She, Her, Them

Upon the completion of time, the architect looked upon its work and with a perfect eye noticed a gap. The gap could not have been visible to a corporeal being, but from the perspective of timeless existence it flowed from the moment of an angel’s betrayal outward as a fissure that threatened to expand upon its measurement to encompass all of space and time.

With a graceful wave of its hand, the architect devised a plan that involved the creation of a perfect being, a human woman. But seeing all of time, the architect foresaw the effect this had on those around her. So it created a second woman, also perfect in every way except one. It removed her sight when looking inward.

The first girl, Nicoletta, felt her birth as a pebble dropped into the water of life rippling across those around her and outward across France and extending to the rest of the world. Immediately, all cameras fell to her to capture every spare moment. Her parents were ridiculed as being unworthy of such beauty as society shifted to incorporate all of her infantile blinks, coos and movements as new patterns to follow and mimic in fashion, makeup and social media lenses. Wealthy, lonely men promised fortunes upon her cribside at the chance of marrying or purchasing the baby. Photo shoots evolved to television shows then to movies and branched off into billboards and advertisements and sponsorships as all of humanity sought to capture a piece of the vibrancy of the new girl and capitalize upon it. It only grew more as her life progressed and her age revealed an even more stunning visage to the universe that could sell any product or turn the eye or any man or woman.

Around the same time, another equally perfect baby, Angelica, was born to private, wealthy and educated parents who sheltered their new child in a Polish mansion and worked toward her inner growth. They took all of their knowledge of nature, science, community, the arts and literature and showed it to her. From her first moments of touching the feathers of a song sparrow, Angelica grew a part of her that existed before only as an imagined spark. This spark bloomed into a fire every time she felt the wet morning grass or smelled distant leaves burning in the cold of winter. When finally exposed to others, she wept at the beauty of all of those around her and sought to make their lives as wonderful as they made her feel.

Nicoletta bloomed like the flower she was into someone revered, copied and exploited. She possessed those around her to create any existence she wanted for herself, sometimes full of innocent bliss, sometimes full of what can only be described as sexual ink. She gave herself freely over to any pleasure as society both praised her with eternal devotion and spurned her with death threats. She existed with half closed eyes at the media attention and only opened them when looking upon herself, recording the moments and giving the videos to others to use as they will.

Angelica saw the sorrow of the world and sought to realize its reversal. Working with volunteer organizations, she entered war zones and comforted those dying, holding hands as they grasped for life and keeping them company as their grip failed. Seizing upon her knowledge of aerodynamics, she became a rescue pilot flying into hurricanes and snow storms to locate and retrieve those who had become lost and those who had been claimed by the wilds. She became a research scientist and worked with others to develop accurate global positioning satellites to help those find their way. She helped create new materials for clothing that kept people alive in extreme conditions and gave away the clothes to homeless people around the world. She studied the sociological causes of hate and wrote books to help everyone realize the inner beauty of those around them and those one does not see. She worked to extend the progress of wealthy nations toward renewable resources and energy to reduce pollution and waste as a guest speaker at the UN. And in her spare time, of which there was little, she sought out the beauty of nature while building upon the memories her parents had helped create for her.

The night had been long and as the sun approached the horizon, Angelica joked with her crew while shutting down her MH-60T rescue helicopter. Due to fatigue, she and her copilot were retiring for the night when a call came in of a limo crash on the 405 freeway. It was hanging from a bridge and wildfires in the area were preventing other rescue assets from getting there quickly. Angelica discussed it with her crew and they all agreed to put away the shutdown checklist and switch to the emergency takeoff checklist. They called for fuel which was rushed in from the side as the rotors began to spin up and they received clearance as number one on the runway. Blinking and charging into the night, they flew through the smoke and over to the freeway. Through the darkness, she could see several cars and trucks in a tangle with a small clearing to the south. The flight mechanic called over the intercom to highlight the clearing and Angelica eased the controls to bring the aircraft into a hover over it. The rotor wash appeared to be rocking the limo which was balancing on the edge of the bridge. She called on the intercom to alert her to wires and other obstacles as she landed on the highway. Down and clear, the rescue swimmer ran to the limo to assess the situation. Moments passed as the rotors spun down while Angelica and her copilot held the rotor brake, their eyes going from the instruments to the dangling limo. The rescue swimmer called back on the radio asking for the jaws of life, which required a portable generator. The mechanic, pilot and copilot all exited and carried the equipment over to the limo along with a portable medical kit and a backboard. The mechanic ran back to the helicopter to continue radioing for assistance and ETA of other assets to assist with the rescue. Charlie, the 6’5″ rescue swimmer, attached the jaws to the generator and began to pierce the door seam at the lock. Angelica leaned over the edge of the limo and saw that the impact had forced the occupant toward the driver’s seat. The driver appeared to be missing, the seatbelt hanging uselessly, and Angelica looked out over the edge of the bridge down into the valley below. She heard a noise from the passenger.

