Seeking change

[Angel Under Glass]

The old man stomped by Tzaphiel, forcing him to stumble backwards from underfoot. With a faint squawk, he toppled onto his bottom. His seat never touched the ground, though, as the rigidly straight metal hanging from his covered back bit into the earthen floor and tipped him onto his side. He didn’t make any attempt to brace his fall. He simply hugged his new toy as if its preservation was more important than his own. Over the course of the night, his unliving chimera had become recognizable as a genuine, if mismatched, creature. A pair of wings, one dove white and the other crow black, were set high on the snake body. The tip of the tail bore the full length of an exposed cougar’s claw that curved enough to make it an effective hook. Topping the creation was a chubby chipmunk head. The eyes were still bright and intent, though only on what was directly before them.

Tzaphiel held the chipmunk dragon to his body as he crawled back to his feet. Sneakily, he looked back into the bedroom. Edgar lay immobile on the bed, apparently not saddened by the theft of his monkey rope that the old man was tossing back onto the pile of organic odds and ends.

Quietly, Tzaphiel stepped into the pretty room and looked at the closed door Kahlina had disappeared into. With his head bent forward and a finger idly stroking the chipmunk dragon’s fur, he tried to imagine why the situation had become so explosive so suddenly. Vaguely, he remembered that all the times he had been laid in a bed, he had been alone. Most of his life had been lived in a bed, in fact. It had been a pretty stone block with coarse, yet soft, padding over it. There were intricate marks scraped down the sides of it. He remembered seeing them for the first time when he had taken his first steps from that birth pedestal. They had seemed so mysterious as the moonlight came in the window and gave them shadows that implied depths beyond just the grooves in the rock. The memories caused the box against his chest to click as it readied a segment of dialogue. However, that sound brought him out of his memories and back into the room where the nice lady called Kahlina had been angered. The speaking box clicked to a halt before words even began.

Again, the boy found himself staring at the door she now moved behind. Never, as far as he could remember, had Grandfather or Mother joined him on his bed. Perhaps it would have been a bad thing to do so. With a content nod at the idea that he understood the world a little better, Tzaphiel turned to look at Edgar. The wooden man hadn’t moved. But, hopefully, he understood as well.

“You all should be leaving if you’re going to get me those animals,” the old man said rudely as he entered the room again. He cast an uncertain look over the still body of Edgar, on past the still closed door to the bathroom, and finally down at Tzaphiel. The boy looked up at the strange man and his murky aura with the same surprise he had earlier. “That’s mine, too,” the man said gruffly as he snatched the chipmunk dragon out of Tzaphiel’s arms. The boy blinked, his arms hugging desperately at nothing. His eyes and lips quivered as he watched the thief’s moody shoulders retreat back into the workshop. Tzaphiel took a few steps forward with one hand outstretched pleadingly, but he didn’t receive so much as a glance.