HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Rebel Angel

MARIA, AVE MARIA …

Photo by Quaid Lagan on Unsplash

**Rebel Angel writes *to keep the people he’s lost ‘on life support’*, a concept I find fascinating.

His focus is on the ‘flashes’ and ‘slivers’ of life, including heartache and grief. His series of fiction shorts, subtitled ‘Glimpses from Gehenna’ is extremely evocative, introducing us to a cast of characters, who as part of society’s dark underbelly, exist one day at a time.

‘Gehenna is defined as a place or state of misery. In the Bible, Gehenna is a cursed valley south of Jerusalem. Here, children were sacrificed to a false God. Gehenna is considered a place of divine punishment. Many biblical scholars believe it is Hell.’

Be prepared for a deep dive into the grimy underworld of crime, violence … and love. Yes, love. Because Rebel Angel’s portraits are not only of those living to survive but those who make up a community, a neighbourhood. Families. Mi familia.

One such story is Maria, emotive, powerful, and punctuated with authenticity by the use of the narrator’s mother tongue.

[embed]Maria Excerpts from Gehennamedium.com

He is named after his mother, Maria. Maria is named after her mother, or our young narrator’s abuela (grandmother). Already we’re getting a glimpse of generations of solidarity. ‘Maria’ in Spanish, means beloved, bitter, or rebellious. Our narrator wryly observes soy todas estas cosas, or that he is all these things.

We’re swiftly taken into the crux of the matter.

Maria is ‘doing thirty years to life in a Supermax prison’ existing ‘twenty-two hours a day locked in a windowless, soundproof coffin’.

We’re given palpable insights into her young son’s dismay.

Her fucking dumptruck attorney didn’t do shit. He told her to just plead guilty across the board. He only visited her twice in jail. Her phone calls were ignored.

He didn’t interview a single witness. During trial, his sole objection was overruled; flushing, he sat and shuffled legal pads for the remainder of the session. Several times he fell asleep during testimony. Took a jury less than fourteen hours to find her guilty.

We’re then introduced to other family members, from a father charged with terrorist threats after visiting the attorney and threatening ‘to make things go boom’ to Mi Tio (uncle) Cutty who drinks Schlitz malt liquor, curses at tv ball games, and falls asleep on ‘Daddy’s leather recliner, a loaded pistola in hand’.

Cutty showed us how to vender drogas (sell drugs). He schooled us to arma de fuego, laws, and how to throw hands. How to shoot C-Lo and craps, kneeling on cardboard on the front stoop. How to trap out anything.

One night, Cutty got pulled over for excessive speeding. He rolled down the driver’s window and turned down the stereo. Smiling politely, Cutty shot the approaching state trooper twice in the face.

Cutty is now serving 280 years in prison, with no possibility of parole.

Our narrator, eighteen years old and newly graduated with honours is now consumed with ‘venganza’. He will make them ‘answer for their sleights’ and ‘pay their debts.’ With his whole life ahead of him, his sole purpose now is to ‘make this right’. The cycle goes on. For him, infamy (not immortality) becomes his path of choice.

Rebel Angel picks up our hand to walk with him, side by side through the cursed valleys of violence and heartache leaving behind an indelible mark on our senses.

I highly recommend that you take a look at Rebel Angel’s other works (some shown below). There is much to discover and enjoy ❣

[embed]Don’t Get Shot Glimpses of Gehennamedium.com

[embed]Sermon on the Avenues Excerpts from Gehennamedium.com

© 2024 Susi Moore. All Rights Reserved.

☆ Missed my previous Highly Recommended article? See below … ☆

[embed]Passarozumbido — Poet and Memoirist Sprinting on Regardless …medium.com

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