Prompt: Time travel, a bookmark, and the angel Gabriel.
The woman sits on the edge of the water, toes grazing the surface. A large catfish nudges the digits, demanding her attention. She reaches down with the dangly end of her bookmark, the plastic string teasing the fish’s whiskers.
“He’ll eat your hand if you’re not careful.” The man had appeared seemingly from thin air, but still fails to surprise her. By the set of his brow and lips, this disappoints him.
“Not Beauregard, my dear Gabriel, but Arnold over here might. And Ginevra, she most certainly would.” Her eyes twinkle as she stares up at him. “Why, pray tell, my glorious friend, are you here?”
The angel stretches out his wings behind him, allowing his eyes to convey his exasperation. “Someone has been hopping again and they wanted me to see if it was you.”
“They sent the angel Gabriel to investigate a lowly time-hopper?” Her green ooze mischief, daring him to release his frustrations.
“You’re disagreeable and they all dislike you.” She arches a dark brow at his words, her amusement growing. “Moreover, they thought you’d confess to me. Or, at the very least, tell me what you know.”
“Confess to you? My darling angel, if it had been me, no one would ever know it had happened. This is someone who just learned time-hopping, that’s what I know.”
“How forthright of you.”
“Wouldn’t want you to have wasted a trip.” The words are final, as if she were dismissing him. The catfish holds her attention once more, delighting in the chance to nibble the bookmark further. Gabriel is unsettled but turns to depart, unsure what else to do.
In Search of a Story 