the messenger

I hear the wingbeats. Distant. Overhead. Somewhere amidst the confusion of light and sound in the overstory, the rhythmic beat emerges from the shuffling rustle, a cosmic drum heralding arrival.

Do you hear them, too, my rider?

During some rides, my passenger and I suddenly communicate on a wavelength beyond the everyday. This happens most often when the intensity of the topic short circuits rational, habitual responses, like with Plato. Privately, I see these as instances of a larger entity arriving to speak through us, as if to usher our conversation through moments of vulnerability and intimacy. I call this entity “the messenger.”

We do not seek this. The messenger comes unbidden. But it seems we need it, both of us. So the vast moving sea, the unfathomable swell upon which we bob, float, and drift, leads us to this aperture in time and space.

Hear the wingbeats. See the growing glow. Feel the radiant pulsing warmth.

Now, let us hush and attend.

*

A minute after getting in the car, you begin to tell me of your brother’s murder: shot dead on the corner of School and Temple two nights ago. It is daytime now, and the city slides by, ignorant and indifferent. But I hear. And I see. I hear the sharp report pierce and split the silent darkness. I see him crumple in your mother’s arms. Her raw helplessness scrapes my heart out to its very edge. In the hollow that remains, her utter agony resounds, filling the chasm, overfilling it so that it spills to the rim of me, and I think I may cry. But I hear, then see in the mirror, that you are crying already, really just the softest whispered, sniffling sobs. But your eyes well and gleam. 

What in this world can I possibly offer your pain? I see human violence spanning uncountable eons. I see the minuscule irrelevance of me. Where is God? Where in this world is God? While I drift disoriented in heartbroken awe, the messenger arrives and alights, a cool, relieving glow perched on some limb within, easing the words out, first for me and then for you. 

“I do not know what to say. I am so sorry. What a tragedy. What injustice. What bitterness.” 

“I only wish I had reached out to him last week. We’d been a little bit distant lately. Nothing serious. But just last weekend I thought about calling him, but I stopped myself because I didn’t know what to say, well, really, because I didn’t want to say I’m sorry. But now.” 

“It is okay. He knows. I know he knows. He understands. You are okay. He is okay.”

Suddenly, whatever has been holding you together collapses, and you fall, dissolved into sobs so strong I fear you will choke. 

“There, there. I know. Oh my. I know—so much pain. I know. That’s right. That’s right.”

**

We stand in a parking lot in front of your apartment. You hold the laminated card you’ve taken from the box of poems and candy in my backseat. I hold your box filled with the groceries you just picked up at the survival center. 

“What does this mean, sir?” You read the card slowly: “‘Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us, and we do not understand. It is wide open. The sword is taken away, but we do not know it.’”

I assume you are unfamiliar with the Book of Genesis. So I explain: “The sword is a reference to the book of Genesis, where God sets an angel with a flaming sword to guard the eastern gate of Eden so that Adam and Eve cannot return after their banishment.” You nod, but I see now that is not what you are asking. 

“Yes, I know that story. But what does this mean?” And now the messenger opens my eyes and lends me its voice.

“What does it mean to you?”

“We are in paradise. Yet, somehow, we do not see. But what is paradise?”

“Paradise is here; it is now. It is this. It is us. It is the conversation we just had; it is the mysterious working of the universe that brought us together, you from Ghana and me, through my people from Spain, to this encounter. Paradise is you care enough to read and to ask questions. Paradise is I care enough to stand here holding your groceries, to respond. Do you see? It is here, right here.” 

“I see. It is here. It is not somewhere else! It is not in heaven. This is heaven.”

The low sprawl of the apartment complex surrounds us. Beyond the roofs, treetops sway in the breeze. Beyond them, mountains rearrange themselves imperceptibly. 

***

You are older and unused to rideshare. You have many questions about the business. I answer the ones I know. To the others, I just say, “That’s a good question. I don’t know.” When you run out of steam, I ask you what you are up to. You are going to a bar to attend a memorial service. 

“Nice,” is all I can say. I don’t know why I’m unmoved. Maybe I’m tired. 

 “It is for my best friend of 55 years. I don’t know if this is too weird, but he’s right here.” You pat the top of the wooden box you’ve set carefully on the seat next to you.

Now, the messenger sweeps into the car, a dense, bracing breath of cool air speaking for us both.

“Tell me about your friend.” 

“His name was Tom, but we called him Gunnar because we thought he looked Swedish. It was me and Gunnar and Mike, but Mike passed a few years ago, so it was just me and Gunnar. Gunnar didn’t have anybody, no wife, no kids, no family, no other friends. So in the end I was with him. Everything had been routine, but then something went wrong. He went so fast. Like one day, we are joking in the waiting room, and two weeks later, he’s dead in a hospital room. I was there. I don’t know if he could hear me. I held his hand. I’d never held his hand before. At one point, near the end, I thought he maybe squeezed it a bit. Maybe I just imagined it.”

“He heard you. The squeeze was real. He responded. What a deep mystery, at once so simple and so complicated: to witness, to be present for that passage.”

“Yes. It is very powerful. It just throws you back. When he was gone, it was like with my own mother; I just bawled like a baby.”

“I know. I know. I was fifty when my father died, and I suddenly threw my arms around the neck of my older brother and sobbed, ‘Are we gonna be okay?’ He seemed confused, taken aback. But he said, ‘Yeah, sure. We’re gonna be okay.’”

“That was a good answer.”

“Yes.”

“We’re gonna be okay.”

****

In this job, there is nothing but movement. It’s all I do: transit, transfer, transport, translate, transmute, transduce, transform, transubstantiate, trans—

—The messenger interrupts: 

“In this existence, there is nothing but movement. It is all any of us do. 

We are all moving always from one world to another, worlds nested within worlds bounded by the merest shimmery gauze, translucent membranes.

It is all any of us are. We are transience within and transience without.

Anything that traverses worlds may be a messenger—the Greeks called them ‘angelos.’ 

Angels are everywhere in a universe such as this, a universe of crossings. And in a universe filled with angels, everything becomes a message, a sign.

You are an angel. 

Am I talking, or are you? 

The messages flow both ways, and we become angels for one another.” 

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