Of Angelic Blood

My waking slumber was broken when I met her... the ethereal form that frequented the halls of Ohio State University. She was not the prototypical "college girl." She was progressive, but not guided by the partisan affiliations that constituted the dialectic of liberal against conservative. She was articulate, yet regulated an economy of language that became neither haughty nor imbecilic. She did fill out the sterile template of the proverbial "super model," but she was adorned in all of the beauty of humanity.

Her name was Sophia Pondera.

I discovered Sophia's name during the attendance call in my philosophy of mind class. Until then, I simply watched this nameless soul from a distance. On occasions, I would arbitrarily assign her a name, although none of the appellations I developed seemed to accurately encapsulate her persona. Yet, when I discovered her name, I sensed purpose in the designation.

I was hesitant to share my name with her. Filo is not one of the most enchanting of names. If anything, it conjures images of pocket protectors and urine-stained Barney bed sheets. However, it seemed fitting for someone with my odd appearance. Flip-flops, shaggy brown hair, old jeans, dirty t-shirt... all comprised the very epitome of eccentricity. All stared back at me in the mirror.

I made up for these tangible shortcomings with a clear mind. Physically disheveled, yet mentally organized. As long as the a priori remained clear, the a posteriori could slide. Of course, I was derided for this clear disunity of mind and body, but I accepted this as a natural consequence of the dominant cultural paradigm. Mencken predicted a day and an age when eccentricity would be criminalized. So they could lock me away for all I cared.

From the beginning, my attraction to Sophia was much more than physical. There was an intangible magnetism about her, something beyond the flesh. To articulately describe it was impossible. The words did not exist. Whatever it was, it outstripped human vocabulary. But semantic limitations aside, this incorporeal magnetism was very much real.

My faith in its existence was confirmed one early Friday morning. A campus rally was in progress and students were flooding the student lounge. The level of attendance for this particular rally, however, was unusually high. Then again, the hosts of the rally were not your usual students. White Nationalist Stormfront had decided to mobilize its student chapter and assemble a public meeting concerning "America's White Heritage."

Of course, a majority of the students in attendance were there to engage these bigots in a good, old-fashioned verbal melee. Normally, I would have stayed clear of the event. My disgust for racism notwithstanding, I personally felt that confronting the hate-mongers was an exercise in futility.

Why?

First of all, nothing I would say would change the primitive mind of some back hill bubba. Second, to engage Stormfront in a verbal assault would only strengthen the resolve of its adherents and afford them more unnecessary attention. I rationalized that ignoring the monster would end its power. Let these neo-Nazi retards flip burgers for a living, if they had the opposable digits to operate spatulas.

But I noticed Sophia entering the lounge and decided to follow her. Parting the crowd, she silently approached the stage. Several African-American students and a few Arab students were at the edge of the stage, shouting at the main speaker. Adorned in some traditional Nazi attire and leather, the speaker continued his speech undaunted.

"The international banking institute, which is dominated by global Jewry, continues to economically subjugate us," he opined with the wave of a clenched fist. "Meanwhile, Congress continues to placate Zionist interests and sell America to Israel. This is unadulterated cultural communism."

With a serenity I still have not fully grasped, Sophia took the audience mike. She turned to the angry mob that beset the stage and raised her left arm. Her hand gently unfolded into an open palm.

"Please, everybody," she spoke slowly and deliberately. "Let him finish."

The roar of the crowd subsided to a murmur.

"Thank you, my white sister," the speaker said with a nod of gratitude. "We, of the White Nationalist Stormfront, oppose this pervasive strand of cultural communism that now permeates our shores. We are combatants in this war of ideology. We believe in racial pride and a free nation for all white Americans."

A cacophony erupted momentarily but abated as Sophia raised the mike to her lips.

"Are you done, sir?" she asked, brushing locks of dark hair from her eyes.

"Yes, ma'am," the speaker answered.

"Then, may I ask you some questions?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You say you oppose an alleged strain of cultural communism that currently controls this nation. Yet I cannot help but question the sincerity of your opposition."

"What do you mean?" He rubbed the back of his neck as trails of sweat began to pour down his forehead.

"Well, I assume that you, being a White Nationalist, hold some affinity for Hitler," Sophia softly replied.

"He was an unjustly maligned theoretician whose ideas are just now beginning to be understood, ma'am," he proceeded with the standard litany. "In recent years, we have seen that the Fuhrer's prophecies concerning our racial preservation and a war with ideological communists were true."

"Molotov-Ribbentrop," Sophia said flatly.

"Come again?"

"Molotov-Ribbentrop, sir. Surely, you've heard of it."

"No," the speaker confessed, his eyes narrowing as focused upon Sophia.

"In August of 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a non-aggression pact. Part of the pact was a protocol mandating the division of Eastern Europe between the communists and the Nazis."

You know what you're doing, I thought. An enormous grin began to stretch across my lips, and I felt a chuckle welling up.

Gently and gracefully, she continued, "Thanks to that agreement, Soviet raw materials were supplied to the Germany war-machine. This lasted until 1941 when Hitler decided to betray Stalin and invade the Soviet Union."

"I fail to see your point," the speaker muttered, visibly nervous.

"My point is this," Sophia retorted. "Hitler once confessed to Hermann Rauuschning that all of National Socialism was based on Marx. 'Nazi' was really gutter German for 'national socialist.' Now, if you oppose cultural communism, why don't you oppose Hitler?"

"WHAT?" the speaker's face turned a painfully bright shade of crimson.

"Why don't you oppose Hitler? His doctrine, his ideas... everything. All of it was premised on Marx."

"We oppose Jewish aggression and…"

"You oppose people who are different, that's all," Sophia said. "Without the contradictory political rhetoric, all your philosophy is based on is a simple fear of what you don't understand. You are entitled to your views, but please don't espouse them under the rubric of anti-communism, Americanism, or anything else. Just come clean... you oppose that which is different from you."

The crowd burst into wild applause. Inside, I felt as though I was soaring. Sophia had done it! She had taken the power away from the monster! She didn't need polemics. She didn't need rhetoric. She sure as hell didn't need clichés. All she used was the truth.

As quietly and unobtrusively as she had entered, Sophia made her way to the exit. Again, the crowd parted for her. She walked with downcast eyes, as though she were oblivious to her own notoriety. In fact, there was a meekness about her. She did not remain to celebrate over the carcass of the vanquished foe. Nor did she shake any hands or accept any praise. She simply walked out of the student lounge, passing me ever so briefly.

"Holy crap," I whispered. "I am in love."

I had never been much of a "lady's man." In fact, I was inarticulate around women and hopelessly unfamiliar with the elaborate semiotic codes that governed communication between the sexes. In this sense, I guess I qualified as a genuine cultural heretic. Then again, one could only familiarize oneself with the vernacular through virtually ritualized practice. The clubs, the bars, the malls... all comprised a series of "temples" where the social heretic was not quite welcome. Sure, I could go to these places, but the formalized practices of flirting and courting were reserved for the inner priesthood. I did not qualify as a part of this clergy for the cultural elite.

