The Angel and the Knight

Cursing his ninety-one years of aging bones and leaning heavily on his cane, Percival shuffled into the sleek bullet train and tapped his senior pass. The conductor seemed a bit irritated for screwing up the schedule, but he smugly pointed his index finger toward the second floor.

“Glad you could make it, Percy,” he grinned. “I’m afraid, though, the only seats left are on Level Two.”

Percival scowled. Level Two was reserved for Boneskins. Segregated people living solely off the government in vermin-infested, crime-filled flats. Meals were rationed, and the old man thought Boneskins a fitting description. Most were gaunt and malnourished, their skin stretched tight across their skulls. He glared at the conductor.

“You want a mask?” the conductor chuckled.

“Inoculated,” Percival grumbled, patting his upper arm. He hobbled up the narrow, winding staircase, then plopped down in a seat at the back, the only one left. At least the Boneskins facing him were a woman and a child, and not some radical, knife-wielding thug.

Percival settled in, removing his hat and mittens and the train got underway, rocketing high above the water-locked city. The topmost floors of the highest skyscrapers could still be seen, rising slightly above sea level. The constant waves and rolling tides bombarded the drowned metropolis, nearly all but engulfed by the Atlantic far below. Other bullet trains hurtled along steel monorails and he watched these, ignoring the rabblement around him.

So many lives lost, his grandfather had told him when Percival was just a child. There was little warning when the Cumbre Vieja Volcano erupted, sending a massive avalanche of rocks into the Atlantic – triggering the monstrous tsunami that submerged America’s east coast. Of course, some said it was God’s punishment – and therefore someone had to be blamed – to pay the price – to atone. That fell to the poor.

After a few moments Percival wished he’d taken that mask. He discreetly covered his nose against the noxious stench of unwashed beings - the poor his grandfather had talked about. Percival glanced at his fellow passengers and grimaced.

The woman across from him clutched a young child, a girl about seven, and the woman eyed him with distrust. Percival wasn’t bothered by her suspicious stares. The more she kept to herself, the better.

But the child peered out from beneath a ragged blanket, and he caught a glimpse of a pale face and strands of bleach-white hair. He had heard of these children. Albinos. Babies born without pigment. It happened occasionally. A mutation of the genes. To be born into normal society was an abomination. But to be born to a Boneskin was especially repugnant and a double stigma for the child. In any case, all were freaks of nature, in his opinion.

The mother caught him staring and whispered urgently to the child. The girl studied him with lavender eyes framed in delicate white lashes, then covered her face with the blanket. Good, he thought. You’ll maybe live to be twenty-five if you’re lucky, a ripe old age for all Boneskins, remembering that health care was non-existent in their ramshackle districts. At least I won’t have to look at you.

When her mother began to snore, however, the child swept away the blanket from her head. She smiled happily at this man who’d come to sit with them. Percival was annoyed. But against his lifelong judgement, something stirred within him and he couldn’t look away.

Here was unexpected beauty he had never before seen in a human being. Like an angel, he thought, taking in her features. The child’s powder-fair hair tumbled over her shoulders like drifts of cottony fallen snow. The two gazed in silent awe of each other for several moments, then the child held out her delicate hand to the stranger.

“I’m Genevieve,” she said softly, and he took her petite fingers, despite himself, noticing she had painted her nails a translucent shade of blue, much like the color of the veins on her own hand.

“Percival,” he said with a bit of reluctance, although her name fit her agreeably.

“Oh, how splendid!” Genevieve whispered. “Sir Percival was one of King Arthur’s knights, you know.”

“A knight!” he exclaimed. “No, I didn’t know. Well, that’s something.” He cleared his throat. “This Sir Percival,” he asked, “was he a crotchety old coot with ill-manners?”

“Oh, my no!” the child cried. “Sir Percival was a great and most holy knight, known for his goodness and compassion.”

“Compassion, huh?” Percival said, feeling somewhat contrite and slightly embarrassed. “Tell me more about this compassionate knight.”

“Sir Percival went on a long journey in quest of the Holy Grail. He was a virtuous knight, although …”

“Although?”

“Although I don't think he ever found what he was looking for,” Genevieve sighed.

“Hmm,” Percival said, smiling. “I like this story about Sir Percival.” The two sat in silence, swaying to the gentle rocking of the train.

“I’ve never met anyone like me before,” the child said suddenly, changing the subject, her eyes wide in admiration.

“What are you talking about? I’m not in the least like …” he started to say, but stopped. This darling and most intelligent child wasn’t talking about status or wealth. She was talking about their appearance. Percival recalled that Boneskins did not live long enough to turn old and gray. The child would not have elderly relatives whose hair was as silver as hers. She wouldn't have seen any graying elders at all, living in the crowded squalor-ridden flats above the more contaminated waters of this ocean world.

Genevieve gently touched the blue veins on his aging hands, then reached up and stroked his white cloud of a beard. Surprised as he was at her boldness, he did not recoil. When she at last rested her hands in her lap, he reached into his pocket and extracted a bottle of pills, shaking out two capsules into his palm.

“What are those?” Genevieve asked.

“My medicine,” he told her. “It’s for my heart,” and he popped them into his mouth, aware that this child had probably never seen pills before. “People take medicine when they are sick. Medicine makes them feel better,” he explained.

The beautiful child looked at this man for a long moment, her lovely angelic face all curiosity. Then in her innocence, said words he would never forget.

“The heart holds our love,” the child whispered, placing her small hand on Percival’s lapel. In her lilac eyes he could see dewy moisture. “Is your heart having a hard time holding love?”