"Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form." – Rumi
The bench on Asher Road was empty this morning. No old woman resting her feet, no young businessman awaiting a call. I checked the time as I walked across the idle street; 3:47. In less than fifteen minutes, humankind would come rushing out of the surrounding buildings to go somewhere else. For some, it was home, and for others, another job. I sat on the bench and waited.
A woman with her child walked out of the apartment building in front of me. The child was about six years old, with long hair tied in a ponytail close to falling out. Her mother was tall and muscular. The dark blue of her shirt indicated that she worked in maintenance somewhere, and based on the time, during the night shift. She led her child into the bakery across from me. A stout woman wearing a purple shirt greeted them at the door. She smiled when she saw the girl and her mother, giving both of them a hug. The woman in the blue shirt kissed her daughter goodbye and waved to the baker. The baker took the girl's hand and brought her inside.
I smiled at the interaction, it was one I saw everyday. The woman brought her daughter to the bakery while she worked, eventually returning early in the morning to bring her daughter to school. She would then go home and sleep, getting up when the school bus dropped off her daughter. After an hour of leisure, the woman repeated the process. The woman was always tired, never getting enough sleep, but she never failed to take care of her child. And unless the girl didn't have school, the woman did the same thing everyday. Just like everyday, the woman came and sat on the bench next to mine.
She leaned back and closed her eyes, hoping to get a few minutes of rest before her work began. As usual, I sent her a smile, but her eyes were closed. I looked back at the bakery. I noticed the baker standing in the window, watching me.
I raised my hand to wave, but she frowned and walked into her shop. I looked down at the cement. The crack by my feet had a few blades of grass sticking out of it. The blades were small, barely noticeable. If I didn't sit here everyday, I wouldn't have noted them. I looked back at the bakery.
If I didn't sit on this bench everyday, I wouldn't know that the cupcakes in the window were about a week old and needed to be thrown out to the birds. I wouldn't know that the bakery was owned by a nice old couple, who also babysat for their neighbor while she worked. I wouldn't know anything about Asher Road if I didn't sit and watch everyday. I sighed and shook my head.
A voice in my head told me to get up and fly away. To go back to Heaven, where I belonged. The voice told me to use my wings, I had earned them over and over again. The voice was rough and deep, but also kind. I heard this voice everyday, and it told me the same thing. "Get off this bench, Cas, go out and do something. You're on Earth for a reason, and the reason ain't me anymore." I wanted to listen, to do what the voice told me, but I couldn't. Everyday I wandered around for a few hours at night before returning to my bench. I would leave, to make it look like I had a purpose, but I always came back. I knew it was wrong, I knew it was bad, but my body didn't seem to want to do anything else.
There was a click that encompassed my entire body. I looked around me and managed a smile. Humankind had arrived, and just in time.
People poured out of their workplaces. A sea of different colors flooded the street. Red office workers followed green technicians out of one building. Blue maintenance workers filed in and out, sometimes accompanied by a black security guard. A few dots of purple could be seen through the reds and blues. A mass of yellow shirts climbed into cars and situated themselves on street sides, waiting to begin their own job as people finished theirs. Black shirts waited by doorways, smiling and letting people in and out. Green shirts checked parking meters and street lights on their way home. Red shirts carried armfuls of papers or suitcases through the crowd of colors. Blue shirts ran like a stream into every building around me. Then, just like that, it stopped.
The ocean of people waned, leaving just a few on the street. The woman on her bench next to me had left at some point, joining other blue shirts for the night shift. The cars with yellow shirts had driven off, some returning with a worker from another part of the city. Everything had calmed down, but the city was still alive.
A couple walked in front of the bakery, briefly stopping to admire the cakes in the window. The woman had blonde wavy hair that hung down her shoulders. Her red shirt matched that of her lover, whose broad shoulders fit into his shirt neatly. They continued on their way, holding hands and living their lives. An old man in a green shirt stepped into the building next to the bakery, smiling at the black-shirted man by the door. The city was breathing, living, and I was here to watch it. As I turned back to face the bakery, I noticed the baker standing in the doorway.