Neither did Sophia. She did not concern herself with the ecclesiastical authority of pop culture. She had no part of its orthodoxy, nor did she seem to care. She wore no make-up or Abercrombie & Fitch apparel. Her aesthetic criteria was K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid). She didn't need such things. She simply allowed her own humanity to shine and this was effective by itself.

She eschewed discourse over the typical drivel... celebrities, reality TV, the latest techniques of cosmetic surgery, etc. Instead, it seemed as though she was drawn to simple, yet honest things... quiet parks, libraries, and the WWII veterans who peopled the local rest home.

Of course, she was branded "boring" and "dull" for these proclivities. I usually heard students comment on her somewhat "pedestrian" preferences.

"A narcoleptic patient would be a lot more fun," a jock once laughed.

However, I saw what they failed to see. In the smaller, simpler things of the world, Sophia recognized the fingerprints of something greater. She discerned an inherent artistry just beneath the surface... much like Paley's observations concerning the complexities of the human eye. Given this pattern of transcendent design, all things retained their value. An old book with frayed pages, a grassy field lined with wilted flowers, even the elderly woman in a wheelchair... all these meant something more to Sophia.

These things were being eugenically expunged and supplanted by the "new." As they disappeared, the color and beauty disappeared with them. Sophia recognized this disturbing trend and she fought to stem its inexorable tide.

This was the commonality that also promised to act as a bridge.

"To what?" one may ask.

I wasn't sure. Something more, I suppose. I just had to find out.

Sophia occupied her own solitary booth in the student hub. She passed the time reading whatever happened to be her latest literary interest... Ayn Rand, John Donne, Plato, Emily Dickinson. Scattered about her feet were the discarded rags of pop culture magazines, swept from the table to make room for Sophia's own personal articles. Cosmopolitans and Vogues sprawled across the floor. Anorexic Victoria Secret models and featureless figures comprised the detritus. Sophia gently kicked the fragments of a Redbook about as she sat. Glossy flotsam and jetsam piled together in a turbulent sea of sterilized images. Sophia towered above it all... an autonomous soul gazing down upon the cacophony of a society's short-attention span theatre.

I approached slowly, hoping that my words would not trip over themselves in some uncontrollable verbal deluge. My mouth was dry and my palms were cold. You can talk to her, I silently reassured myself.

Maybe. Or maybe not. Too many times, I had been lost in the discourse. Few were gracious enough to guide me through the maze of jargon, euphemisms, and slogans. I had yet to be fully interpolated and, as such, remained a stranger in a strange land.

Immanuel Kant once remarked that truly rational thinkers tended to be a profoundly unhappy persons. He characterized them as outsiders who yearned to be included in the cultural interchange among "normal" people. Yet the dominant cultural paradigm was typically irreconcilable with the rational thinker's principles. Thus, "normal" folks marginalized or, worse still, loathed the rational thinker, while the estranged and alienated soul of the rationalist gazed on with wanting eyes.

Was I destined to become the tangible enactment of that tortured portrait? I clung to my ideas and principles, but they had become a veritable weight around my neck, dragging me deeper into obscurity. Certainly, one does not easily acquire friends or lovers by seeking to universalize maxims that conflicted with the status quo.

Yet, what else was left for me in the absence of principles and ideas? They were the most real things I had ever known. It was questionable whether the world was willing to embrace me at all, but while I might never attain its favor, at least I would never inherit its mediocrity.

Sophia is different, I reminded myself.

Indeed, she was different. Her bravery in the face of those bigots that fateful day in the student union affirmed it! Her disdain for the petty and shallow idols of an indolent society affirmed it! Her unwavering love for true humanity, in all its flawed beauty, affirmed it! And most important, the subtle sadness behind her eyes affirmed it!

It may seem somewhat morbid to view another's misery as a prerequisite for a relationship. However, this was not quite the case. Our situation was analogous to that of two shipwrecked survivors. While the circumstances surrounding our convergent trajectories would be tragic... a crew lost at sea with few hopes of rescue…nonetheless, the two survivors would welcome each other in an embrace that neither the ocean's pounding waves nor the tempest's heavy winds could break. In essence, we were beacons for each other.

I found myself standing at her table. Evidently I had been standing there for quite some time, lost in thought. Sophia was staring up at me, her lips moving in slow motion. Several minutes passed before her words finally penetrated the clamor of my own thoughts.

"Are you okay?" she asked. Her eyes fixed upon me in a puzzled, yet conciliatory, gaze.

All of the contrived greetings and preconceived statements I had worked on for hours disappeared. Normally, I would panic and grope for new words to fill the vacuum. This time, however, I decided to let honesty have a voice.

"What you did at the rally in the student union," I choked through painful rasps with a dry tongue, "was very brave."

Holy crap on a crap cracker, I thought. It sounded so cheesy coming from my mouth. Cheesy, but true. That was all that mattered to Sophia.

"Thank you very much," she smiled with flushed cheeks. "But it was nothing special. I only did it because it was the right thing to do."

My mouth did not wait for my mind to formulate a response. Instead, I immediately blurted, "That's very deontological."

She laughed like a child watching a magician pull a rabbit out of his hat. She had opened my "bag of tricks," the archives of my mind! For the first time in many years, some one was interested in my thoughts!

"Would it qualify as strict duty or meritorious duty?" she giggled rhetorically.

"Oh, definitely meritorious!" I exclaimed, taking a seat in front of her.

"Well, silence is not always golden," she opined.

"Now there is a maxim worth universalizing," I said, pompously holding one finger aloft.

"I am happy to see you making it real now" she smiled serenely.

So was I. And the conversation had begun...

In this hedonistic age, sensation has been granted experiential primacy. According to such logic, sex would qualify as the ultimate expression of intimacy. Ostensibly bereft of any other recourse, humanity has encouraged the proliferation of sex to its own detriment. The result has been the gross cheapening of what was originally beautiful. This sexual retrograde is graphically illustrated by physical love's gradual migration towards the bizarre... from the beauty of the wedding bed to the sordid fare of "fun on the farm" videos. Amusing though this assessment may sound, it is nonetheless a somber truth.

Sex's validity as an expression of love notwithstanding, personal intimacy has known other largely overlooked channels. No doubt such channels prompt hedonists to yawn and turn their heads in boredom. Yet they shall never know what I experienced with Sophia that day in the student hub. Our minds opened to one another. Our thoughts mingled. We shared each other's humanity.

It is not something that I expect anyone of this day and age to understand. It can never be distilled within test tubes or examined in surgical trays. It is intangible, transcendent. It is spiritual. It is what makes us human.

