Angel

He heard a voice speaking to him and stopped to listen. ‘Climb on the rock.’ He tried but couldn’t figure out how. It was too tall and slippery. ‘Try harder,’ the voice said. He made his way around it and found a foothold. The only problem was that there wasn’t a handhold. Finally, he found a knob of granite to cling to and laboriously pulled himself out of the water. He panted on top of the rock. ‘Good,’ the voice said. Angel giggled. He knew the voice. It was part of his head talking. It was the part which told him not to fight or drive so fast. He usually ignored it, but, this time, he realized, it was right. He was out of breath from the cold, not from the exercise. Even Fergus must have climbed on rocks so as not to freeze or drown. The top was irregular, so all he could do was sit there. Lying down would have been painful. He drew his legs up to him and tried to stop his teeth from chattering. The clacking distracted him from the poignant music of the water.
He could emulate Stephen Dedalus at the beach. Yes. Excellent idea. He closed his eyes and listened. It was like the twin falls at Union Village Dam. There was a music being played. The rocks, like fingers holding guitar strings, forced the swollen stream to take the path it took, and, as he listened, he thought he could tell water going around a boulder from water going around smaller rocks. Like breeze passing through a wind chime.
He opened his eyes and stared at the sky, but it wasn’t fully dark, so he could only see a couple of planets. He smiled. Now, he was Pythagoras, pondering the heavens and inventing the modern world. ‘If I know where a star is and wait three months, I can chart its new position and triangulate its distance from the earth. That way, I can figure out how fast it’s going.’ So, how did Pythagoras get from that to the Pythagorean theorem? He must have worked it out using string or sticks which could be measured. Of course, it was rooted in error. He assumed that the planets and stars made sounds as they whizzed through space, which they didn’t. But, wasn’t error ‘the portal of discovery’ for geniuses? And his goal was wonderful. ‘I’ll create a harp using my measurements of the heavens, and I’ll know what the gods hear when they listen to the universe.’ The music of the spheres. How cool was that?
It wasn’t folly, of course. It was good that Pythagoras chased his phantasm because he’d made math and physics leap forward so rapidly, but he could have just done as Angel and Fergus did, sit amid a stream and listen to the currents as they were forced ineluctably into different paths by the rocks. A simple babbling brook would have done. Pythagoras could have sat lazily throwing stones into a creek and listening while a sleepy Greek boy blew him. How much easier that would have been.
Why had Billy been tormented for his sexual proclivities? Great men throughout history had done the same. Some much worse than others. For example, a priest at the end of a long day kneeling to pray on the stone floor of a monastery, lending his milky fluids to an altar boy, who was also on his knees. A different form of praying. Ask and ye shall receive.
His anger began to rise. Why did anyone care whom Billy loved? There were enough straight perverts to go around, and the church sanctified their activity. They even rewarded it. A seventy-year-old, rich man marrying a nineteen-year-old girl? Sure, why not? You can be married by a priest in the cathedral. ‘What’s that you say? The girl doesn’t want the old man? Tough. Her father said she should marry him. Who’s she to disobey her father? Hermia…obey Egeus, thy father. Kneel girl and take eternal vows which will bind you to this old geezer. Are you too good to be obedient and wealthy? Ungrateful child.’
He wiggled his toes. Good. See: they aren’t frozen. They’re perky and ready for battle. Aren’t you, feet? They wiggled their affirmation, and Angel giggled. Why were they called ‘piggies’? Wigglies seemed more appropriate.
He eyed the water. Onward, Fergus. He slid off the rock but stepped on something slippery and went completely under. He came up laughing and grabbing for a rock so as not to be swept away.