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I catch a glimpse of the clerk’s face as I look away His eyes warri his face back to polite professionalis

The short elevator hall leads to a vast open area I take a quick peek after pushing the button for the elevator Above o all the way up to the glass do in short hops froels spiral up, while an inner ring of angels spiral down

I suppose they do this in order to avoid collisions, just the way our traffic patterns look organized froins, the total effect is a stunning array of celestial bodies in a seeelo had seen this in daylight with the sun strealass dome, he’d have fallen to his knees and painted ’til he was blind

The elevator doors slide open with a ding, and I tear nificence abovehis peers flying Before he shutters his eyes, I catch so

I refuse to feel bad for hier and hatred for the things his people have done to mine

But the hatred doesn’t come

Instead, sympathy trickles into me As different as we are, we are in et our lives back together again

But then, I remember that he is, in fact, not a person at all

I step into the elevator It has the , and red carpet you’d expect from an elevator in an expensive hotel The doors start to slide shut with Raffe still standing outside I put ?"

He glances around self-consciously "Angels don’t go into elevators"

Of course, they fly to their floors I playfully grab his wrists and spin hiht be watching Then, I waltz us both into the elevator

I press the button for the seventeenth floor My sto to escape froh place Raffe doesn’t look so coht see the open sky

When the door opens, he quickly steps out Apparently, the need to get out of a coffinlikeout of an elevator

The hotel roo room, and a bar It's all marble and soft leather, plush carpet and picture oSan Francisco at its finest

Now it makes me want to weep at the panoramic view of charred destruction

I walk over to thelike a sleepwalker I lean into it with ht with ravestone

The charred hills are streith leaning buildings like broken teeth in a burnt jawbone Haight-Ashbury, the Mission, North Beach, South of Market, Golden Gate Park, all gone So crunched underfoot

Here and there, pluers of a drowningup for the last time

Still, there are areas that don’t look cohborhood cohborhoods Could soht of asteroids, fires, raiders and disease?

Raffe pulls the curtains closed around me "I don’t knohy they left the curtains open"

I knohy The maids are human They want to mar this illusion of civilization They want to els did I would have left the curtains open too

By the ti up the phone His shoulders sag as exhaustion seems to finally catch up with him "Why don’t you hit the shower? I just ordered some food"

"Room service? Is this place for real? It’s hell on earth now and you guys order h room service?"

"Do you want it, or not?"

I shrug "Well, yeah" I’m not even eet another meal? "What about my sister?"