She had in her hands a small white box, which I remembered to be a delivery box for a dozen cookies. She was staring at me again, but she didn't turn away. The young girl popped out behind her, smiling at me.
I smiled at the girl, and she giggled and poked the baker excitedly. The woman looked nervously at me and then at the little girl, eventually handing her the white box. The girl took the box and ran over to me.
"Hello," I said upon her arrival.
"Hi," she chirped, hopping onto the bench. She opened the box of cookies and handed me one. "Mrs. Mara said that we should share the leftover cookies with you."
I nodded and took the cookie, though I had no reason to eat it. It was a chocolate cookie with white chunks in it. I pointed to the chunks. "What are these?"
"White chocolate chunks, they're good, I promise."
"Oh." I studied the treat some more. It did look good, but I knew I wouldn't enjoy it. The taste of food, particularly peanut butter, had escaped me. Now all I could taste were the molecules that made up the food.
"Aren't you going to eat it?" the girl asked, crumbs of her own cookie spilling over her white shirt.
I looked at the girl. She had never come to say hello before, although she had waved once. She was always too far away for me to study her features up close but now... She had pretty blue eyes, like mine, but smaller. The freckles dusting her cheeks were indiscernible, but I tried to count them out of habit. One, two, three, four, five...
"Hello?"
I stopped counting. "I'm sorry," I muttered, "I'm, uh, not very hungry. But thank you." The girl shrugged and took another bite of her cookie, more crumbs falling onto her shirt. She didn't leave, and when I noticed the baker watching us carefully, I realized she intended to stay. "I'm Castiel," I smiled, holding out my hand.
The girl returned the smile and shook my hand. "My name is Delilah." My smile widened. "What?" she asked, looking at me skeptically through eyes like bellfowers.
"Your name, it suits you," I replied softly. Delilah shrugged again and closed the box of cookies.
"I'm going back to Mrs. Mara now." Delilah hopped off the bench, her loose ponytail bouncing on her shoulders. "It was nice to meet you!" she called over her small shoulder. I waved as she trotted back to the bakery empty handed. I looked at the bench and saw the box sitting next to me.
"Wait!" I called, but she had disappeared into the bakery. I held the box, which was now missing one cookie. I put my cookie back inside and closed the lid. I could fit the box in my coat pocket if I wanted to, but I had nothing do with it.
"Take it to someone," the voice said, entering my mind again. "Take it to someone and never come back to this bench. Come on, Cas, go live your life. Be like the people you see everyday. Live."
I shook my head. "I can't," I murmured.
"I've seen you do amazing things, Castiel. You stopped the apocalypse – "
"No, that was you."
"But you were there, you were living. Do that again. Be the angel who saved the world."
"The world doesn't need saving anymore."
"Then be the angel who taught his world."
I took in a deep breath. I was talking, out loud, with a dead man inside my head. "Taught the world what?" I whispered. My head was quiet and I buried my face in my hands. "Taught the world what?!" I roared into my hands.
I snapped my head up and looked around. A woman walking by looked away from her device and scowled at me. The baker, Mrs. Mara, had opened the door and was glaring at me. I took another deep breath.
"I'm sorry," I yelled to her. She huffed and shut the door. The woman who had been walking by was gone and the street was empty again. The voice in my head laughed at me.
"Not taught the world, dumb ass, his world. Your world."
"This world isn't mine," I muttered. Mrs. Mara was staring at me through the window again. I growled and stood up, deciding to leave the cookies.
"Ah! I finally got you to leave."
"You've embarrassed me." I shoved my hands into my pockets and walked along the sidewalk of Asher Road. The air had cooled and the people around me now had long sleeves. The world was so advanced now, with temperature detecting clothes and shirts that changed color based on your job. My own clothes were out of date, but I was an angel, not a human, and I didn't mind. People still don't know what angels are, and Heaven wishes I would wear human clothes, but I liked my outfit. Even though it's another thing the voice tells me to drop.
