Angel with a Messenger Bag
A/N: These characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. The twisted tale I weave is something else.
I saw this outside the airplane window. Slash is boy-on-boy. Adults only, please. Stream of consciousness. All errors are mine.
Chapter 1. In the Beginning
Ice. Screeching metal. Screaming. A searing burn up my side. Darkness. Cold. So Cold. So Fucking Cold. Blood. Lots of it.
Flashing lights. So Cold.
Inky black and a thundering sound in my ears. It's my heartbeat and it's really fast. Why?
-OOO-
I open my eyes, and see a white shape beneath me. Odd rectangular shape, so very white and there's a lump in the center of it.
A large mummy-shaped lump—human sized. Male, I'd guess. But why am I looking down on it? I glance around and realize I'm suspended above it. Curious.
I lift my arm, until now locked at my side, and disinterestedly observe the motion. I release the limb, and it chooses to drift downward, but I'm unable to touch the sleeping human beneath me. I'm too far above him. I finally puzzle out he's sleeping in a bed on the floor, and I'm... Not sure what I am. Drugged, possibly. It's a mildly pleasant feeling, and it comes with a very small buzzing at the back of my head.
Rolling over, I'm suddenly staring into a fathomless night above me. It's compelling, pulling me into it. Not a star or a shining planet in sight, either.
I take a moment to check back over my shoulder at the sleeping figure, and wonder why I care what happens to that figure. I can't see his face; it appears to be covered by a sheet. There is a small section of short, cropped blond hair that has escaped from the coverlet. Definitely male.
Bored with the turn my analysis has taken, I refocus on the void I'm about to enter. I should be terrified, because I've lost my anchor, and I've no rudder, or sail, or a rope to pull me back.
But all those arguments don't mean anything right now. This deep, silent, relentless sensation is sweeping over me, and I'm giving in. I've no regrets about it.
The sensation is much like being rolled in a blanket, as happened to me when I was twelve and my brothers had ambushed me in the barn as I went about my chores. The blanket had been scratchy, and the rolling, and their shouting, and the feel of the hay poking through the cloth had all served to disorient me. But that was a childhood memory; this is happening to me now.
And I am unable to stop it. Don't want to, in fact.
-OOO-
Some time must have passed, because I have no recollection of how long I've been sleeping.
Or dreaming?
There is a loud POPPING noise, and then I am above it all. It is very blue, very crisp, and very clear up here. Wherever I am, I can see it all. Yeah, clear is a good description. I'm even a little chilly, in spite of the sunlight.
I appear to be looking down on some foamy, puffy, cottony, bunched substance.
Touching it is out of the question.
"GET ME DOWN! HELP, HELP, HELP!" I am screaming, shrieking, begging for help, I notice. Almost as if I am of two minds. One reacts, and my other self gauges my reactions, labeling them as reasonable, or irrational, or just plain irritating.
Meanwhile, I am still screaming in terror.
Terror, you see, because I realize I am suspended above the clouds below me, and I am expecting to fall.
"Can I help?"
I close my mouth and the screaming, shrill, terror-driven sounds ceases. The voice has come from behind me, the sound a creepy, crawling sensation that finds a home just between my shoulder blades. I would swear I can feel someone's breath beating against my skin.
If I turn around, if I even can do such a thing, will I then become unfastened and plummet thousands of feet through the air as I fear?
"You can turn around, I'll catch you." The voice is comforting, even if I can detect a note of boredom in it. Is this creature accustomed to meeting new people who can only shriek?
Cautiously, I decide to see if I can pull myself together and consciously turn my body.
This is when I learn I don't actually have a body. Only a small bellow of horror escapes my lips this time before I bite down hard and swallow back the noise.
"Yes, you are correct. Your body is gone. But you can believe it still exists, and it will reappear for you. That helps sometimes." The disembodied voice is moving now, coming closer by the increasing volume of the words. The laws of physics don't seem to apply to wherever I am.
Curiosity prevails, and I will myself to turn. I never liked it when someone snuck up on me, and even now the instinct for self-preservation kicks in.
I turn, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand and salute. An apparition awaits me. I pluck that descriptor from thin air, appropriate because I am able to see all the way though the creature.
Meeting my first ghost triggers several more minutes of my incoherent screeching. The ghost is a male, I note in passing. Both of us listen helplessly until I can finally turn off the sound, much like a spigot being cranked shut with a knob. It takes time, but eventually the sound runs down, before completely disappearing.
Now that I can focus on my ghost, I wonder at his appearance. He is more substantial than he'd been when I'd first seen him. In fact, he's become opaque. I open my mouth to question this, but he responds as if he's been listening to my thoughts. Am I that transparent to him?
"You make me real."
"Huh?" Not my best comeback, but it has been a difficult day so far.
You. Make. Me. Re…"
"Just stop. That is so annoying." I pause. What do I really want to know from this floating apparition?
"Why am I here?" I ask.
"Everyone wants to know that, and none of us have answers, you see."
"Why am I here?" Hoping.
"That didn't work when you were alive, and it won't work any better now. Repeating the question just serves to irritate your correspondent."
I process what he'd said: 'when you were alive.'
Am I dead? Something feels off about it. Shouldn't death be more final? More definitive? If I am dead, which I doubt, why do I have questions? All questions should have been answered by my death. That would only be fair.
I don't know how, but I know reports of my death are premature. None-the-less, I am positive I am right.
I take a moment to regroup, assessing my companion who is staring fixedly at my face.
