Floating Intellect: Prescott

His slow approach from the far end of the library towards the great table at the center was slow and quiet. His steps were deliberate and calculated, moving with a steadiness of foot attributed to his strength and agility; his sculpted, sinewy muscles working simultaneously in an even stride, his self-awareness and control keen enough to contain the impact, weight and reverberations of his steps. His breaths drew long and deep and slow while his arms maintained an uncharacteristic stillness, intending to leave the air as undisturbed by his approach as he could manage. He could not see the object of his destination, correctly imagining his object veiled from view by stacks of books and papers and notebooks piled in dangerous but artfully-neat towers, each one undoubtedly and laboriously arranged according to some complex and overly-intellectualized system. The effect of the stout table dominated by the evidences of an in-depth research grew continuously imposing as he neared the object of his thoughts. Soon he was close enough to catch the first glimpses of his motive. Upon discovering her asleep amidst a wave of papers and books, he moved from around the back of the table to the corner to her left. He rested his left hand gently on the edge of the table, unconsciously desiring to feel the beat of the breath transmitted through the thick wood, but at the same time, not wanting to disturb her.

She looked like an angel lost on earth. Her face, turned away from him with her left cheek using her open Shakespeare anthology as a pillow, was almost entirely hidden by the voluminous cloud of dark chocolate-brown curls forming a nimbus around her oval face, a spray of stray curls-- appearing star-strewn underneath the glow of fluorescent lights--shaded her olive cheek and mingled with the shadows of her long, thick eyelashes. A few flighty curls shuddered whimsically to her even shallow breaths, like curtains fluttering about to the breeze at an open window. Her eyelashes skimmed her cheek under the subtle movements of a dream, estranging the shadows across her skin. In spite of the estrangement by the activity of her lashes, like that of earth from the sun as the result of shading branches, she appeared otherwise peaceful, her dream perhaps a recollection of her pre-earthly angelic experience. The only disturbance, the only evidence of earth, the only stain to the situation came from the pen she held to an open notebook, trapped mercilessly beneath her right hand as it violated the paper to which it was held with a suspiciously-strong grip, one that might only be attributed to the coherent, but heavy enough to witness to her slumbering state. It's ink, which had begun as an obedient line in the formation of a "t," had budded to a blot and blossomed to a three-centimeter-diametered bloom under the pressure, no doubt having sprung a leak from some joint in its plastic construction.

He moved at first to remove the paper of its burden, intending to free the pen of its struggle and thereby rescue the entire notebook from destruction and relieving the hand from excessive stress; but he only left his hand to hover over hers for a moment, examining with some contentment the still-life of his hand so close to hers. Conscientious that such a movement of her hand, or even an attempt to extract the pen from her grip, would surely wake her; he moved his hand with a thought to shoo the petal-soft curls from her face, but stayed his hand again upon feeling the warmth radiating from her unusually-pale cheek, the heat normally signified by a fire-pink glow laying hidden beneath her silken olive skin. An unsteadily-sharp and deep breath and a flicker of lashes punctured his reverie and yielded him from any contact. He wanted to detain her restoration to earth.

His observations, comprehensive as they were, comprised but a small moment-the passing of a few seconds, during which his attentions were accompanied by a fulness of thoughts and visions like this angel had brought him prematurely to the judgement bar at which trial she made the sum of all his experiences, the measure of his creation, the fulfillment of his purpose.