by Ann Crawford
“She could have stayed.”
“She obviously didn’t want to.”
Emily nods and wipes away a tear.
“You’re a vessel for those who want you to be one, those who are called to what you have. And regarding those for whom your energy doesn’t work, well, we just don’t know to what other places and expeditions they’ve been called.”
Angela smiles at David’s raised eyebrows. “Marion’s a live one. Literally.”
Brooke and Blake watch the monitor that shows Jack sleeping while Christopher consults his laptop and Sapphire whispers into the microphone: “You’re a miracle. You’re such a blessing. You’re so loved. Thank you for all that you are.”
Brooke turns to Blake. “Have you ever seen God?”
Blake nods.
“When?”
“Every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every light-year of my existence.”
Brooke lets this wash over her. “Huh. Okay. Just wondering. Good to know.”
“And I’ve been around for a very long time,” he adds. “And so have you. There’s never been a time without any one of us, in one form or another.”
Brooke lets this wash over her, as well. She pulls up some information on one of the monitors, studies it, and then addresses the sleeping man. “Oh, Jack, do you remember your agreement? You said you would wake up in this lifetime. It’s time to actualize that agreement.”
On the screen, she can see the sleeping Lacey accidentally belt Jack in the face. Jack wakes with a start.
Blake chuckles. “Well, that’s sure one way to wake him up! Back down we go.”
Reassembled in the bedroom, Sapphire continues her whispering and Christopher his computing while the two others stare at Jack as he stares at the ceiling. Very exciting.
Jack looks at the clock, which reads 2:45. He looks over at Lacey.
“Jack,” Blake chides, “when I said to send her love, I didn’t mean you had to keep doing it on and on, especially so directly!”
“Jack,” Brooke pleads, “you’re supposed to wake up. Metaphorically, I mean. You can sleep now if you want. In fact, that would be a really good idea.”
Blake leans over and bellows in Jack’s ear. “Jack, perhaps it’s time to leave Lacey.”
“Jack,” Brooke implores, “there’s more for you than this.”
Jack looks over at his sleeping, snoring wife and then looks back at the ceiling. He turns on his side, facing away from her.
The clock reads 4:30 as Jack shuts his eyes. The angels wait for a moment before converging at their desk.
“What are we going to do?”
Blake considers Brooke’s question. “Hmmmm. He’s actually getting more and more awake and aware, believe it or not, but he’s not going to leave her. He’s still stuck on that old-time religion thing. It worked for humanity for a while, but many haven’t moved past it yet.”
“Old-time religion?” Brooke huffs. “But this is California, Los Angeles even, not Kansas!”
“There are still enclaves, even here,” Blake clarifies. “You’re looking at two members of an enclave right now. And you just might be surprised about Kansas, by the way. These two are far more conservative than a bunch there.”
“So what can we do? Is there anyone we can send along to entice him out of his marriage?”
“He won’t go for that, even if his wife did. He’s too noble.”
Brooke sighs—well, grunts, really. “He’s not leaving her. He’s not waking up. He’s not following his plan at all.”
“Well, they were supposed to come together to birth those two beautiful beings.”
“Check. It’s done.”
Christopher looks up from his computer. “He’s certainly not going to leave a baby.”
“Well, that’s true.”
Christopher turns his laptop around to show them what he’s been studying. “And his charts show he’s still not going to leave her, despite everything.”
“What else can we do?”
“Job change? Get fired? The old boss is banging the old wiferoo, so he’d probably want Jack far away from here.”
“Nah,” Blake says. “Lacey would just go with him. He’s her meal ticket.”
“Couldn’t Dick be, that, too?” Brooke asks.
Christopher keys in some information and studies the results. “No.”
“How about—”
“Nah.”
“I know, we could—”
“Nah.”
Three months later—which might seem like a bit of a while to humans, but not to angels—“How about—”
“Nah.”
“Big Boss time?” Christopher asks Blake.
Brooke’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Perhaps,” Blake says. “Let’s give it a little more time.”
No one responds to the very obvious question on Brooke’s face.
“How about—”
“Nah.”
“Okay, Big Boss time,” Blake announces. “Brooke, go find something to do somewhere else.”
Sam makes a few less-than-graceful moves on top of Emily, who is pretty much doing a great lump-on-a-log imitation. Both of their angel teams meditate with their backs to the couple, giving them privacy.
When Sam finishes, he rolls over. Their angels face them again. A second later, Emily hears a loud snore. Sam’s angels disappear to the great office in the sky. In the galaxy, really.
Emily looks at the clock: 12:45. She stares at the ceiling. Long gone is the powerhouse from the flower shop we saw a few months ago; it doesn’t look like there’s a full-blooded human being residing on the planet, in her body, even in her feet.
All four of her angels start whispering to her—even Stephanie puts down her computer.
“Emily, you’ll be fine without him,” Angela urges.
“Emily, there’s a whole life waiting for you,” David adds.
