skonen_blades (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skonen_blades) wrote2007-01-29 06:02 pm
skonen_blades) wrote2007-01-29 06:02 pm
Blue Angel
The Blue Angel came down from the mountain for the last time in October of 1849.
He came down from the mountain six times a year for supplies. He’d been drinking silver nitrate to combat bacteria and it had turned his skin blue permanently. It’s a fact that silver kills bacteria but the doctors hadn’t counted on the amount that The Blue Angel would take.
The Blue Angel had huge blue wings tattooed on his back in black ink. No one knew where the wings had come from and people only saw them when he went into the bath house for his seasonal cleaning. Rumours circulated. Tattooing wings on your back isn’t something that one can do on one’s own.
Some said that he had been raised by the Indians in the area and that they had tattooed the wings on his back. Most of the natives had been slaughtered or taken away by the smallpox a few years later. Rumour had it that they’d been the Blue Angel’s family and people reckoned he never got over that huge amount of death.
Some say that he had come here just a few years ago from a far off country where blue skin was the norm and tattoos were plentiful.
There was a rumour of a time that he had a few drinks in the local saloon and talked for hours like a busted dam. He’d found religion in a big way. He talked and talked about how the end was coming and that it was coming soon. There was to be another flood. They said that he’d figured out a code hidden in the bible that said that a flood was coming in the summer of 1850. I guess he had a lot of time up there in that cabin of his.
Others said that he’d grown up here in a peaceful America before the gold was discovered just a few miles south. If that was true, he’d seen more change and destruction in the last two years that most people would ever see.
Most of us had moved here for the gold. The Blue Angel was just a bit of local colour to us. I remember hearing the rumour that his cabin had been found ransacked and burned.
I never lent rumours much credence but after six months had gone by and I hadn’t seen or heard of him coming through down, I figured he’d moved away or been killed. These were violent times.
tags
He came down from the mountain six times a year for supplies. He’d been drinking silver nitrate to combat bacteria and it had turned his skin blue permanently. It’s a fact that silver kills bacteria but the doctors hadn’t counted on the amount that The Blue Angel would take.
The Blue Angel had huge blue wings tattooed on his back in black ink. No one knew where the wings had come from and people only saw them when he went into the bath house for his seasonal cleaning. Rumours circulated. Tattooing wings on your back isn’t something that one can do on one’s own.
Some said that he had been raised by the Indians in the area and that they had tattooed the wings on his back. Most of the natives had been slaughtered or taken away by the smallpox a few years later. Rumour had it that they’d been the Blue Angel’s family and people reckoned he never got over that huge amount of death.
Some say that he had come here just a few years ago from a far off country where blue skin was the norm and tattoos were plentiful.
There was a rumour of a time that he had a few drinks in the local saloon and talked for hours like a busted dam. He’d found religion in a big way. He talked and talked about how the end was coming and that it was coming soon. There was to be another flood. They said that he’d figured out a code hidden in the bible that said that a flood was coming in the summer of 1850. I guess he had a lot of time up there in that cabin of his.
Others said that he’d grown up here in a peaceful America before the gold was discovered just a few miles south. If that was true, he’d seen more change and destruction in the last two years that most people would ever see.
Most of us had moved here for the gold. The Blue Angel was just a bit of local colour to us. I remember hearing the rumour that his cabin had been found ransacked and burned.
I never lent rumours much credence but after six months had gone by and I hadn’t seen or heard of him coming through down, I figured he’d moved away or been killed. These were violent times.
tags