Sophia was a constantly unfolding poem. Her words were the things that sonnets are made of. Her observations sounded like the dictums of a sage. Not once did I detect the slightest trace of insincerity. Nor did I discover any materialistic propensities within her. She was unadulterated, uncontaminated.

Today, many tout the clichéd adage, "It's not what's on the outside that counts. It is what is on the inside." Paradoxically, the very same individuals who reiterate this timeworn mantra follow the dominant aesthetic criteria of the day. Within such a milieu, the adage seems to have lost its meaning. Yet I rediscovered it in Sophia.

All of her externalities equally reflected the internal radiance. Perhaps that's what the old, tired slogan truly meant. If one is beautiful within, one can eventually become beautiful without. Sophia's incorporeal radiance found expression through her corporeal visage.

Only those who value the imperishable can appreciate what I describe. In that moment of personal intimacy, I experienced something that sex only vaguely approximated.

Inevitably, the discussion drew to a close. I spent a majority of the time listening. God, I could have listened to Sophia forever. Commonly, one-sided conversations were tedious exercises in egocentric self-importance. Not so with Sophia, who spoke mostly about others. She told me about an elderly WWII veteran that she met at Wal-Mart, forced to become a wage slave as a reward for saving the world. She talked about homeless people, exiled to anonymity because of unanticipated and uncontrollable socioeconomic conditions. She spoke about playgrounds, now abandoned because of the drug-pushers who frequented them.

All of these seemingly insignificant things mattered to her. They represented the last dying strands of humanity, the vestiges of our fading identity, yet she held on to them and kept them alive with her words.

"My father used to say, 'You can't hold on to things,'" Sophia sighed, her eyes lost in a downcast stare. "I'd like to think that he was wrong."

"He was," I replied.

She glanced up at me, revealing a faint glimmer in her eyes. "Was he?"

"If we can hold onto our misguided notions of beauty, cell phones, and J-Lo CDs," I admonished with unabashed idealism, "then there is no reason why we shouldn't hold on to things of authentic value as well."

She smiled and held me in a gaze that I wanted to last forever.

"I'm sorry," she said, extending her hand. "I didn't catch your name."

Crap. Now I was doomed. How would she respond to such idealistic musings when they were coming from a nobody named Filo? The impulse to lie began to creep in. But I couldn't. Sophia was the truest person I had ever known and I did not want to taint her with cynicism. Instead, I squeezed my eyes shut and meekly chirped "Filo."

Slowly, I opened my eyes. All of my fears abated immediately. There was not a single trace of judgment on Sophia's face. Instead, her smile had grown broader and even more animated.

"Filo," she echoed thoughtfully. "Like 'philo,' 'wisdom.'"

"Or Sophia," I said, "'Love.'"

"Fitting name," she nodded with approval.

"Yours as well."

"Will I see you here tomorrow?"

"Yes," I replied.

From that time on, the hub became the center of my universe. More accurately, Sophia was the nucleus. Life began to regain meaning again and so did that ugly word I used to disassociate myself with... Filo.

Sophia and I met at the hub regularly, discussing everything from our epistemological misgivings with contemporary institutions to our love of quiet hours in the morning. Every time we met was simply wonderful.

There was no magic... no fireworks or rainbows. Our moments were bereft of any sort of glamour; however, they were adorned with the innate and natural beauty of our own humanity. Although such beauty does not exhibit an overtly mystical quality, it does approximate something higher requiring none of the spices of romanticism. It is intrinsically ethereal.

"Don't fix it if it ain't broken," the old adage opines.

Sophia didn't. She allowed her blemishes to shine. She made no attempt to hide her humanity with make-up, stuffed bras, or other cosmetic deceptions. She was content with her flawed perfection. So was I.

Typically, the average woman never failed to draw attention to my physical shortcomings. My crooked teeth, the slightly asymmetrical alignment of my eyes, the scar on the back of my neck... all were the subjects of scrutiny. Yet, what else could one expect? The average woman seemed to be inculcated into pop culture aesthetic codes before she even knew it.

So pervasive and subtle was the indoctrination that many contemporary women didn't even detect it. Some deluded themselves with the notion that they saw past the shortcomings to the "inner beauty." Simultaneously, they ignored all those who exhibited genuine inner beauty and swiftly courted the Alpha Male. The euphemisms and clichéd dictums immediately disappeared as soon as the Alpha Male reared his cosmetically sterilized head. All talk about desiring an "inner beauty" was little more than a delusion.

Not so with Sophia. Her affinity for true humanity was axiomatic, demonstrated by her magnetic attraction to the lowly elements of society. She was not interested in what mass media promoted as perfection and beauty. She was only interested in honesty and authenticity.

For her, these things were beauty epitomized.

This only drew me closer.

The student hub wasn't the only place that Sophia and I frequented. We did not even go near the clubs or malls. Hell, no. We did, however, spend a great deal of time in a secluded portion of the park. It was a grassy stretch of land situated just beyond a dense patch of trees. We called it the "natural observatory" because, at night, you could view all of the constellations from there.

We also visited an old bookstore. The dusty shelves... the tattered covers... the torn pages... we loved it. During one visit, I found a copy of Rasselas and just about went nuts. Sophia didn't say a word. She simply smiled, took the book from my hands, and proceeded towards the cashier.

"Oh no, no, no," I leapt between her and the checkout counter. "I don't want you to spend your money on me!"

"Why not?" she asked.

"You probably have a dozen better things to spend it on."

She rolled her eyes and laughed. "Who would I spend it on? Myself?"

"Well, yeah," I replied with a shrug. "Get whatever you want."

"What I want is to see you smile," she grinned.

That was that. Sophia gently pushed me aside and completed the transaction.

I smiled. It was the broadest smile that had ever adorned my face. Needless to say, this pleased Sophia to no end. She had made an investment. My happiness was her most precious commodity.

"So you like Rasselas," her deliberate tone betrayed some inner knowledge about me. "That certainly doesn't surprise me."

"How so?" I asked.

"The character of Rasselas is on a pilgrimage," she explained. "So are you."

"I am?"

"Yes, you are," she said as she took my arm. "You go places to find something that you fear has been lost... humanity."

I turned to her and stared deep into her eyes. I couldn't conceal the hope that was in my heart... a hope that she had resuscitated. She knew. It felt as though she had always known.

"Do you still have faith to keep looking?" she asked, staring back into my eyes with a knowing gaze.

"I don't have to look anymore," I spoke almost in a whisper.

She smiled and her whole countenance seemed to glow. We walked back to the university, engulfed in a profound silence. There was no need for words. No one could verbally articulate what we shared. It was quiet and we enjoyed every second of it.

Few can understand what a Sophia represents to person like me. When you live in the shadow of obscurity, you begin to doubt your very existence. No one notices your presence. No one hears your voice. Regardless of what gifts you have to offer, the world never sees you. You are transparent, virtually invisible. This was my sorry lot in life. As far as the world was concerned, Filo was nobody.