The copilot leaned in from the drivers side window and gasped as he recognized the girl as Nicoletta. Angelica could see that he was tearing up as he tried to open the seized rear driver’s side door. The jaws of life strained at the passenger side rear door crushing the metal which cracked the side window safety glass apart into pebbles falling at their boots. Angelica pulled off her helmet and crawled into the car through the wide side window and the copilot ran to the trunk to hold down the car. Nicoletta blinked away blood from her eyes and searched for her phone and Angelica slowly crawled toward her trying to not upset the balance of the limo.

“Hello miss. My name is Angelica and I’m here to help you. Looks like you’ve been in a little fender bender, huh,” Angelica joked.

“Help?” Nicoletta reached to clear her eyes.

“Don’t touch your face!” Angelica was worried that if there was glass on her face, rubbing it could cause additional lacerations. “I can do that for you. There’s a lot of glass around and I don’t want you to get hurt. Don’t move yet and wait for me to come over there and take a look at you. I have a flashlight right here.”

Angelica on her hands and knees reached into her cargo pocket, pulled out a mini maglight and focused it into a spot to take a look around. The floor of the limo was clearly cracked and the carpeting was cut open by the two frame rails on both sides of the vehicle. She didn’t want to move any further forward.

“Miss, do you hurt anywhere? Can you move at all?”

Nicoletta peered with her eyes half closed and replied drunkenly, “I don’t need help. No one can help me.” She tried to move and screamed as she shifted her right leg.

Angelica traced the beam of the flashlight from the bent frame rail over to where it pierced Nicoletta’s thigh. The car creaked and moaned as bits of glass fell from the windows and the passenger door popped. Charlie said he could rig a line through the back of the car to the ambulance as soon as it got there or a fire hose if the firefighters got there first. “But I wouldn’t go further in there,” he warned. Angelica pulled her emergency tourniquet out of her thigh pocket.

Nicoletta slowly shook her head and leaned back against the crumpled passenger seat back. She smelled metallic iron mixed with electricity and realized she was pinned into the car. She thought to herself that this was a seemingly dramatic enough way to end it all. Her off-white lace dress, a one of a kind, was clearly ruined in her eyes. A few of the hand-sewn knots had unraveled and small pieces of glass were mixed in between the pattern. The light glinted off of them like diamonds and she worried that the sharp edges would blemish her arm. Her perfect left leg didn’t match her right leg anymore. The orange street lamp cast through the window and highlighted the curve of her calf. She didn’t want to look at her right leg which felt like it was made of wood that had been nailed down to a picnic table. She had a flashing memory of her parents taking her on a picnic as a baby and changing her on a picnic table. But how could she remember that? The wood was full of splinters and the brown paint flaked off in her fingers while her mom smiled at her and poked her tummy.

“Miss, what’s your name,” Angelica asked.

Nicoletta though for a long while. “I am the Nicoletta, born on le Mont-Saint-Michel and ferried to this awful place by way of your terrible roads.”

“Haha, yes Nicoletta, our potholes and traffic are a national treasure. Can you do me a favor? Do you know how to take your pulse at your wrist like when you’re working out?”

Nicoletta seemed confused by the question and slowly gazed upon her scratched wrists.

“Just say, ‘now’, every time you feel your heart beat. I’ll do the counting.”

“I can count, I’m not stupid,” Nicoletta said rubbing her wrist.

“Might as well let me count as you look a little light headed, Nicoletta.”

Nicoletta’s eyes teared up and she had a hard time seeing her wrist. “What was your name again?”

“Angelica.”

A flashbulb popped outside the car. The limo bent and Angelica lunged for Nicoletta’s hand. She grabbed it and held it tightly as the car pivoted on the railing and fell off the bridge. Suddenly everything was silent except for the rising wind. Floating glass bits caught the sunrise reaching through the missing sunroof. Angelica looked into Nicoletta’s eyes and Nicoletta looked back into hers as they held hands. Angelica’s radio squawked.

Though they were contemporaries of each other, one never knew about the other until that moment. For the architect, Nicoletta served to illuminate the crack in existence which Angelica unknowingly sought to fill and repair. The two together served as a hole and thread sewing a seam. Their existences, though separate, were intimately entwined. They became analogies and symbols for others existing not as real people but as a symbolic choice for a direction of what to do with one’s own life. And one day, as serendipity, fate or architectural design would have it, their meeting changed the world.