skonen_blades

The angels came for me from the eighties.

They were beauty personified. They were Nagel visions from the decade of my generation’s sexual awakening. Flipped-up collars under giant manes of teased, feathered hair restrained by gallons of atmosphere-destroying hairspray. They stepped off of a Duran Duran record cover.

There were three of them.

The blonde angel on the left was wearing white leg warmers. She had on a unitard built for jazzercise and early-morning workouts. She had crimped her bangs. She snarled at me playfully under white eyeshadow. Two lightning bolts had been painted on each cheek and across the bridge of her nose was an Adam-Ant bar of white paint. Her nails were long. She had a small ceramic triangle on one ear and a small ceramic circle on the other. Her pristine headband shone.

The blonde on the right had her hair piled high in a Flock-of-Seagulls wave of chemical brilliance, streaked through with bleach and held back from gravity by Studio Line Strong-Hold Fixing Gel by L’oreal like a picture of the crashing surf. She had on an impossibly huge oversized white sweater with a mock turtleneck riding high. Her earrings dangled with feathers, small crosses, and long, fine chains. She was wearing white leotards that disappeared into tiny calfskin boots. Her face hid beneath the hair but above the collar, like a tiger watching prey from the tall grass. She formed jazz hands in her fingerless gloves.

The dark-haired wonder in the middle stared straight at me with eyes as blue as the neon in a video game arcade. He collar was popped, bringing the wingtips up to her cheekbones. Her white silk shirt had shoulder pads that would do a linebacker justice. She had on lipstick that glistened, damp with promise. Streaks of blush and thick mascara turned her face into a sensual kabuki mask from a bygone era. She was clean lines. She had on white powerwash jeans, high-waisted and excruciatingly tight. Her white stilettos pushed her heels up to fashion model height. Her nails were long and the colour of pearls.

Behind them, the wings. Above them, the halos.

They had stepped forth as the angels designed to take my soul, to make my passage into the other plane voluntary and pleasurable.

They guessed well.

I smiled and stepped towards them.






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