Sophia gave me a voice. Her tongue lifted my words above the cloistering discourses of a shallow and indifferent culture. Even Ohio, with all of its mediocrity and indolence, could not stifle me. For a person like myself, Sophia was a life raft amidst turbulent waves. She represented the end of my exile. Without her, the future promised more of the same... the painful silence of social ostracism.

Not even I was prepared for what I next discovered about Sophia next. I had faintly detected something stirring beneath the surface of her lovely visage... something unearthly. I use this adjective quite literally. The world... my world... was about to change forever.

On Wednesday nights, Sophia would practically disappear. She wasn't at any evening classes. My attempts to seek her out on campus were spent aimlessly meandering. She wasn't in her dorm room either. My phone calls were met with the standard voice mails. Needless to say, my imagination ran wild.

I did not want to violate Sophia's privacy; she had always seemed open and candid. Even some of the more intimate details of her life were not off limits during discussions. That she was harboring secrets seemed almost unthinkable. Still, I wanted to honor any personal matters that she might have kept hidden.

Moreover, I wanted to extend the same trust to her that I would have appropriated to myself. Yet I couldn't help it. Trust was a scarce commodity in my world. Few had been worth the investment of such a precious commodity.

For the majority of my youth, my father led my family in a nomadic fashion, frequently uprooting us from soil that had only recently became comfortable. This unstable cycle of settling and re-locating was further compounded by his continuous promises of a permanent home. Even after divorcing my mother, my father maintained this gypsy tradition. I was relocated one more time... in Ohio. As opposed to the previous episodes of relocation, I actually found myself praying for this settlement to equally temporary.

That prayer went unanswered. Abruptly, my father disappeared and I later learned of his sojourn to the Middle East. The promise of a permanent home was a cruel deception. The diaspora experienced by family after the divorce had left fragments across the United States. One younger brother here, a sister there... never any cohesion amongst the individual members. All that remained of this ship of fools was flotsam and jetsam drifting aimlessly.

Still, even after this monumental betrayal, my trust remained intact. It was Nicole who extinguished my last flames of faith. Nicole was an old acting partner I met during a production of "Antigone." She flattered me. She idealized me. She appealed to my desperation for companionship. She promised me a lifetime of loyalty. She lied.

Four years later and $1000 poorer, I found myself wondering how on earth another human being could perpetrate such a falsehood. She told me that the money was for essentials... rent, car insurance, groceries, etc. As for the time apart, she assured me that it would only strengthen our bonds. Nothing could have been further from the truth. My money supported a burgeoning pattern of substance abuse. The time apart facilitated Nicole's liaison with a fellow junkie, who eventually shared her bed. My trust was thoroughly demolished. I tried to give Sophia the benefit of doubt, but my imagination continued to torment me with images of lurid debaucheries and affairs. Ironically, as inventive as my imagination could be, not even it could conjure up what my eyes gazed upon one fateful Wednesday evening.

I still don't know what force compelled me to go to the grassy area we had dubbed the "natural observatory" that Wednesday night. Perhaps I hoped that being there would be the same as being with Sophia. Even in Sophia's absence, it seemed to emit psychic impressions of her presence.

As I made my way through the dense foliage and towering trees, I noticed a soft glow coming from the clearing where Sophia and I normally watched the stars. The light was far too strong to be a distant star. No, it was earthbound, far below the twilight canopy.

In spite of my apprehension, I continued forward. Twigs snapped loudly beneath my feet. Sweat rolled down my forehead, mingling with the dirt that collected on my brow. My breathing grew heavier and my heart began to pound against my rib cage. Heavy branches pressed against me from all sides. Still, that soft glow shimmered through the woods. Pushing the branches and foliage aside, I finally arrived at the clearing.

My eyes widened as the visage before me came into clear focus. There was Sophia, immersed in that soft glow. Her eyes were staring up into the heavens. Her arms were out-stretched, but my eyes remained fixed on something else.

Wings stretched forth from Sophia's back, huge and majestic. Their membranous tissue and soft feathers shimmered in the ethereal glow. They swayed back and forth gently.

Every strand of rational skepticism in my mind dissolved. Every preconceived notion about empirical reality vanished. Metaphysical and epistemological convictions shattered. Standing before me was an angel.

I fell to my knees, gripped by a paralytic fear. My hands trembled violently and my stomach began to twist into knots. Unable to cope with the reality of what I had just glimpsed, my mind was shutting down. I hadn't even noticed that Sophia had turned her gaze toward me.

She approached me with an unearthly serenity. Her eyes gently held mine in a calming gaze. With a grace I still struggle to describe, she extended her hand toward me.

"Please, don't be afraid," Sophia whispered. "It's me, Filo. It's Sophia."

It took me a moment to mentally digest those words. It really was Sophia! There was nothing to fear. In fact, this affirmed all that my heart had been telling me before. She truly was special. She truly was unique. That which shined just beneath the surface of her humanity shined forth.

Slowly, I took her hand. A comforting warmth rushed over me as she pulled me into a heavenly embrace. I began to weep uncontrollably and shake my head.

"I'm not good enough for this," I sobbed.

"Yes, you are," Sophia replied as glistening tears began to fill her eyes as well. "Philea and Sophia are one."

Indeed, Philea and Sophia became one that night. My world would never be the same again.

I awoke from a black, dreamless sleep. Gradually focusing, my eyes were met with the barren canvas of my dorm room's ceiling. Streaks of purple, orange, and red trailed across the surface... the colors of dawn streaming in through the adjacent window. I felt the familiar softness of my mattress below me. Had the preceding evening been a dream?

Not quite.

I was still wearing the clothes from the day before. Jacket, jeans, shirt, shoes... everything. The scent of the "natural observatory's" dew and grass remained embedded in my nostrils. In fact, my hair was wet from the moisture of the early morning mist. Had my unanticipated rendezvous with Sophia been a dream?

Hardly.

I felt the cushion shift and turned my head to see Sophia lying next to me. Like me, she was still in the clothes she wore the preceding evening. Her eyes were still closed. Her breathing was calm and steady. Her long, dark hair was strewn across her face. Her delicate hands gently cradled her head. She looked just as she did the night before... beautiful, serene, and unadulterated. There was just one small difference. No wings. Had those been a dream?

Unequivocally, no.

An icy draft poured into the room and nipped at my skin with unrelenting enmity. Drawing my jacket further up around my neck, I shivered violently. Then, I felt something soft and warm brush against me. My stare returned to Sophia. Rising from behind one shoulder was one of her enormous, majestic wings. Quietly and gently, it wrapped around my torso. A soft, ethereal glow radiated from its feathers. As the wing pressed into me, the morning cold vanished.

Sophia's eyes slowly opened, piercing mine with their infinitely compassionate gaze. Even hidden beneath their lids, those eyes had been fixed upon me. It was as though Sophia had been watching me the entire time.

