Angel

I am so forgetful, I fear my brain has atrophied. Everything stays the same temperature in my apartment, so I can’t even tell when I am taking a bath or lying in bed, or drinking a soda. I don’t begin or end.

Angel DMs me a thank you for “donating.” They ask if I want to hang out—or pick them up in a different part of town.

I have to flag them down since we don’t recognize each other, since we have never met.

In the passenger seat, they roll joint after joint and apologize for faltering motor skills, and a constant brain fog, resulting in confusing communication between us. I have never met someone with fibromyalgia, and the diagnosis is new to them.

But still Angel talks at length and with abandon. They slip directions to their house in between other disconnected sentences, and I obediently take the turns.

It is by Angel’s command that I do what I do. A beautiful apartment in Beachwood Canyon. An uncharacteristic intimacy.

A few times a week to cook and clean, give rides, or buy groceries. I shop at Whole Foods for Angel’s dietary restrictions, and for once, I don’t steal. I stir brothy soup and make a show of using Cafe Bustelo because I love the yellow and blue packaging. All the time now, I smell like weed and instant coffee that isn’t mine.

I am not thinking about my life. My two jobs, my dog. Reading until I fall asleep with the lights on, and other small things that gave me consistency, no matter how useless. I was promised my life, but loss was always a possibility. No guarantee that it would amount to anything more than just remaining alive.

We never talk about what we are doing. Mostly Angel talks, and often in Spanish. I remind them, embarrassed, that I don’t know any Spanish. But it’s okay, or at least never acknowledged. There are whole days when we talk, but never to each other.

Angel is asking for money more often. From the laundry room in the back of the apartment, I hear the remnants of our stilted conversation continuing into solitary ramblings.

Angel is on an Instagram livestream, so I stay out of the background. I’m not sure what this means for me. Suddenly, people are knocking on Angel's door, and then they let themselves in.

No one knows about Angel. No one knows about me. I mean, whatever our arrangement is. This has been my secret, and these strangers have shown up, making it tangible and real. There is no good reason for keeping it secret. I just don’t have any answers for it. I just want to be of use to someone, to be of service, so I don’t have to consider being anything else.

Like how most things end, without anguish, I walk out of the open door.

I never return to Angel's house or even address our parting ways. We go on as if our lives had never crossed to begin with, and it’s perfect for me, as my preferred approach.

Sometimes I fear I have an inexplicable ability to hide anything from myself. Those several months were completely separate from the whole of my life, but seeped unconsciously into my being, as if experienced simultaneously on another astral plane.

I am living off nothing but bread and water, keeping myself from the light of the sky because it could include getting burned.

I only stop to think I hadn’t been fair to Angel either. I never try to understand anything about them, only engaging enough to keep myself occupied. I’m selfish in disregarding myself.

Every six months or so, Angel speaks to me.

I’ve received an esoteric meme from a new, anonymous account, and I know it is them. Sometimes I think it is to say, here we both still are, just as the proper procedure would have it.