Liz Arczy

We meet the character of Liz Arczy briefly in the first book. She then develops slowly but surely throughout the saga to a certain potency and consequence. Receptionist at the clinic of Gabriel, the red head human picked the interest by her quirky personality.

Her first ambiguity lays in the fact that she is a most sociable loner. You can rightly ask me how does that work or what do I mean by that. Liz is a character whose work involves greeting and meeting an array of strangers everyday and her bright smile, conversation bring them the ready comfort that they will be looked after very well in the clinic of Gab. Not only that lively Liz has a very messy after work partying and else, life with again almost strangers. She is there fully surrounded in bars, clubs and wheresoever she enjoys spending her spare time. She mingles and muddles with any, yet her heart will not get involved. If her social going out mates and would be friends loves her to bits, if Liz would give carelessly inches of her body to almost anyone she would not remember in the morning, her heart remains un-given. She protects it fiercely from being hurt, hence she stays well away from love. Liz never did let someone close to her heart since her very unhappy childhood, when her mother gave her up for adoption aged four…

This character lives a singleton life in the fear of what others can do to her if she starts loving them. Some foster parents she liked so much, gave her away just like her mother did, despite her trying her best to please them. The abandon, the hurting rejection, taught Liz the tough lesson to never trust anyone but her own self. The only one who could truly care about herself was just her and no one else.

She became a self reliant woman, who looks very strong and happy on the outside yet who walks upon her achilles’s heels ready to tumble to her doom at any point. Worst, the rejection of others, she mirrored it on how she looked after her own self. Devoid of loving care since ages, the character does not know how to look after herself properly. For example, she does not know what a full fridge looks like, nor what a proper meal consists of. She perpetrates on herself how she was always treated. A single glass of fruit juice is the perfect breakfast for her, a packet of crisps the perfect lunch, and if she has dinner it would be a takeaway pizza, just a slice of it and she will give the rest to the homeless guy living in her street.

There is a bit of ‘Holly Golightly’ in Liz, yet far less glamorous. For a start the character doesn’t care that much about her appearance. She lost the care about pleasing others: making efforts results in being abandoned anyway like it did with her many parents, real or foster. She looks like a ‘Boho chic’ chick, with red messy hair and the attire to fit the bill. However that woman has nothing to do, apart being herself to be just loved by others, especially male counterparts. There is something about Liz that attracts them like night butterflies which she will burn away from her sight and life as soon as she awakes to daylight.

Strong and fragile at the same time, her character has to account for her second ambiguity. I would say myself that she is falsely strong and strongly fragile. She went through much in her childhood and it determined her as an adult, with bases which are far from being universal. If Liz Arczy fiercely looks after herself to keep her very independent lifestyle, she undermined herself with her unhealthy ways. Her feeding habits are anorexicaly appalling. So much so that Liz almost constantly looks like a starved kid that desperately need to be fed. Combined to that her binge drinking, her chain smoking, and wild sex life and you have a recipe for disaster in a woman no taller than 5 foot 1 past her thirties.

She seems to have a fully enjoyable social life but Miss Arczy has been a sad kid, deep down, since a long time. It takes only Angels to know the right truth of the matter. Appearances can’t full them long, especially when they are expert mind readers like some of them.

Let me reveal nuggets of news which are happening further down the line in the saga.

First we get to know little titbit's of angelic info. Like any human, Liz was supposed to have a Guardian Angel, yet her unlucky self possessed one who walked away from his duty to devote himself to a demon, far back down her life line. To Angels’ eyes, this explains to them the messy life of that unguarded human. She had no protection or advice to prevent her from falling from one bad adventures to another. However this does not excuse the frail woman for humans are granted free will for Angels can only influence them subtly.

Second, the rather celibate Doctor Purallee likes the blunt honesty of Liz Arczy and her person very much. Working with her for years, six to be exact, for she was the replacement of Wendy Workmaster at the reception of the clinic, the Archangel comes to realise that that particular human for some reason is devoid of a Guardian Angel. Already looking after Walter, Caroline and his nephew Micky, what he calls his humans, or his human family, therefore having his hands rather full, Walter Workmaster is a heavy weight of a human to look after, the generous Gabriel nonetheless decides to loosely keep an eye on Liz. As her boss, he checks upon her. Any of her absences and sicknesses, will have him investigating and make sure that she is alright. Him and Caroline will go to Liz’s flat offering either their medical help, or their moral support. Gabriel feels he is the personal Doctor of all his employees, but more than that for Liz, there is a latent impression that he could contemplate the human as a potential partner. That secret care of Liz Arczy, if very reserved, almost silently done, with that slight tint that possible love could develop between them one day, is shown touchingly in one gesture that Gabriel only reveals to his Uncle Raphael and Azryel. Knowing how the human lacked vision for her own future, with the same applying to Walter, knowing that both are neither the insurance policy types, nor thinking of provisioning for their older days, the Archangel monthly and secretly puts aside money for this two humans to cover any eventuality that could affect them. He did so for years. He does make sense that he does it for Walter, his family, but for Liz, it tells of a generous somewhat affection for the woman.

Third, for the juicy revelation, Liz simply and literally falls for Azryel Mortimer, the Death Angel. Her brash ways of being did pick the interest of Death. All at once, he is rather amused and saddened by her. He knows her fate, and it is not a rosy one at all, the human has done so much to herself that the curtain of death will draw upon her in give or take six months time from their second meeting. For him, she is the walking pity of a human yet he is touched by her simply faulty humanity. If he is rightly pissed off by a human that is wasting herself away, by sheer indulgence, negligence, and total lack of love, he can not help being taken by her human plight somehow. When he offers her his help and friendship, he receives a bombshell back, a burning one, the gift of Liz’s love… To know how this will end you just have to turn the pages of the books of the saga.

Writing the love story between Az and Liz has been a very emotional enjoyment and pure pleasure. From their first look to the build up to the end, their love touches me by its playful yet serious intensity. I will mourn the character of the very mortal Liz, just like her Death Angel when I will write her last lines.

For the trivia, Arczy, her surname was created by rearranging the letters of the word ‘Crazy’ Her first name had to finish with a Z while her surname had to start with a A for the character represents the A to Z guide of how to mess up your life as a human, the ultimate road map for anybody to go downhill with all the clever shortcuts that reduce years to arrive at your ultimate destination. It is definitely a crazy thing to do to oneself to not care for your own life. And yes for the imagery that would make you a very strong contender to only belong to death. Liz embracing the Death Angel without question is an allegory as much as a love story within the entire saga.

I sometimes inspire myself from real people to build my characters, I dived into my own dirt to write about Liz Arczy. That character bestows a lot of my idiosyncrasies. If I do not indulge in the big craze for selfies, writing Liz was a bit of a self portrait. However I can reassure you that I had a decently happy childhood rather than a sad one. That part of the character’s life is just pure creative imagination. Her tendency to swear a hell of a lot is however one of my own bad habits for example. If you would pinpoint me upon it, I would only apologise with a ‘scuse my French’. I would feel I would not be able to be myself if I could not do so.

I will not tell you in detail what are the bits describing me from which are not, for writing that character was exposure enough for me. The people that knows me best will recognise them and that is enough of an incentive to deal with.

For the very same reason I will leave Liz Arczy totally unquoted in the Compendiums. If you want to meet her and part of me read the It-666’s saga.