Cyril Rum, an angel on sabbatical, was a curious person.

Since making the decision to come to earth and see for himself how humans worked, he had grown to understand why it was so many of his angelic friends had advised him against it and why they avoided the earth.

It was a terrible place in so many ways, wars, famine, the gulf between the rich and poor was obscene, to say the least, and people didn’t seem to have a lot of regard for manners.

At the same time, Cyril did find the majority of people were reasonable folk, but the ones who gained the loudest voice were the rabble-rousers and the ones out to get what they could at others expense.

When Cyril had come to earth, he found himself a small house in a small town in a non-descript street.

It worked well for him as he could go about his business and not attract any attention.

As it turned out his neighbour the single and aged, Mildred Thrupp was a great asset to him as she was more than willing to tell Cyril everything he wanted to know.

Cyril was particularly curious about the people he saw living in his street. Most were peaceful folk, trying their best to make good for their families and Cyril was very curious about families.

Being a divine entity, the concept of family was not known to him. Divine entities existed; they didn’t have a connection to any other entity other than to acknowledge them as entities in themselves.

So seeing groups of people living within the confines of a house and sharing so much of their lives he found curious. He found they did so to feel a sense of belonging, as that was something humans appeared to value. Cyril liked that idea and was curious as to why in cases of families who didn’t appear to have what others did in terms of wealth and comfort were very connected and supportive of each other.

The Turner family at the other end of his street were one such family. A mother and father and five kids who lived in a smaller house than others, who were dressed in not very smart clothes and who seemed to struggle to get by.

An example was one Christmas when on the kids came by selling home-baked cakes. When Cyril asked why they were doing so, he was told they were trying to earn some money to buy their parents a Christmas present. When he asked them why that was important they told him their parents both worked, long hours, their dad, in particular, had two jobs and their mother took in washing and ironing. The children thought their parents deserved something special that Christmas and they thought a subscription to a TV streaming site would be a good idea.

Cyril was so moved he bought all their cakes, not knowing what he might do with them.

Being an angel, he was able to add a little something to their coffers, and the children went home with more than they needed to get their parents their gift.

Cyril discovered the curious complexity of being human. Love was a feature he was more than curious about and set out to discover more and more about it.

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2019/03/14/tale-weaver-214-curiosity-march-14th/