“Emily, this doesn’t calculate anymore,” Stephanie joins in.
“Emily, you’re beautiful, you’re a miracle, you are so loved,” whispers Jasper. “For God’s sake, woman!” No whisper there. If the rest of his team was comprised of humans, they might’ve gotten whiplash from swiveling their heads so quickly. Jasper quickly returns to his usual whispering. “You are so beautiful. You are such a miracle. You are so loved.”
“Let this love show up in your life in a much better way,” Angela suggests to her human.
“Just let him go,” David pleads with her, as well.
“This really doesn’t compute, Emily,” Stephanie says. “There’s nothing wrong with either of you. It’s a matter of incompatible software, that’s all. You just don’t interface.”
“Emily, you are so loved,” Jasper whispers. “You are so loved. You are so loved.”
A tear slips down Emily’s face.
The next morning, Emily stumbles into the shop.
“Good morning. How are you, dear one?”
Emily bursts into tears. The wail isn’t far behind. Again, while Emily’s angels cover their ears, Marion calmly holds out the box of tissues. “It sometimes needs to get worse before it gets better,” she says.
“Hey, she’s taking our job!” David laughs.
Ten after three. Emily finally falls asleep. Her angels transport back to their desk.
“Alright then, it’s time to check in with the Big Boss,” Angela proclaims.
“Finally!”
“Not you,” Angela says to David. “You wait here. You have to be doing this angel thing for a while before you can do a check-in.” She shoos him away.
Somewhat disgruntled, he watches the rest of the team hover around an as-yet-unused (as far as David was concerned, anyway) monitor on the desk. After a little while, Stephanie snaps off the monitor.
“Well?” David tries to hide his annoyance.
“There might be something coming down the cosmic freeway,” Angela grins.
“Did you just talk to God?”
; “Yes. Just like I do every single time I talk.”
Chapter 4
Nine-thirty. The book Emily was reading slips from her hands as she falls asleep.
Her angels disappear from her room…
…and appear at their desk.
On the “Human’s Ambient Sound” speaker, they hear a dog barking in the distance, which wakes up their charge. Her angels disappear from the great hall...
...and reappear at her bedside. Emily puts her book on her night table, snuggles under her covers, and quickly slips into sleep again.
Her angels disappear from her room…
…and reappear at their desk.
“Great exercise,” David says.
But Angela simply stares at the monitor, watching Emily sleep; Jasper whispers; Stephanie computes. After a while, David stands up, looks around their area of the great hall, and starts to pace. The teams in many of the surrounding cubicles diligently attend to their tasks, while other cubicles are empty because that team’s human is still up and about.
David overhears one angel talking to the rest of her group: “I know, you could have this woman’s phone line go down and send this repairman over there and on the way, he could run into—”
David roams down the aisle a little more. As he passes an unangeled (yes, well, we can’t exactly say unpeopled, can we?) cubicle, David spots a heretofore unnoticed small monitor showing a human being doing her human thing and her angels doing their angelic things. Since David is always away from the desk while he and the team are with Emily, he’s never seen that a monitor plays the whole human/angel day in their absence. He leans closer to see what this particular human is up to: she tosses items into her grocery cart and heads a little further down the supermarket aisle. Nothing very monumental here. He straightens up and notices that Angela has stopped watching Emily and instead has her eyes on him.
“Everything’s monumental,” Angela says.
“Pardon?” He’s irritated at himself for slacking on his duties as well as for thinking something he’d rather not have his superior pick up on.
“It’s okay.”
There she goes again! David strides back to the cubicle devoted to Emily. His irritation doubles, then quadruples onto itself—he’s irritated at himself for being irritated, which only increases the irritation. He whistles in an attempt to clear his mind.
“That woman at the supermarket is about to have eye contact with a man who appears to be alone, but isn’t—his girlfriend is just further down the aisle. The man’s attention back to this woman sends his girlfriend into a rage because it’s just the very last straw on the camel’s back, as humans like to say. But mostly because it’s the higher road on her path. She’s going to leave him, then meet the man she’s going to marry, and together they parent a child who is eventually going to be the President.”
She lets David digest the vast implications of a trip to the supermarket. “But the future’s always in motion, as Penelope told me,” he finally comments.
“Right, but some things, like who’s going to be President, are somewhat fixed. They have to be.” She lets him think about that for a few moments, too. “Feel like going on a galactic gallivant?”
“Huh?”
“That’d be a ‘road trip,” as humans would call it.”
“We’re allowed to do that?”
“Of course.”
“Um, sure.”
Angela takes David’s arm and the two disappear from the great hall…
…and appear in the heart of Skid Row on New York’s Bowery.
Several drunks snore in a doorway. David notices that they shimmer with light. Their computing angels compute, their watching angels watch, and their whispering angels whisper to them: “You are loved. You are a blessing. You are a miracle. You can wake up to the light that you are—any time. You are loved. You are a blessing.”
