Today's word: Hippie

I was a stranger in another land, foreign but not too foreign. Amidst pickled orange vegetables and moonspeak, I met subspecies hippie literatus. A free-wheelin' do-gooder unlike anyone I'd ever thought I wanted to call my friend. The man served others with a no blesse oblige ordinarily only seen on people who had no need for money, yet he seemed to be in want. A pedigree of man of myths: handsome, knowledgeable, patient, kind to disabled children. I'd testify that the man was part German, part Cherokee, part angel.

The hippie walked with a short gait, as if trying to minimize the environmental impact of a 6 foot-4 inch frame. He walked silently, as his roving tee-pee-dwelling ancestors had done hundreds of years before, thousands of miles away. When he spoke, his wit was brief and poignant, like soft-spoken Will Rogers. Perhaps it was a shyness that kept him from saying to much, a fear of earthly criticism.

He brought me to his bed, and whispered to me that I was beautiful, turning out the light and softly brushing my hair. My head was in a rush, as if in the midst of a warm ocean wave the breath was being drawn out of me: exciting, slightly scary, but hauntingly comfortable and completely entombing. I felt the passion rush over me in the most dangerous way. I wasn't a willing participant that night. The angel's passions nearly overwhelmed my senses, but I knew the fall from grace would kill if soaring to the highest heights could give life. It was a risk too great that I did not take. I wish I could take it back, and take my angel