Wax Wings

Jinette is not formless. If anything, her body is overformed. Her elbows are uneven. One is lumpier than the other, and it's the same with her knees. Her shoulders stand wide while her breasts have hardly grown, which makes for a rather gross image. She is small enough to fit in your palm, though you will find her greasy and rough to hold. She smells like sweat.

Jinette is not like the other demons, she maintains. Her crevice in Inferno is hushed, and illuminated only by the magma spray past the entrance. She hides, cowardly, away from the heat and the eyes of her brothers. The other demons are larger and louder. They trample about the magma fields, teeth stuffed with roaches and flies, and she does not like them, not one bit. She despises them. She does not like having to be one of them, because it scares her to think that's what she's like.

There is a cloud which stands out amongst the smoke that stains Inferno. It is ivory white, fluffy, flawless. Idealised and unreproached in Jinette's eyes. Her brothers throw boulders at it. But they can't reach, of course. The sun does not shine in Inferno. The sun is always behind the cloud.

If you peek in you might see her working. Given it is dark, you'd be more likely to smell it; the smell of a snuffed candle, timid beneath the incessant sulphur --- lavender and chamomile, comforting and tepid. Jinette is fashioning herself a body of wax and wings, strung by wicker and herb. Rose and white swirls, frozen milky, honey-sweetness in a porcelain shell, cold and hard to the touch. The craftsmanship is a little embarassing, admittedly. The wings are misaligned, yet she hasn't noticed.

But the face. The face is magnificent. Symmetric, Operatic, Baroque, Grotesque; it is perfect.

It takes months, but at last she wears her new body. The wax is tight around her collar and hips, and it makes her fingers numb, but she ignores this because it means she can look at her reflection in the quiet pale basalt, and see that perfect face. Then she takes flight, and she finds it incredible. The air sailing below her wings feels all the more cool and fresh, and the chestpiece only makes it slightly harder to breathe. If only you could see her face and her toothy grin --- you'd almost for a moment call it cute.

Thusly she soars, higher and higher until she sees beyond the white cloud, and turns her eyes on something she has never before seen. The sun, it is beautiful. Silhouetted in front of it is the most gorgeous city, where she sees angels walking marble paths, and there are trees, and their shadows are cast so stunningly, and cafes and schools and libraries and parks and fields and everything is as it must be. Jinette notices the corners of her eyes grow wet in the sunlight. She does not notice her wings growing loose, also the scent of the wax growing soft and fragrant. She does not notice the shell melting on her skin, revealing her lopsided elbows. She does not notice how, in fact, it is not water which pools in her eyes.

So still she flies and pulls, closer to the city of angels. She does not notice her body breaking down, wicker trailing behind her and steam rising from her scalded skin, so she lands on the cloud, grinning still so wide. Before her is everything she has ever wanted; picture it yourself. But before she can stand up, the adrenaline drains from her body and she finally sees what has become of her. She claws with scrawny blue fingernails trying to keep hold of her body, trying to set the wicker and the bones back in place. She tries to seperate the wax from her flesh but they are already pooling together. And she whispers to herself as at last she looks up at the sun from her frying body, fading into a pool of rose and white. How poignant.

Two angels stroll by. They stop to appreciate the scent of lavender and chamomile.