the Angel

At the extreme limit of the furthest pain (the one she felt least able to bear) the new thing appeared. Slowly it circled the periphery of the spaces she no longer cared to inhabit. Brightly it beckoned with a friendly shrug, as if to ask why she had lingered so long. But as she drew near to explain there was no longr any reason to explain, only the vast brightness of what she was at last becoming, and of what the angel already was. And suddenly there was only the angel, and the company of angels calling forth the child in her, which was herself, waiting to be born. And the angels prophesied of the child and of its angel, and of what, together, they would become -- sweetly, as is the manner of angels when at last they bestow release.