"I didn't mean to embarrass you," the voice sighed. "I'm trying to show you something." The rumbling of the voice was soothing to me, and despite the nagging, I loved hearing it. It hinted at the instability of my mental abilities, however, and I knew how bad it was to enjoy hearing a dead man talk to you. Everything it said was true, and only just another part of myself telling me what to do. I longed to hear the voice, and to see the man it belonged to. I only sat on the bench on Asher Road for two reasons, and that voice was one of them.
"Hey!"
"What?" I grumbled, catching the eye of a man walking passed me.
"You were thinking on your own."
"I know."
"Are you going to listen to me?"
I rolled my eyes. I wasn't going to, but lying to myself out loud seemed better than lying to myself inwardly. "Yes," I said.
"I want you to really listen, Castiel, to every word I'm saying."
"Yes."
"I need you to be the angel who taught his world how to love."
I stopped walking and looked up. I had reached a crosswalk that led to the second half of Asher Road. I had never been there, simply because I wanted to stay near my bench and hear the voice yell at me for doing so. I stepped onto the crosswalk and turned back to my thoughts.
"What does that mean?" I asked, my feet falling in the centre of each white rectangle painted on the road.
"Oh, Cas..." I could almost see the lazy, lop-sided smile in front of me. "You taught your world something incredible, and, well..."
"What? What are saying?"
"Who are you, Cas?"
"What?"
"Who are you?"
"I..." I stopped and looked at the other half of Asher Road. Benches lined the sides, some facing the street, some facing the buildings. My bench would've been four down, the second one facing the buildings. I couldn't see where the bakery would've been, but I could see the building where Delilah, her mother, and that old man in the green shirt lived. A security woman stood by the doorway, just like on the other half of Asher. She was shorter than the man who worked near my bench. Her skin was lighter than his, too, and her hair much longer. This half of Asher wasn't like my half of Asher, although they were practically identical. I tilted my head.
"I am Castiel, an Angel of the Lord."
"No," the voice said. The smile was still present in my mind, perfect teeth barely visible under freckled lips.
"I don't understand."
"Look, Cas." I looked. There was nothing happening on the second half of Asher Road. A few people walked by with their handhelds floating by their faces, but that was all. "No, stupid, not around you."
My eyes fell to the bench that would've been the one in front of the baker; my bench. I sat on it and closed my eyes. This wasn't my bench. It was cold and not very worn. There was no crack at my feet to scrape my boots over. My eyes opened in a burst of warm understanding.
"I am Castiel, the Angel of Earth," I told the voice. The smile in my mind widened. Green eyes crinkled at the corners. Eyes greener than any part of Earth I knew of.
"That's it! And what do you do?"
"Live."
"You live!"
I shook my head. "Tell me something," I mumbled.
"Anything," the voice cooed.
"What did you mean by 'my world'?"
Although it was just a voice in my head, I could see it. I could see the smile drop. I could see the eyes dull as the man the voice belonged to looked away. He was staring the ground, breathing slowly and steadily. His chest, encased in a plaid shirt, rose up and and down in a perfect rhythm.
"Me, Cas," he said quietly, "I meant me." The man was looking at me, green eyes shiny with tears.
"No," I breathed. He nodded and bite his lip.
"Be the Angel of Earth, Cas. Be yourself...for me." The man raised his hand. For the moment it took for him to wipe away the tear on his cheek, I could count ten scars. Thin lines etched into his hands by years of fighting. One scar was a small section of his hand missing, healed over chaotically by mistreatment of the wound. The man dropped his scarred hand and turned.
