Page 1 of At Midnight

A Creation Story, Told By A Man Who Is Not An Angel

Raphael Mirabaud

Raphael Valerian Mirabaud sits in a wingback chair in front of you, smoking a cigarette.

His dark blue suit lies on his muscular body as if it is very expensive and tailored, which it is. He’s slouching in the chair just a little, a posture that emphasizes his flat stomach under his parted suit jacket,with one long leg jutted out like he’s stretching. The sun setting outside the window glows on his face, turning his light skin and blond hair a warmer shade of gold and tracing his sharp cheekbones and jaw with silver.

“My mother named me after an angel,” Raphael says, rolling the cigarette between his thumb and fingers. “I don’t know why. We’re not religious. We’re French Swiss, so we’re Catholic.That’s the church we don’t attend. None of my sisters have religious names: Océane, Ambre, Chloé. My grandmother was devout, but it got lost somewhere. I was baptized as an infant, probably. I did first communion but not confirmation. By then, I was too involved with other things to worry about my grandmother’s religion.”

He stares out of the window at the blue expanse of Lake Geneva in Switzerland.He grew up here, you remember. This was his mysterious childhood and his home. The dark wood shelves lining the walls suggest that this room used to be a library, but ceramic statuettes from many cultures fill the niches instead of books.

He says, “Maybe my mother sensed what I would become through that magic pregnant women have. Maybe she tried to change me by giving me the name of an angel.”

He sucks a deep breath of smoke from the cigarette and holds it before exhaling. “Maybe an old witch cursed her while she was pregnant with me and then told her what I would become in a prophecy, so she tried to change my fate by changing my name.”

You wonder if the smoke will stain the elegant, antique crown moulding and tray ceiling, but the plasterwork has been there for at least a century.It’s survived worse, and you saw the housekeepers scurrying around the mansion when you walked in. A fan whirs in the ceiling, efficiently drawing the tobacco smoke up, and you can barely smell it from where you sit.

He says, “Considering that my nearest sister,Océane, is eleven years older than I am, maybe my mother made a deal with the Devil for another child, and that’s why I’ve turned outthe way I have. Maybe I am literally the Devil’s son, a demon in human form. It would explain a lot.”

He sucks on his cigarette and then mashes it out in an ashtray. He contemplates the crumpled paper and dry leaves.“I keep giving them up, but sometimes, my hand will reach out in a pharmacy and pick up a pack and a lighter when I haven’t smoked in months. It’s like an alien hand or demonic possession.”

He examines the bent, cold cigarette. “Flicka doesn’t like the smell, and my parents don’t smoke. I’ve tried to give up these things a thousand times,” he says, watching the last of the smoke drift toward the ceiling far above.

“I picked it up as a teenager, of course, when I was a criminal. The others smoked. It’s hard to stop. Once you’re doing a wrong thing, it’s very hard to stop.”

Raphaeldoesn’t seem like a devil, sitting in the glow of the setting sun. Indeed, the long shadow of his chair spilling from the wall to the floor looks like it might be large wings at rest.

The last of the smoke curls around him as he looks up at you again, his gray eyes serious.

Maybe he could be a devil, sitting in the smoke and shadows like that, as the gold of the sun touches his face with fire.

He says, “Once you’re doing wrong things, you don’t want to stop, especially if you like doing them.”