"I'm staring because I've never seen anyone quite like you before now."
"Would it be too much to let me at least ask the question before you answer it?" I am annoyed. I doubt dead people could be annoyed, which further solidifies my suspicion I am not really dead.
And if I am correct, who is this man? Because he is no longer a ghost. He's become as real as I feel.
"I'm an angel."
"What's that black strip of material hanging off your shoulder?"
"Hmm, you're getting better at asking your question as you think it. It's only when you think it first, and then decide to speak that I can beat you."
"Are you avoiding answering me?"
"It's a shoulder strap for a leather messenger bag."
"Isn't that pretentious?"
"Not really. I happen to like it. I can keep my important documents in it."
"But you're dead; what documents do you need in heaven?"
"Let me explain," and I mentally fill in, 'No, let me sum up,' but my companion continues unperturbed by the first thought I have purposely cast in his direction.
"I'm not dead. I'm an angel. You are dead. That's the difference." The smug look on his face is the sort that I'd enjoyed knocking off the faces of other men when I'd been alive.
"So you admit you are dead? Well, that's progress," Edward opines.
We seemed to be at an impasse, so I elect to fall back on my Southern-manners.
"I'm Jasper. Do angels have names as well as wings?"
"Edward. And yes, we do have names, but wings have fallen out of fashion."
"I don't recall reading about any Angel Edward in Sunday School at the God's Light Episcopal Church."
A flash of annoyance momentarily mars the features of my new friend.
"Do you doubt me, then, Jasper?"
"Perhaps you are Devil, only sent to me to tempt me."
"Do you see any horns, or cloven feet?"
"If you were the Devil, would you be stupid enough to broadcast that fact? Cloven feet would be obvious. You strike me as a more subtle fellow, prone to the small dropped clue rather than the baseball bat to the head."
"I am an angel," he stubbornly repeats, saying it a few times to enjoy the sound of it rolling off his silvered tongue.
"Are you my Guardian Angel? If so, and I'm dead, you can't deny you did a shitty job of watching over me."
"No," he huffs in exasperation. "There is no such thing. It's a construct of what you would call intuition."
"Edward, your sentence makes no sense to me. None-at-all. And with death should come certainty, not confusion." I nod emphatically, my head bobbing making me a little dizzy. I'm trying to avoid looking down as we converse.
He sniggers, not a nice sound. "As a dead man, you've a lot to learn. I saw you floating here, mindlessly, and I determined to take pity on you, Jasper. I've not had a project like you in several hundred years. I simply felt the need to become corporeal once again. Taking you on is my ticket to being so."
"So how long were you observing me?"
"Thirty-seven minutes."
"That's all?" My voice is choked with emotion; I'd been expecting him to say 'two days' or perhaps several hours. But minutes? It is another mystery in an ocean of them, each no bigger than a drop of water.
"That's all it took, after several hundred years of searching." Edward stops short, as if he's revealed something he'd not intended to tell me.
"Were you searching for me, Edward?"
"Yes." Shifty eyes if ever I've seen any during my brief lifetime; can angels lie?
"Yes, we can. It comes with the territory. Useful when dealing with one the Devil has possessed. Fight fire with fire, that sort of thing."
"Why were you searching for me?" Is he going to me make me spell it out in excruciating detail?
"No, I've no desire to turn your vision of heaven into a living hell, an extremely painful image I saw in your thoughts just now. Trust me, Bosch was nothing more than a fanciful dreamer." I grimace at the idea of Edward poking around in my head for visual cues; hearing my thoughts is bad enough.
When I mentally ask him to continue, he inclines his head to let me know he's heard me.
"I wasn't actually searching for Jasper Whitlock. But I was looking for someone like you."
"Dead?" I am clueless. Why would he be searching for a former Confederate soldier?
"No, Jasper, you are confused. That was a past life. In this one, you were a…wait a minute, just give me a minute, it's on the tip of my tongue… Player? No, now it's called the acting profession. You were an actor!" He delivers the line, mighty pleased with himself, going by the wide grin on his face. It is a very beautiful sight, given that he is an angel, after all.
But no longer a soldier? Could Edward the Angel possibly be wrong? I can't remember being an actor, but I can remember the sound of gunfire, and cannonballs, and shouting, and whining metal as it twisted, and…
"I was riding a motorcycle and a car came out of blind alley without stopping. I could see the Black Cobra careening towards me out of the corner of my eye, and I swerved the bike to avoid being hit, and lost control of it…"
"That's right, Jasper." His voice is gentle, as if he regrets the necessity of agreeing with me.
"So I am dead." I'd been in a motorcycle accident and been killed, I guess. It seems pretty final, in its way.
"That's about all of it."
I briefly wonder if he's left out anything, but I have a more pressing question for him.
"Yes, you can be reborn, once your file has been reviewed and stamped for another shot."
"So this being dead might be a temporary thing, provided I was a good person when I was alive, right?" I am a little sketchy on the reincarnation process, other than what is readily accessible as part and parcel of popular culture.
Edward merely nods in agreement, his unusually robust locks flopping as he emphasizes how strongly he feels about the possibility of my rebirth.
Whew! Even if my flavor of religiosity has been dead wrong about the subject, it appears no one seems to be holding a grudge. Evidently I am still eligible to be reborn to try again.
Forgetting Edward can read my thoughts, I can't help wondering if the opportunity for rebirth comes with an expiration date.
"Yes, it does."
A/N: Completely stream of consciousness. I will post the next chapter soon.
