Readers as Writers: In London Skies

The sun set over the gleaming city of London, glinting off marble and bronze and gold. Slowly, the last traces of light followed their father, the sun, into darkness. The night air was heavy with magic, and the stars gazed down on the city with a sense of expectation. The full moon swung up majestically from where she had been sleeping beyond the edge of the world. Her reflection shimmered in the Thames; the rippling waves made it appear as if silver tresses of light were streaming out behind her full face. As the moon bathed the city in her light, its magic touched upon all the statues of the city.The cold metal and stone of their bodies soaked up the cold light of the moon, and all over the city, they began to glow. This was more than the glow of light being reflected; if one were to observe the statutes, they may note that the light appeared to be coming from within them. One by one, all over the city, the luminescent statues began to awake. Shaking themselves and blinking, a variety beings made of marble and bronze and gold stepped into the streets or took to the sky. Mighty horses and their riders left their pedestals where they watched over the city by day and patrolled the streets alongside fierce lions and noted English scholars. The glowing bodies of angels and dragons circled the sky in tight formations. From these vantage points, the stern statues of London‒ the Guardians of the City– did their duty. Nightly, they drove back the shadows in the night that threatened to overtake this noblest of cities. For hundreds of years, under the touch of the moon, the statues had awoken and performed this practiced routine. All but one. A new statue, he had stumbled awake with a gasp for the first time that very night. Trembling in the moonlight, the golden angel huddled over London. Confused and forlorn, he found he could do naught but watch his brothers and sisters move in tight, unified groups around him. Uncertain of his own place, he hovered in the chill night and tried to ignore the crushing sense of loneliness that hovered with him.