Angela and David watch them for a while, until she taps him on the shoulder and points to one particular man. “Look, he’s about to die. You can see his family, his friends, even his dog—they’re all lining up to greet him.”
David notices that the dying drunk shimmers more than the others and that light beings, including one in a canine shape, hover over him.
“But don’t beings move on to their next incarnation, their next phase, whatever that is?” David asks. “How can all of them be waiting for him—and all those beings for all those humans—when they die?”
“It’s a hologram,” Angela explains. “One piece represents the whole. We’re all part of this whole, plus we can be anything at any time, anywhere. So our beloved ex-humans/light beings here can be on to their next phase, whatever that is, and they can be there to greet their loved ones when they pass on and congratulate them for a job well done.”
“But this one was a drunk!”
“That was his disguise, yes. We’re all drops in the vast ocean of infinity, cleverly disguised as a drunk or an angel or whatever we choose. And just living a life on Earth is a job well done. It’s not exactly easy here, you may have noticed.”
The drunk slowly opens his eyes. As he notices his three angels sitting around him, he blinks. When they don’t disappear—they’re really there, he realizes—he tries to sit upright but fails. The computing angel puts away his computer.
“Look, he’s about to talk to his angels,” Angela says. “He’s at the point where he can see between the worlds.”
“Am I dying?” the drunk asks his angels.
“Yes, my love,” responds an angel. “You are. But it’s not an ending. It’s a new beginning.”
“Anything’d be better than this.”
“You did well, my dear,” says another angel. “Earth is one of the toughest places in the universe.”
“Probably could’ve done better.”
“Yes, perhaps you could have,” responds the third angel. “Perhaps next time you will. It’s your choice. And it’s all good.”
Tears roll down the man’s face.
“Your family and friends are waiting for you.” An angel points to a shaft of light that has appeared overhead, much like a spotlight shining in a theater.
“They hated me!”
“They don’t any more.”
“I didn’t do too well here.”
“You evolved your soul. That’s all you needed to do.”
The drunk leans his head back and slumps as the life force leaves his body. His human-shaped form of light detaches itself from his physical body—hands and feet first, then his head, and then the rest of the light body follows. His light form starts to rise. A chorus of cheers and party sounds—barks, too—erupt from the group of light beings as his light form rises up to meet them.
“Atta boy!”
“Welcome home!”
“Mom! Dad!” the man cries. He throws his arms around them, but not very successfully. He tries again, and this time his arms pass through them a little less rapidly. Third time’s a charm: becoming accustomed to his arms of light, he slowly wraps them around his parents. After a few moments relishing the reconnection, he turns to the next being in the receiving line. “You! You sank my business! You took my entire life away from me! You turned me into a drunk! No—oh my God!” he hoots. “That was you?” After a couple of pats on the back that pass right through his former nemesis, the third pat meets its target. “That was you all along? Holy moly, you sure had me going!”
The shouts of welcome and greeting slowly start to fade up and away. The dog barks more raucously.
“Hey Buddy—how ya doin’ ole pal? It’s been such a long, long time!”
Angela and David smile at each other.
“Quite a homecoming,” David says.
“Oh, yes. They all get something like that.”
“What’s next for him? What’s next for his angels?”
“Whatever they want, whatever they choose.” Angela takes David’s arm and they disappear…
…and appear in a stately mansion overlookin
g a beach. The sun is setting over the Pacific—reds and oranges and yellows glow in bright bands of colors on the clouds. But the very genteel-looking, golden-aged man and woman keep their eyes glued to the television, martini glasses in hand.
David shifts about, waiting for something to happen, but the couple just stares at the high-def wide-screen. After a bit, it dawns on him that they’re not even seeing what they’re watching. “No one’s home!”
“No, no one’s home,” Angela concurs.
“Plus, they’re each a drunk, too, just like the other fellow.”
“Oh, these humans are so clever. Even their disguises can take so many interesting disguises.”
Angela and David watch them for a while longer until Angela takes David’s arm and they disappear….
…and appear in a cold, dark room. David sees four angels holding the hands—two angels holding each hand—of a young woman as a man forces himself on her. Three men lounge in chairs along the wall, waiting to take a turn.
The three angels of the rapist shout to him, “Stop! Please! You can do better than this! You are here to be a blessing! You are loved!”
David looks around him in complete shock and disbelief. “What…in…creation……?”
The three angels of the last man in line whisper to him. “You are a blessing. You are loved. You are here to share love. Please wake up. You can do so much good with your life.”
The man, a younger, less rough version of the other men, slowly stands up and slips out the door. His angels clasp hands, dance, and hug each other as they follow him out.
“He heard them,” David smiles.
“Yes, at some level.”
David watches the woman again. While her rapist is still in action, her eyes are fixed on the ceiling. Her angels speak to her: “You are loved. You are strong. You will find a better life and teach others to be strong. And you’ll do it so well because you’ve had to be so strong, dear one. They’ll look up to you because you’ve truly had to follow the road of finding your inner strength. You are so loved. You are so strong.”