by Joan Arling

Feedback is always welcome: joanarling@e-scribblers.com.

Copyright © 2008 by Joan Arling. All Rights Reserved.

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I won’t begin to describe how it feels to be without a body, and even that is inaccurate, just that it does no longer feel like one. Or different, at least. However, Jane was with me, and that being the case, it would have taken more to throw me.

It had been an accident. A blown tyre had caused our car to swerve from the road, then down a ditch, obviously killing us. The last thing I remembered was the sound of our voices shouting each other’s name, then... then we were here.

We were not alone, far from it. For all they tell about the hereafter, the room — if you can call it a room — was full of people. Well, souls. We might as well have been in the waiting area of a labour office. Time and again a name would be called, and someone would disappear into what seemed to be an office which must have had a second exit, because no one came out again, and I didn’t believe that this office had the dimensions of a football stadium.

Jane and I passed the time, or should I say eternity, reminiscing about the past. I mean, having our completed lives to look back upon was new to both of us. Dwelling on the plans we’d had seemed rather futile, so instead we concentrated on how our demise would affect all of the people who had hated us in varying degrees. Trying to think of someone dear to us seemed a waste of time, even with eternity to draw upon — ever since Jane and I had moved in together, our popularity had been at an abysmal low.

It was only when the voice calling the names became impatient, that I realised that it had been my name for a few times. Jane looked at me in panic, and we both had the same thought: No one had yet returned through that door, and the thought of getting separated was more than we could stand. So I stood up, grabbed her hand, and pulled her after me.

The office looked just like any other office: rows of filing cabinets, and two desks back to back, one of which was unoccupied. Only the clerk dressed entirely in white gave any indication that this office was not one in a million. He looked at us, and an expression of dismay settled on his face, which had not been cheerful to begin with.

“You are not supposed to enter in groups”, he said. “Now who of you is Miss... ”

“I am,” I interrupted. “This is my partner Jane, and where one goes, there goes the other.” I put my arm around her waist, and Jane followed suit.

He shot us a sour look. “Have you any idea where we’d end up if every newcomer were allowed to continue as if still alive?"

He waited for a reaction from us, but all he got was that we tightened our hold on each other. He shook his head.

“Nosoul is compelled to stay here against her will." Acidly he added, “Considering the alternative, however... ”

“Any time!” Jane’s answer came like a bolt from the blue, and I felt my heart leap as she never as much as glanced at me for confirmation. God, did I love that woman! I nodded emphatically, momentarily at a loss for words.

He glared at me, then at Jane, then looked at the file lying before him, and grumbled, “Oh, I see, it’s you... ”, and, pulling another file, “ and you. Marked double-X at ‘Expected difficulty’. Sit over there, I’ll hand this upstairs.” He pressed a button on an intercom, and I heard him say, “Two cases of double-X in PR-4, form A-01... yes, triple even, from the look of them... yes, I’ll wait.”

He cast a dark look in our direction, “Just a split eon."

The intercom came alive again, and he acknowledged, “Yes, I know where. They’ll be there shortly.”

He turned to us, “You’ll be handled by the boss himself”, then, seeing our big eyes, “the boss of this department, what did you think? Go through that door, then into the last office on the left. Now hurry!”

The last we heard of him was a sigh of relief as we entered the corridor. Jane and I looked at each other, clasped our hands, and proceeded without a word. I could tell she was nervous, and she knew me too well to buy into my pretended coolness.

We turned left and were faced by someone with an impressive height. He was wearing, of all things, a halo!

“Hi, I’m Gabriel, and you must be The Inseparable Two.” He grinned. “Front office reported you to be a headache. But let’s just see where we are with the two of you.”

He indicated two chairs, and we sat down much more comfortably than before. Oh well, boss’s office, what would you expect?

He had two folders open before him, ours presumably, but he took another one from a stack, and opened it.

“This one is marked as troublesome as well, but she’ll probably still be easier to handle.” He looked at the two of us huddled together. “You know, this girl actually has something in common with you — she’s gay as well.” Hearing that word from the mouth of an arch angel was almost too much for me, and his eyebrows twitched at my gasp.

“She is about to come out to her parents. Did you have much trouble with that?”

Did we?! Jane and I looked into each other’s eyes, remembering how we’d struggled to keep ourselves off the street, having nothing and no one but each other. He knew that, of course, he was just reminding us.

“Because”, Gabriel continued, “by the looks of it she’ll be kicked out, if nothing worse. Now, her soul is not in a very stable condition, and it seems quite likely that, having nowhere to turn to, she’ll want to jump off a bridge.”

Our hands tightend around each other. “Nowhere? No one?”

“Sadly, the girl she fell for wanted nothing to do with her.” He paused. “The concept of deadly sin was not invented here, so she still has a fair chance of redemption. The thing is, our policy does not call for untimely arrivals.” He looked at us and fell silent.

I was confused, and at the same time I empathised with that girl.

“If someone were to show her a reason not to hurry here... ”, Gabriel mused.

Jane said, “Why do I get the feeling that you are leading up to something?”

“Ah, clever girl!” I glanced at her quickly, but for once the patronising words did not cause her to flare up. “Seeing that, on the one hand, I have no opportunity to place the two of you together, while you are obviously prepared to spit ectoplasm if I don’t, and, on the other hand, that there is some field work that needs to be attended to ... ” His voice trailed off.

I felt my eyes grow wide as I looked into Jane’s pensive face.

“I think he’s recruiting us as guardian angels”, she said, not taking her eyes off Gabriel.

“In training!” he interjected.

“We could be the first gay team of guardian angels!" Jane broke into a smile.

“The first!” he muttered. “You have no idea!”

And so we found ourselves on a road in the middle of the night, between a village and a railroad bridge crossing a nearby chasm, watching a freshly homeless girl walking hesitatingly in our direction.

The End

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