The voice was gone, back to the bench on the other half of Asher Road. I didn't want him to leave. There were two reasons I sat on that bench, and he was one of them. I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my coat and stood up. The air had chilled even more and the street lights had turned on. I stuffed both hands into my pockets and joined a group of people walking down the street. One man asked me if I was okay, to which I solemnly nodded yes.
The city was quiet now, like it had been at 3:47. There was no bustle of people, no sea of shirts, no angry glares from a baker to distract me. There was no bench to sit on. I had my own head, and now it was empty.
It was foolish to be upset. I had been arguing with myself, nothing more. Eventually, I would've left the bench on the first half of Asher Road. I only sat there to listen to a voice in my head I had molded to sound like someone I once knew.
A scene from my memories altered the sidewalk at my feet. Cement turned to hardwood and street lights turned to doorways. Walls painted a light yellow surrounded me. In front of my vision there was no longer a road, but a bedroom...
A lump in the deep purple sheets moved. I smiled and shrugged off my coat, laying it on the couch next to me. The lump groaned as my shoes thumped on the hardwood floor. The sheets rose with the lump then fell away, revealing a shirtless Dean Winchester.
He rubbed his tired eyes and looked at me with a lazy grin. "You're home," he mumbled, his eyes closing and his voice rougher than usual.
"Go back to sleep," I whispered, taking my shoes off and leaving them by the doorway.
"Come to bed."
I smiled. "I will." My socks hit the carpet of the bedroom and I sighed. The bedroom smelled like Dean; the cheapest deodorant in the drug store, diesel, and sweat. I took off my tie and suit jacket and left them on the floor.
"Come here," Dean muttered, sluggishly reaching across the bed. I sat on the edge of the bed and peeled my socks off. "Come here," he repeated, pulling on my shirt. I grinned and turned to face him.
His eyes, although half closed, were still the brightest thing in the room. The scruff around his chin covered his freckles, but not all of them. One, two, three, four...
Dean's lips touched my neck softly and I stopped counting. He was pulling on the buttons of my shirt, trying with his tired hands to unbutton it. With three buttons loosened, I pulled the shirt over my head and threw it to the floor.
Dean grinned. "Let me show you something," he said, his already low and grainy voice dropping to dangerously deep tones. His hands, scarred and calloused, ran from my chest to the top of my pants...
"...that son of a bitch had it coming!"
I frowned. That wasn't right. I looked up from the cement, the bedroom now gone, and scanned the street across from me. A few posters hung on the sides of a building, one advertising a movie franchise, the other welcoming the 'New Age: 2055'.
My eyes, although they were searching for someone entirely different, fell upon a man staring at his handheld. Without a moment of hesitation, I flew across the street and landed dizzily in front of him.
"Jesus!" the man jumped. His voice was rough and deep, but also kind. I involuntarily leaned forward, my mouth hanging open.
But, you left...
"Ah, sorry man, I didn't see ya," the man said to me, smiling as he powered down his device. I continued to stare at him. Another voice, this time my own, was telling me to say something.
"Whoa, you okay?"
Green eyes. Eyes greener than any place on Earth. Eyes, no matter how awake, brighter than everything around it. "Dean." Eyes surrounded by so many, tiny freckles. One, two, three, four, five, six...
"Sorry, do I know you?"
Every word pulled me into ground. Sorry. My feet sunk into the cement. Do. My toes curled into the dirt beneath us. I. My arms dropped to the ground. Know. My fingers stretched and touched the cool sidewalk. You. My eyes fell heavily into my skull. I closed them and took in the slowest breath I could manage. With that breath came a lifetime of memories.
"Cas, not for nothing, but the last time someone looked at me like that...I got laid."
"Cas, get out of my ass!"
"Cas, I know you're in there. I know you can hear me. Cas, it's me. We're family. We need you. I need you."
"Let me show you something."
I looked back at the man staring at me. He hadn't said any of those things. He had said exactly four things to me for the entire time I knew him. I almost wanted to laugh.
"No," I said quietly, finally answering his question, "you just..."
"...remind me of someone."