He films the clouds pt. 2 – (heaven is a ghost town)
Dedication: to the fluffly Gugeta.
1. heaven is a ghost town
We meet in an ash-storm. When I place my hand on his shoulder, I see grey had-beens drifting on the wind like snow. There is yellow tape that reads "keep out" laced through the remnants of the fence. This is what humans call sadness, this closing of the eyes and inability to breathe. This sort of leaning against a charred fencepost, head tilted towards the sky. I try to remember what I'm supposed to do. Maybe stop myself from delving too deeply into his consciousness. Maybe feelings are raw things and humans wear flesh and skin to conceal them, and as soon as I think it, I realize I'm right.
I pull back and the world is dark again. It's comfortable. I don't have to exist in this warm darkness. I don't have to place my maybe-there hand on his soul and figure out if I can even talk to him, much less make him happy.
Yet you must. He must pass away with no regrets.
A pulsating, tight sensation. I'm learning lots of things today, like how angels-in-training can feel fear, possibly doubt. I imagine I am opening my mouth. There is no need, but the action is familiar and I try to remember having vocal chords that vibrated with living words. I imagine I am opening my mouth to catch the ashflakes.
"Hey," I say before I can change my mind. I guess it's a good thing I didn't know being dead would amplify my voice and play back about fifty overlapping echoes. There's a strained cough that I think comes from me. It's hard to tell what you're doing when the only things you can see are souls. When your soul is in the process of being wiped clean so it can go into Heaven's recycling bin. That's the thing with angels. You give up your soul to sprout wings, and centuries later, you can see it nestled in some random human's chest and feel a twinge of an unnamable desire. Thankfully, I'm too new at this whole guardian of mankind thing to have had that happen. "Can you hear me?"
But the problem is, they never tell you in angel school that humans don't react very well when they realize their companion is nowhere to be seen. Most likely they were counting on us to remember being alive well enough to know people think hearing voices is a sign of insanity. The boy is no different. Once he realizes there is no form to accompany my voice, his soul flashes warning-red and shivers, as if it feels a draft. I hear him draw a shuddering breath. My guidebook tells me this thing I'm experiencing is pity with a dash of compassion, so I draw closer and pat the approximate location of his shoulder with what I believe to be my hand. His soul quivers some more.
"I'm going crazy," he mutters to himself. I think this is a typical reaction, but I keep my opinion to myself.
"You're not, Leo," I reassure him. "I'm an angel. I was sent here to help you be happy."
"Go away." That soul of his dulls for a hairbreadth of a second. Then it flares and burns more brilliantly than ever. I don't need to touch him to know he's squeezed his eyes shut.
"It's okay," I promise him, but that only seems to frighten him. I try not to resent how human communication is so unnecessarily complicated, how every word is shielded as carefully as their souls.
Sadly, it doesn't work. So I take a moment to compose myself. Good thing Leo doesn't say anything this time.
"They warned me this would happen," I find myself telling him, "said you wouldn't believe I'm really here." For a moment, I can almost see Leo Baskerville glaring daggers at me. Then there is nothingness and his soul, his startlingly vivid soul. "I'm supposed to help you be happy but I don't know how, and I didn't want to look in your memories. You are Leo Baskerville, right? You're about to—" and this is when a heavy something is hurtled at me. I don't want to find out if I can still get hurt, and I'm more than a little relieved when it misses me.
"You're not real. Can't be if you know my name." Quietly. Like a coiled snake, ready to spring. Like he deals with disembodied voices on a regular basis. What bullshit.
"Hey!" My being defines this feeling as anger. "Of course I'm not. Being an angel gives me access to some information. I would've gotten to that already if you hadn't thrown…whatever it was…at me. What did you throw at me?"
"You…can't see me. Or you can't see anything," Leo muses instead of answering my question. "Justice is blind, hm?" Then he goes and flings another something in my general direction. I hear the cogs in his brains turning. They click into place as he decides maybe I'm really not in his brain, and I'm worth expending the effort to be target practice.
"You don't seem like the sort I'd want to see anyway," I mumble to myself. I barely doge the object in time and for a moment, I wish to be able to exhale slowly. One of those things humans do to show exasperation. "Anyways, I'm here to help you—not that you're making it that appealing."
"I don't need your help. Doctor told me to ignore the voices." I hear him trudging away. "By the way, I'm atheist."
Here lies the problem. You sign up for angel 101 after death, thinking you're going to make a difference. But it isn't like that. Once you announce your existence, some wise-guy's bound to drag God into the conversation, and it takes a bloody miracle to convince them you're right. It's a huge waste of time and energy. I don't think there's any mortal who fully appreciates just how much those miracles they keep demanding are taxing us. Still, all I'm thinking about is how to get his attention as quickly as possible. He's my first assignment, even if he's aggravating. And it's probably angelic duty to forgive our stupid humans.
I concentrate on pulling the darkness, my old friend towards me. The sound of Leo's footsteps down the gravel streets. A feeling like being crushed by the weight of the world. It's not wholly unpleasant, really; I manage to keep from fainting this time. And when the weight lifts, I put my hand on Leo's shoulder right on time to feel a dove land right on the middle of his head.
"You've been blessed with a sign," I tell him.
"You've got to be kidding me." More doves are coming, flapping their wings at him. The boy has halted in his tracks, his bird-thin arms waving wildly in the air. "What the did you do? Call them off!"
"Can't do that," I say with less regret than I should feel. "It only works oneway."
Leo pulls at the bird in his hair. I feel how futile his efforts were I try very hard not to snort. He says the next few sentences like he can barely believe he's choking them out. "Let's say I believe you. But I've never heard of angels being sent to make people happy before. Why me?"
My grip on his shoulder goes slack. "Because no one's around to talk about our roles. Because you're about to die, just like everyone else who's been through this…process."