"Please, don't be frightened," she whispered meekly.

Shaking my head in astonishment, I replied, "I don't understand any of this."

"What is to understand?" she asked.

"I guess I'm just wondering about who you are," I answered with a baffled mutter.

"You know who I am, Filo," she smiled warmly. "I am the same person who talks to you at the Hub everyday. I am the same person who sits with you at the 'natural observatory.' I am the same person who bought you a copy of Rasselas from a used bookstore. I share your love for life and humanity. Who am I, Filo?"

Staring even deeper into her eyes, I whispered, "Sophia."

Her wing gently nudged my body across the bed, drawing me closing to her. My forehead touched her's and our eyes locked. Her silky fingers wrapped around my cheeks. A comforting warmth I had never felt before washed over me. It was more than some physical sensation. It was love, genuine love.

In the midst of this unfathomable love, all the cruel memories of my unforgiving past became strangely vague. They were no longer lingering on the surface of my consciousness. They were obscured in the shadow of this love that was previously foreign to me. Tears rushed down my face in hot streams, running over Sophia's smooth fingers.

"I never thought in million years that I would meet someone like you," I sobbed.

She brushed the tears away and drew me even closer into her embrace.

"I know that you've been hurt," she began to weep as well. "Please, trust me. I can make the hurt go away. That's why I am here."

"It is?" I asked with a muffled choke.

"That's why this hour was appointed."

"Appointed?"

"If the hurt continued, then it would metastasize. Eventually, the world would no longer hurt you. You would hurt yourself."

My God, she knew! How did she know? Up to this very period of my life, the thoughts were always lurking behind cryptic fantasies. Bottles of pills, razor blades, nooses, guns... the means changed from fantasy to fantasy, but the result was always the same: suicide. Only my sense of moral compunction had stifled such self-immolating impulses. But, as of late, they had been growing stronger. God knows what would have happened if it had not been for her... Sophia.

"I could not allow such a noble soul meet with such an ignominious end," she smiled.

I collapsed into her with all my weight and sobbed violently.

"I know you have questions," she said. "There will be plenty of time to answer them all. But, for now, just let it go. I will take it. Just give all of your hurt to me."

In that moment, Sophia had done what I had been incapable of doing all my life. All the pain, all of the heartache, all of the demons of the past... all were vanquished in her arms.

I sat in Sophia's usual booth at the student hub, engulfed in silence. The events of the past week had left me with countless questions. I had always retained a certain degree of rational skepticism, but if reality presented itself as something contrary to my metaphysical notions, I was willing to discard previously held beliefs and embrace the true nature of things. Yet what I had experienced with Sophia outstripped my rational mind's capacity for analysis and assessment.

I had always been a substance dualist, although I could never account for the question of epiphenomenona. Why? Because, on more than a few occasions, the hubris of scientism had prompted humanity to automatically disregard many possibilities. Some of these possibilities eventually asserted themselves, forever altering the landscape of metaphysical and epistemological knowledge. Moreover, I always had some inexplicable sense of an unseen world. Had it been some juvenile fantasy, it would have abated with childhood's end. However, it remained. In spite of the endless scrutiny of materialists, phsyicalists, and behaviorists, my inherent cognizance of a spiritual reality remained.

In the past week, I had stared this unseen reality in the face.

Now, my mind was a muddled quagmire of interrogatives. Waking existence no longer held the same meaning for me that it held for others. Just beyond the flesh was a frontier that was more expansive than any newly discovered country.

And Sophia was the key. She invited me in. She had awakened me from my dogmatic slumbers. In her, love found new meaning and life found a new dimension.

I saw her approaching. No wings. No ethereal glow. Yet, I did not need to see these things to know that something greater lay beneath her ostensible humanity. I had known this from start, although I clearly didn't understand it.

Taking her seat before me, she smiled and said, "Omnia vincit veritas."

Sophia sat before me with a serene smile. Even in the silence, there was communication between us. Her eyes spoke a thousand thoughts...

"You knew I was thinking about it," I said, motioning with my head towards my wrist. God only knows how many times I had fantasized about running a razor blade along it, ending a lifetime of strife.

"I've been watching you for a while, Filo," she replied, taking my hand and holding it to her cheek. "Even longer than you've been watching me."

"I didn't think anybody cared."

"Somebody always does."

I let my fingers trail along the smooth contours of her face. It was as if I was tracing the lines of a portrait. I let the sensation of my flesh against hers linger. That moment in time could have lasted forever and I would have been content.

"You told me you that you had a father," my tone grew softer as my eyes sink deeper into her gaze. "But, you weren't born here."

"No, I wasn't," she whispered. "He was a lonely man with no wife or children. He found me one evening, wandering through the woods."

"What were you doing there?" I asked.

"It was the night of my arrival. When one such as I comes here, we leave behind the majority of our memories."

"So, you don't remember your home?"

"No," her voice grew somber and distant.

"I'm sorry." My hand came to rest on her shoulder. "I know what it's like not to have a home."

Her face lit up with a calm bliss, "But we do have a home, Filo."

"Where?"

She took my hand from her shoulder and gripped it firmly within hers.

"Here," she answered, her gaze firmly fixed upon our joined hands. "In our union."

Dusk painted the sky with shades of purple, red, and orange. The sun was creeping closer and closer towards the horizon. Cushioned by a grassy linen, Sophia and I patiently watched the dimming orb's retreat from the firmament. I turned my gaze towards Sophia, catching a reflection of the setting sun in her eyes. As if communicating a quiet contentment, she smiled at me.

"I don't understand," I sighed heavily.

"What?" she asked.

I smiled back at her, "You seem so human."

Her smile eroded as sadness washed over her face. It was a profound sorrow, one that bespoke a silent yearning.

"I wish I were," she uttered softly.

"Huh?"

"I wish I were human."

"But you're something better," I said, reaching out and gently stroking her cheeks. "You're not corrupted like we are. You still have some innocence, some purity."

Sophia took my hand in hers and said, "You still don't realize how special you are. Your humanity is your greatest asset."

"I want to believe that, but how can I?"

"What's stopping you?"

I stifled a sarcastic chuckle that was prying at my lips. I didn't want to spoil this time with cynicism. I had always retained some faith in humanity, but found it jaded by the iniquity that pervaded the human condition. In my youth, I was not so pessimistic about man's prospects, trying to maintain that faith when beset by so much over the years... my parents' divorce, the family's diaspora, and Nicole's betrayal. All had taken their toll.

"I really don't want to run down the standard litany," I shook my head.

"Litany?"

"Yes," I frowned. "The same old litany of sins."

"It's true that you sin," Sophia replied. "But you still approximate Someone higher."

A moment of silence passed. I contemplated her words... their weight, their truth, their ramifications.

Finally, I broke the silence, "But, we've fallen so far from Him."

"Just because man sins does not mean he forfeits his glory," she opined. "He can always go back."

