Like a man in a movie

[Gabriel Lee]

A cold wind blew through, stirring a few dried leaves. Dust swirled in the gutter as cars hummed past, pulsating with engine noise and polluting the air with the thick, choking stench of petrol. Drawing his long, thin coat closer around his own body, Gabriel passed on through like a wraith, unnoticed and unseen.

His slow, soft steps took him out of the town proper and into the sparsely populated outskirts. Trailers dotted the landscape; a few small plots of land broke up the monotony, newly plowed and ready for spring planting. Gabriel trailed a fingertip along a long, vibrant blade of wild grass growing by the side of the long dirt road.

It wilted before his eyes.

Retrieving his trembling fingers and hiding them within his sleeves, Gabriel walked on.

"It's poetic, isn't it?" The Master had said with a crooked, strange smile on his lips, of Gabriel's reversal of fate. Gabriel had to agree--it was poetic justice. With the tides having turned, he found himself unable to touch anything--not simply other humans, but animals, plants, anything that lived. They all wilted and blackened and shriveled.

"It has to be this way. This is what I summoned you for." Impassive and unmoved, the Master had no sympathy for Gabriel's plight and he couldn't honestly say that he deserved it. No pity, no sympathy, no empathy. It had to be. His presence here was necessary for one task, to become the vessel.

Still.

Somewhere deep down, within the small part of the celestial that once resided in this body, he hurt. He felt stirrings of human emotions within his inhuman brain, something that he dared not broach with the Master for fear of banishment. Fear, Gabriel found, motivated a great deal of humans. Did that make him more human? Maybe.

It wasn't fear that led him out here, however, to an abandoned RV park. Gabriel came here often, tracing the steps of someone who never knew he was there. Someone he watched from a very great distance, though he feigned ignorance and innocence. Now Gabriel knew how he felt; now he was walking the proverbial mile in his shoes. It was an isolating, lonely experience.

He stopped by the creaky gates and eased them open to the cacophony of only one sharp squeak. Gabriel turned sideways to slip through the narrow crack, not wanting to draw attention to himself, and stepped onto a rough-hewn stone path. There was a small park here that children used to play at and curled up on a bench overlooking a rusted set of swings was a slumbering figure deep in repose.

Gabriel approached from behind; his shadow gradually slid over the sleeping figure's face and blocked out the last rays of sunlight. He knew he would be here. He was always here now, a part of the crumbling landscape, blending in with the rust and ruin as if he too wished to fade away to nothingness, letting the weeds and creepers bury him deep within their tangled vines.

It's poetic, isn't it?

Gabriel's hand landed light as a feather over the dark hair, stroking in a downward motion. Could he feel it, in his sleep? In his dreams? Did he feel the weight of a hand long after Gabriel had slipped away?

It has to be this way.