Short Story Fiction
Fallen Angel
Scott A. Gese


If there are battles in heaven, angels die. This one fell to earth.

fallen angelAnthony-Majanlahti/Wikimedia Commons

Mitch Mahoney sat in a bar with several of his reporter colleagues. They were each taking turns relaying the strangest story they had ever reported on. A free drink to the winner was on the line. Mitch thought he did well with his story about several sightings of what Navajo legend refers to as a Skinwalker. An evil shapeshifter who has the power to transform or possess any animal he wants. But it was not to be. A story by his colleague, Harmon took the prize.

~~~~

“This is a story I reported on several years ago,” began Harmon.

“It’s strange, but I swear it’s true. I know it for a fact because I was there. It’s so vivid in my mind. I recall it as if it happened yesterday. It was around nine o’clock in the evening. It was a warm summer night. My wife, our two good friends and I stepped out onto the patio to enjoy a couple of cool drinks and watch the sun go down.

“We were discussing recent events when we all noticed something streak across the sky. It was a dark object and not more than a hundred yards above our heads. Seconds after it had passed over us we heard a crash. It was on the back side of the property in a stand of young fir trees about one hundred yards from the house. We all headed toward the area where the sound came from.

“When we arrived on the scene, we found that whatever it was had crashed through the roof of an outbuilding I used for storage. I opened the door to have a look inside expecting to find a piece of space junk or something that had fallen off an airplane.

“Even though it was a warm night, everything inside the building was frosty cold. It was the strangest thing.

“I shined the light to the back of the room and there we saw it. It wasn’t space junk or an airplane part. It was a man, but yet, not a man. I mean… it had arms and legs and looked human except… it had wings. Big… black… feathery wings. The body was in a heap and it was laying still. We weren’t sure if it was dead or alive. I got up close to it but I couldn’t tell. My reporter instincts took over. Was this someone wearing homemade wings? Did they think they could fly? How did they get so high in the sky? It doesn’t look quite human. My mind was reeling.

“Not sure of what to make of it I pulled out my phone and called 911. We went back to the house to wait for the medics. When they arrived we took them out to the shed. As soon as they started working on the “man” we were ushered out of the building. They must have called the police. They showed up along with an unmarked car with a couple of what looked to me like government men. My guess was some sort of security people.

“The body was hauled away and we were told nothing. I’m not sure if it was still alive. We never heard another word.

“The following day I went back inside the building to access the damage to the roof. The chill was gone. Not a feather could be found. I made some inquiries to the local hospitals. Either no one was talking or they just didn’t know about the incident. I wrote up the story and my editor refused to run it. Said it was too unbelievable for our mainstream readership.

“I ended up selling the story to a tabloid under a pseudonym. I titled it Bird Man Falls From the Sky.”

We all had a good laugh. Once again Harmon assured us it was true. Believing him would have been impossible if I didn’t know the man personally. Even now I still doubted him.

He could tell we weren’t having any part of it so he pulled out his phone and looked up the story. It was there just as he said. A couple of the boys still didn’t go for it but Harmon wasn’t about to lose his free drink so he pulled up the images on his phone and showed us several pictures he took of the thing before the medics showed up. That sealed the deal. Harmon won the drink.

© Copyright 2024 by Scott A. Gese All Rights Reserved.


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