I couldn't help my skepticism, "What are we talking about? Socio-political Utopianism or something? Immanentizing the Eschaton?"

"No, we're talking about redemption. It's not too late."

Another moment of silence passed. I could hear a flock of birds in the distance. Darkness was wrapping its ebony fingers around the landscape, closing its shadowy grip.

"I still don't understand," I said, heaving another tedious sigh. "Why do you seem so human?"

Sophia turned her head towards the stars, which were just becoming visible. Her slender, delicate hands gestured upwards.

"If you were not raised in your homeland," she spoke slowly and deliberately, "then you'd seem like a foreigner in it."

Beginning to understand, I nodded quietly.

Sophia continued, "My origins may have been heavenly, but my life has been spent here. I remember when I learned about who I truly am. I resented myself. I guess I still do. I would never be that which I fell in love with... humanity."

Tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her face in hot, painful streaks. I recognized something in her distant, sad expression... something all too familiar. It was the very same thing she recognized within me... self-loathing.

Without another moment's hesitation, I took her in my arms. She buried her face in my shoulder and wept. I felt her burning tears running down my chest and arm. Her hands clutched at me with a silent desperation.

"You're wrong," I whispered, letting her sink deeper into my embrace. "You're the most human person I've ever known."

The semester was rapidly coming to a close. Consumed by an all-too-familiar desperation, students were cramming for exams. The last vestiges of research papers were being frantically typed and submitted. Group projects either found consensus amongst their members or were atomized by violent schisms. All over campus, students scurried about at a frenzied pace. These were the last convulsions of a long, erratic semester.

Fortunately, I was removed from the cacophony. All of my papers had been written well in advance. In fact, I had managed to recycle some older papers from previous semesters and submit them for my current courses. In addition, I had taken two of my finals last week. My one remaining final was really a piece of non-compulsory pageantry, an optional luxury for those who had maintained a decent grade point average in the course. Thankfully, I occupied this category.

I helped Sophia study for her exams. Of course, there wasn't much I had to do. Sophia was thoroughly knowledgeable in all of her subjects. I would literally gawk in stunned silence when Sophia would extemporaneously recall facts in perfect detail. Not even the minutest points seemed to escape her attention. Her remarkable cognitive capacity was dwarfed only by her quiet humility. It was this placid meekness that made me admire her even more.

I rummaged through piles of notes, which were scattered across the library table before me. Sophia sat at the other end, her dark eyes gazing out a nearby window. With her hands folded neatly in her lap, she looked like a post-adolescent Mona Lisa.

"Did you want to cover Nietzsche again?" I asked, fumbling through a few more pages.

"Hmmm?" Shaken from her momentary trance, she returned her gaze to me.

With a sarcastic grin plastered across my face, I held up my copy of "Thus Spake Zarathustra."

"Would you like to read some more of everybody's favorite anti-Christ?" I chuckled cynically.

"No," she sighed.

Mustering up the best German accent I could, I replied, "Not feeling like one of the Übermensch, are we?"

She smiled. "No, just not feeling nihilistic."

"Neither am I," I set the book down and stood up.

"Want to take a walk?"

"I thought you'd never ask," she exhaled loudly and rose from her seat.

Taking my arm, she followed me out the library door and into the fresh air. The smell of freshly cut grass hovered in the air. A soft wind brushed against the back of our necks. Grey clouds congregated in fragmented patches throughout the indigo sky. We immersed ourselves in the outdoor milieu and left the dusty confines of academia behind.

I looked over at Sophia, whose head rested gently against my shoulder. Her hair swam along the air currents and swirled carelessly about her face. In the soft glimmer of daylight, her pastel skin seemed to have the texture of silk. As for her eyes, they always intimated a deeper reservoir of thought. If the path ahead had not demanded my attention, I would have continued to stare at her. She was beautiful. Truly beautiful. Not some composite of Victoria Secret models, replete with silicon augmentation and cosmetic fakery. She was real.

Meanwhile, a dark figure trailed behind us. Absorbed in each other and the purity of the day, we were oblivious to its presence. Our unsuspecting peace would not last long.

We made a slight detour, leaving the path and stepping into a dense patch of woods. The heavy scent of dew and pine hung in the air. Trotting across the loose soil, I stumbled about clumsily. Sophia, however, seemed to glide across the ground with perfect grace. Watching her nimble stride, I began to think of her native homeland.

"Did you always know that you were different?" I inquired, pushing a leafy branch aside. "I mean, you've had wings all your life."

She brushed her hair back and chuckled, "You wouldn't have known that just by looking at me in the student hub."

"Didn't haven't to," I smiled at her. "I could tell you were different from the beginning."

"That's because you have the eyes to see, Filo," Sophia replied. "Many people don't. You don't realize just how special you are."

"How do you keep those huge things hidden?"

"Etheric appendages can be manifested or hidden on this plane at will."

"Is that what you call them? Etheric appendages?"

She flashed me an eloquent grin, "Sounds cool, huh?"

Sophia took my arm and I automatically felt myself lifting from the muck beneath me. Soon, I was gliding a few inches above the sticky sod. I looked over at her, an expression of child-like awe upon my face.

"I didn't know what I was until I turned thirteen," she said, drawing me closer to her. "Or at least that was my mental and emotional age."

Choking back my astonishment, I asked, "You mean, you don't physically grow old?"

"As I was then, I am now."

"Immortal?"

"I don't know," she shook her head. "While I've never really 'grown old,' I've always felt as though my life has a limited amount of time."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I. It's like there is some sort of clock ticking away inside me."

"Counting down to what?"

Her expression became somber, as though some shadow were cast across her heart, "An appointed hour."

"What happens then?"

"I don't know," she replied. "Perhaps death. Or, maybe, something else."

Still hovering above the earth, I turned to face her, "I... I couldn't keep living without you, Sophia."

She caressed my face gently and smiled serenely, "You can, Filo. You have too much to give the world to leave it prematurely."

After a brief pause, I said, "Well, we don't even know if you'll be leaving it any time soon... or at all."

She gave me a strained nod, as if to placate my fears. Silence descended upon us. I stared at her, my eyes drinking in her visage like a priceless fluid in the desert. I didn't even notice her wings unfolding, wrapping around me. They nudged me into her waiting embrace, and I gripped her with a quiet desperation.

The shadowy figure that had been following leaned against a nearby tree. Completely unaware, we continued to hover above the earth, holding onto each other like the survivors of some unseen shipwreck.

We found a dry patch of grass beneath a canopy of leafy branches. Sophia retracted her enormous wings and seated herself. Brushing some matted dirt from my jeans and straightening out my flannel shirt, I joined her on the grassy linen.

"So, you remember nothing of your home?" I asked, settling into the verdant cushion.

"Well, only fragments," she answered. "This place is really my home."

"You've no desire to return?"

She shook her head and smiled at me, "All I ever wanted was here."

