by Ian Gabriel Loisel

The angel’s son plucks the feathers from his back, his arms. It’s bloody work, each downy pinion pried free, slow and agonizing, leaving crimson stains on the tile, but he’s used to it.

His mother claims it was an angel who blessed her, all white wings and golden light and the sound of thunder. His mother is fourteen years older than him.

Every night she prays for the angel to return, to find her worthy, to love her again. He prays for the angel to return as well, and keeps a pistol under his bed for the day it happens.

Ian Gabriel Loisel

Ian Gabriel Loisel is an environmental educator, writer, and artificial intelligence enthusiast from Atlanta, GA who spends way too much time on the computer, possibly bringing about the robo-apocalypse, or maybe just creating extremely silly and sometimes scary stories. Their Twitter bio says “genius boy,” so it must be true.