spread and face upturned to the starry moonless sky, my legs moving as I took a step backwards and turned to walk from beneath the boughs of one tree of the many dotted throughout the flowing hills. I made my way slowly down the side of the steep hill, my full attention on my feet and the ground before me so that I wouldn’t find myself laying face down and bruised at its base so far below. A hot wind began to blow, its erratic gusts reaching my cool skin through the holes in my disheveled layers of clothing. I ignored it, intent on reaching my destination at the bottom of the hill. The heat of it began to grow, and the wind picked up into an airy pitch. I was just stepping down onto the level ground when I finally lifted my gaze from my feet and deigned to look back up and behind me, wondering the source of such a blistering wind.
And that was when I saw it, when the wind that carried it lifted me off of my feet and tossed me into the air, scorching my lungs with its searing heat. It rushed towards me, a fiery mass of alien rock and I had no other thought left in my head but to stare at it in all of its ethereal beauty, even as my body was lifted further from the ground by the wind of its coming. Time slowed to the crawling drip of aged molasses, and a flash of a poem I had once read imposed itself in my otherwise empty mind.

The bleak winds blew across the southern eclipse,
Rendering a chill breeze to graze along the gray and boundless plain;
The languid grasses reflecting the colorless state of night-dark clouds above.
Every thought is held in a single breath,
The smooth flow of time held stolid in a swampy mire.
The mind’s eye thus impaired by this tranquil scene,
As much a blizzard as any other.
Death,
In this moment,
Can be heard as the only sound;
Ringing obtrusively in the open air.
This extemporaneous moment,
Invincible to any trick of time,
Is adept at its game.
That which is not beheld in its amber moment is diminutive,
A despicable crime.

How true it seemed at this moment. How well the poet had written it, to match this chilling breeze even as it broiled my skin and made my eyes water. How it matched the quiet that was the possibility of my own death occurring with no one else to know.
Time seemed to suddenly reverse its flow from barely creeping to charging ahead into the future and I was blinded, my vision flashing white as I could feel the impact of the heavenly body into the place where I had called it from only minutes before.
It feels as if it has been forever. But it has been only minutes. No more than twenty scalding breaths since my body became disconnected from the earth…
Impact. Not the impact of the meteor, for it was already beginning to seizure in aftershock, but my impact as the wind that had carried it to me blew me away. My body shook with its force, even as the land about me did shudder, the trees whipping every which way and the chunks of unsettled earth flying about me in a quake of dust.
I landed hard, choking on the hot, soil filled air as my torso connected with the earth. I held my breath as best I could without coughing too much and tried to lay there as still as possible. It was minutes before the majority of the dust had settled, the wind having almost completely died down, leaching all the heat from the earth. The earth still trembling slightly, but not enough to really notice, I put my arms beneath me and lifted my self onto my knees. Already, I could feel the ache of my bruised ribs. By morning, they would be a mass of black and blue from my shoulder-blade to my hips.
Even so, my curiosity was enough to make me shakily get to my feet through the throbbing promise of pain and take the gravity-belabored steps back up the hill. I stopped two-thirds of the way to up and stared. There was no other third. Stretched before me where I had stood under the tree less than an hour ago was nothing. Nothing being a steaming crater, of course. No tree, and thank god, no me.
I peered from my perch at the lip of the hollow and tried my hardest to stare with squinting eyes past the warm steam that lifted into the still air before me. Looking, I saw a path where I approach and see more clearly. I stepped gingerly past the mouth of the crater and cautiously made my way down towards its center, a hand grasping my other arm for mental security. It’s not everyday that a poor, homeless kid like me almost gets struck by a meteor.
The steam seemed to clear from my presence, and I came abreast of the hunk of half-buried steaming rock in the center of the hole. It was hot, but I could also feel an immense chill radiating from somewhere deep within it. Carefully as I could, I walked up to it and sat back on my heels, my back spasming as a reminder of my earlier flight. It was cracked, and this was where the incalculable chill came from. Staring at it, I did not find myself afraid. I wasn’t angered, I wasn’t apprehensive. I felt no emotion other than a mild sense of curiosity and strong urge to wait and watch it.
Even as I did so, it began to splinter and I wrapped my arms about myself to ward off the sudden coolness in the air. On the outside, it was mottled brown and red and yellow. But as it slowly began to crack and pieces fragmented from the whole, I saw that the inside way a myriad swirl of captivating colors. With a resounding crack and a rush of cooler air, a large piece cleft from the main and slid down to fall with its glistening interior revealed to the sparkling night sky.
For a moment I had fancied some small alien to reside inside, but I knew that wouldn’t be true. But I was still not prepared to see the shimmering stone that rested within the rest, apart from it all as being smoothly rounded and pendulous in shape, as if a sphere had been stretched until it was three times as long as it was wide and vaguely pointed at the ends.
Without knowing, I had stood and stretched out a hand to touch it. With my hand barely a fingers width away, I hesitated. The iridescent stone glimmered at me invitingly, as if reminding me of a promise it had made. Reaching forward, I laid my fingers upon it and felt how much warmer than the rest of the space rock it was. Wrapping my fingers around it, I gingerly lifted it from its meteorite cradle and held it up before me. It was a thousand different shimmering colors, shimmering as if faceted, yet not. It seemed to glow, although my eyes could not tell if it was the wan starlight reflecting within it, or if the pale radiance emanated from within it.
It fit my hand perfectly, as if made to nestle in the diagonal length of my palm. It felt right there, somehow. Holding it tightly in my fitted hand, I rose fully and made my way up and out of the crater. Casting a last look at the crevasse behind me, I paced my way down what was left of the hill and walked towards my forest home without another glance, a small warmth in my palm assuring me, as if telling me ’Everything is as it should be, Naruto.’

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I thank you for reading my story, this will be continued. Please review and tell me what you think.