"You said that you were sent to me," I ran my hands through her long hair and allowed the strands to flit through my fingers. "Who sent you? Do you remember?"

"No, I don't remember who sent me," she replied. "I just... know. It's much like my innate knowledge of a finite lifespan. Not to plagiarize Aristotle, but I guess it's like some teleological principle embedded within me."

"You were programmed to seek me out?"

At that, she wrinkled her forehead and rolled her eyes, "'Programmed' is such a mechanistic word. Let's just say I was predisposed."

"Why didn't you come to me earlier?"

"It wasn't the appointed time."

"Why now?"

"I'm not sure. I just knew that now was the time."

"Sounds like the fallacy of the appeal to ignorance," I said, making no attempt to hide my frustration with her response.

"I know it's not the answer you'd like," her tone became conciliatory. "But the universe reserves the right to withhold secrets."

"Why the obscurantism?" I insisted.

"It isn't obscurantism, Filo," she retorted. "All mysteries have an appointed time of unveiling. The time will come."

With a capitulating sigh, I continued, "So, you were always destined to seek me out?"

"Yes."

"But I approached you first"

"Yes, but I made sure to be where I needed to be," she said. "Situating myself was part of seeking you."

I pressed forward with my inquiry, "Why did I have to approach you?"

"Because the convergence of our two paths always required your consent," she said. "You had to take some active part in this, Filo. You could not continue to watch life pass you by like some sort of spectator sport."

I fell silent. She was right. The sting of self-indictment stifled my response. Now, it was her turn to question me.

She initiated her cross-examination, "How many times, Filo? How many times did you contemplate your own silence? How many times did that silence permit an opportunity to pass you by? How many times did you keep yourself from speaking up, from voicing your thoughts and feelings?"

I remained silent, reflecting on each instance.

Taking my face in her hands, she drew nearer to me. Our foreheads met. She closed her eyes. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

"I know what you thought in the hours of tortured silence," she whispered. "'I'm not good enough.' 'I'm insignificant, inconsequential.' 'I'm ugly.' 'No one cares.' All lies, Filo. All lies."

There was pain in her voice. Genuine pain. Pain for me.

"I... I...," my voice stammered hopelessly. "I just never thought anyone would even be... receptive. Nobody would... care."

Opening her eyes, Sophia empathetically gazed into my own, "Someone always cares, Filo."

"You wanted me to approach you first."

"I knew you could, Filo."

I pressed into her, gripping her tight, "You saved me, Sophia. You saved me."

"No," she replied joyfully. "You saved you, Filo."

Then, the dark figure decided to make its presence known.

"You two are pretty far from where you should be."

Startled by this disembodied voice, Sophia and I turned about in search of the mysterious speaker, then, out of the shadows emerged a familiar face. It was the neo-Nazi from the student rally. He was decked out in black fatigues with each shirtsleeve adorned by an ugly swastika. Slowly, he approached us.

"Look, we're not looking for any trouble," I said, trying my best to hide my fear.

"Neither am I," he replied, a menacing grin curling across his lips.

Although he was practically on top of me now, I did my best to remain composed, "Then, what do you want?"

Slowly and silently, he lifted his finger towards Sophia.

"Is that what this is about?" I asked, placing myself between him and Sophia. "Your embarrassment at the rally?"

At that moment, I looked into his eyes. Something was wrong. They were burning, literally glowing! I noticed that his face seemed to momentarily spasm and contort. After each convulsive episode, it returned to normal. But it wasn't long before his flesh would begin to writhe again. It was as if something was shifting beneath his skin.

Gently nudging me to one side, Sophia extended her wings.

"You knew I would be there," she stood nose to nose with the hatemonger, unafraid.

A heavy breath escaped from his mouth and I noticed sulfurous clouds billowing from his nostrils. Suddenly, it hit me. He wasn't human.

"What the hell are you?" I gasped.

The neo-Nazi smiled at me coldly, "Let me put it this way... in the cosmic food chain, I would be considered the top motherfucking predator. You, on the other hand, are livestock."

"He's everything ugly, Filo," Sophia said with disgust. "The serial killer who becomes the CBS movie of the week... the despot behind the podium... the racist ideologue preaching ethnic cleansing... the monster under all of our beds."

"A demon," I whispered, my pulse beginning to race uncontrollably.

"And I'll always be there to face him," Sophia's eyes narrowed, locking his eyes in an adversarial glare.

"Yes, you're always there," he growled contemptuously, "spreading your evangel of weakness."

"And you're always there," Sophia snapped back, righteous indignation burning in her eyes, "spreading your doctrines of hate and ugliness."

He craned his head back and cackled violently. Then his neck sent his head whipping forward into Sophia's face. She cried out in pain and clutched her forehead. I rushed towards her, but her wings continued to gently nudge me aside.

"Faith, hope, love," the demon singsonged obscenely. "The hallmarks of all weakness. Your kind have been preaching that pious bullshit since our war began. Meanwhile, my kind build empires."

Sophia slowly lifted her head from her hands. I saw a stream of luminous fluid rushing from the painful laceration left by the demon's head butt. It was the ethereal substance that ran through her very veins... her blood. Her eyes burned with angelic rage. Her shoulders bobbed up and down as angry, heaving breaths escaped from her lungs.

"Yes, your empires," she snarled with unbridled sarcasm. "Built on the cadavers of innocent souls... children you butchered, women you raped, innovators you marginalized, and saints you martyred."

"Progress demands sacrifice," he opined. "What does it matter if a few fucking dysgenics are expunged along the way?"

"IT MEANS EVERYTHING!" Sophia shouted, causing more of the shimmering fluid to erupt from her skull.

The devil's expression was a mixture of both confusion and disgust, "You won't let them go, will you? You'll risk everything for just one innocent life. That's why you'll lose."

"No," Sophia said. "That's why we'll win."

With that, Sophia launched herself at the demon. Her hands wrapped around its neck like a vice and I heard a loud CRACK!

Grabbing its neck in agony, the demon roared, "You BITCH!"

The entity that was shifting beneath the skin of the neo-Nazi decided to come out. The demon's human hands began to bubble and slide off like gloves. Beneath the melting sinew were two ugly talons. With another roar, the demon sent one of its hooks tearing into Sophia's right wing. It torn through the feathered membranes like scissors through fabric.

"SOPHIA!" I cried, my eyes wide with horror.

Again, I rushed toward the melee. As I leapt at the demon, I saw its other talon fly across my midsection. Searing pain rushed through my body. It felt as though my entire torso had caught on fire. I toppled over in a pathetic heap, clutching my stomach. Hot rivers of blood ran through my fingers.

Sophia's gaze turned towards my broken husk, "FILO!"

Exploiting the distraction, the demon tore its talon away from Sophia's shredded right wing and drove it straight into her left eye. It exploded into a shimmering gusher. A piercing shriek escaped from Sophia's lungs just before she collapsed at the feet of the demon.

"Faith, hope, love," the demon struggled to speak through heavy gasps. "Where are these things now?"

"They're the things you'll be staring up at," Sophia wheezed painfully, "from your bed in hell."

Her left wing flew forward and caught the demon in its injured neck. SNAP! The devil stood there for a moment, a dumbfounded look pasted on its face. Then it gurgled and tumbled to the ground.

Sophia managed to take a few agonizing steps over towards me. I was beginning to black out. The twilight canopy of night above me was becoming blurry. I could feel more blood pour from my wound. The hot deluge rushed down my legs, painting the grassy forest floor a bright crimson. I looked up at Sophia, her mangled visage fading before my eyes.

"Sophia, my God," I coughed. "Oh God, I'm so sorry! I tried to stop him. I tried-"

She extended a single finger and pressed it to my cold lips, "Shhhh. Be still."

A soft blue glow began to radiate from her. Thin blue streams of light began to wrap around me.

"It's all right, Filo," she whispered. "It's all right."

With spiraling beams of blue light dancing about her, Sophia took me in her arms. I felt an overwhelming warmth rush over me, enveloping every muscle fiber and tissue. Suddenly, the pain vanished and I could no longer feel any blood escaping from body. Gazing down at my stomach, I noticed my wound gradually disappearing.

I looked up at Sophia. She was becoming translucent, opaque. Her tattered shell swayed back and forth as though it was being drained of its last reserves of energy. I looked into Sophia's remaining eye, tears rushing from it in uncontrollable streams.

Suddenly, it hit me. She was giving me her life energy! All that she had left, she was giving to me!

"Sophia, no," I protested, trying to break away from her.

Sophia's grip became tighter. The energy rushed through my body even faster. She wasn't going to stop. She had made up her mind. As the last few currents made their way into my body, Sophia leaned forward and pressed her lips firmly against mine. It was a kiss that could've lasted forever. It was a kiss that didn't last long enough.

"I couldn't let such a noble soul meet with such an ignominious end," she whispered. "I love you, Filo."

And with that, Sophia's broken visage faded into empty blackness.

Exhausted and alone, I wept aloud for hours. My sobs echoed through the forest air and into the night.

I surveyed the barren bookshelves lining my dorm room. Layers of dust outlined the spots formerly occupied by countless textbooks and scholarly journals. Some were sold back to bookstores for meager profits. Others were kept for the sake of the knowledge they contained. There were a few that even disappeared, lost in some vortex of forgotten time. However, one book remained firmly tucked beneath my arm.

It was the copy of Rasselas that Sophia had bought me.

I clung to it as though I was still clinging to her. It was all I had left of her. For days, I had struggled to find more substantial impressions left by my precious angel. A lock of hair, a quickly scribbled note, a feather from one of those enormous wings... I could find none of these things. The only tangible fingerprint Sophia had left of her presence was a dusty book from a used bookstore.

"Have you forgotten so quickly, Filo?"

There it was again! That disembodied voice! I had been hearing it for days! It sounded so much like Sophia! Could it be?

I turned about in search of the speaker, finding only thin air. I sighed. She was gone. But the voice was right. I was forgetting what I had been taught. Sophia had left more substantial fingerprints... on me.

My renewed love for life.

My renewed faith in humanity.

My renewed faith in myself.

All these constituted fingerprints of Sophia's presence, albeit intangible fingerprints. Yet, no matter how intangible or vague, they were there and they were more real than any physical artifacts. Much like the a priori concepts that I held so dear.

The finite angelic lifespan, of which Sophia had been innately aware, was spent leaving these fingerprints on me. Once the impressions had been made, her purpose had been fulfilled.

"My father used to say, 'You can't hold on to things,'" that mysterious voice sighed. "I'd like to think that he was wrong."

Perhaps he was wrong, Sophia. How do you lose the impression one person leaves on another? That much we can hold onto.

"All mysteries have an appointed time of unveiling. The time will come."

Yes, and they were unveiled through experience. Experience is a harsh mentor, bereft of sympathy or understanding. It does not soften the blows or ease the pain. It simply leaves its mark. No one cares.

"Somebody always cares, Filo."

I gazed along the surface of my wrist, where so many imaginary razor blades traced their paths. No, self-immolation was not a maxim Sophia would have had me universalize. She had died so that I might live. It was time to make her sacrifice count for something.

I flipped the light switch and shut the door to my vacant dorm room, reluctantly closing that chapter of my life. Sophia had made me so happy. I couldn't remember being so happy. I wasn't sure if I would be that happy again.

With Rasselas still tucked under my arm, I made my way to the student hub. Spring was all around. Tree branches weighed heavy with fresh, green leaves. Flowers blossomed forth in a plethora of bright colors. The sky was clear and blue. New life was everywhere.

I arrived at the door to the student hub. I wanted to see it before I left. I wanted to see the booth where an angel communed with a mortal and changed his life forever. I wanted to feel that hope one last time.

Hesitantly, I opened the door.

And there she was, seated at her usual booth. My eyes widened with astonishment. Could it be?

"Omnia vincit veritas," Sophia said, her lovely face adorned by a radiant smile.

"Is this a dream?" I gasped. I could feel my heart pounding against my rib cage. Bewildered, I dropped my copy of Rasselas to the floor.

"Remember, Filo," she opined cheerfully, "all mysteries shall be unveiled at their appointed time."

"Y-You," I stammered hopelessly, "You gave your life for me."

"I did it because it was the right thing to do," she replied in that familiar matter-of-factly tone.

A hopeful smile began to creep across my lips, "That's very deontological."

"No," she shook her head and stood up, "That's very human. And so am I."

Without another moment's hesitation, I rushed over to Sophia and took her in my arms. SHE WAS REAL! SHE WAS ALIVE! IT WASN'T A DREAM!

Joyful laughter burst from me as I swung her around the room. We spun about for a small eternity. Faith was reborn. Hope was reborn. Love was reborn. Sophia was reborn!

As our own private merry-go-round slowed to a halt, we spiraled to the floor. We clung to each other tightly, laughing like shipwreck survivors whose rescue had come.

I gazed at Sophia's lovely countenance, allowing my eyes to drink in her priceless visage, "Are you an angel anymore?"

"Yes," she answered, pressing into me with all her strength.

"What about the countdown? You said time was ticking down to death?"

"Or something else."

Now, I understood. Another mystery had been unveiled to me. It was Sophia's time as an angel that was limited. Now, she had what she desired the most... humanity.

"And what about your homeland?" I asked.

There was contentment in her eyes as she spoke, "I'd go Anywhere For You, Filo."

Sophia glanced over at my copy of Rasselas, which still lay at the foot of the hub door.

She chuckled, "Are you done with your pilgrimage, Rasselas?"

In a peaceful whisper, I replied, "I don't have to look anymore."

And I haven't had to look since. Philea and Sophia are one.