A/N: A one-shot based on the 2015 independent film "Look Again".
Guardian Angles
Amit Gupta was finally happy.
He had been happy before; the trouble was that it never lasted. Every time things started to go well, someone he trusted betrayed him. Friends. Business partners. Girlfriends. Until the day he lay down on a pair of unused railroad tracks to kill himself, that is. While the act itself was futile, he desperation was enough that it caught the attention of someone upstairs and two guardian angels were assigned to him.
Amit assumed that the reason Finley and Sebastian were assigned to him was because, although they had been recently demoted, his life wasn't in immediate danger and therefore didn't require as an experienced, successful angel as someone who might standing on the ledge of a tall building. But after complaining that his inability to tell good people from bad was the cause of all his problems, he had been given glasses that would show the wearer whether a person was "good" or "bad". In his exuberance, Amit had failed to heed the warnings that people weren't really that simple to categorize in real life and he had gone on to use them to hastily judge others. Ultimately, his reliance on them allowed him to alienate his best friend Brad, his girlfriend Tanya, and be ripped off by a new business partner Winston; he no longer took the care to find out more about the people around him and to learn WHY they did the things they did. Realizing the trap he had fallen in, he apologized to his best friend, made up with his girlfriend, and even reconciled with his divorced father - deciding that maybe it WASN'T so important whether the man who had left his mother was good or bad, because ultimately he was still his father. And since there was good and bad in everyone, even he would fail the test when held to an absolute standard.
Now, six months later, he was working with Brad again and actually learning about people - a useful skill when you work as a recruiter for an employment agency. He still misread the occasional person, but now he was much stronger for the experience and it translated throughout his life. In fact, life was going so well that he was entirely shocked to find a certain two angels sitting at a bus stop one day as he walked down the sidewalk.
Amit drew up in front of the two, not sure at first; but one was heavy-set and looked like he had just walked in from a night of league bowling, and the other had a T-shirt that read "Even angles don't know all the angels" below an image of a question mark with wings. It HAD to be them.
"Finley? Sebastian?" he asked.
"Hi Amit," Finley said in greeting. His tone was almost glum.
"What are you guys doing here? I don't need your help again, do I?" he asked. He wasn't aware of any impending trouble - his father had recently passed away peacefully, and his mother was still in very good health.
"Ah, no. We're just...ah...getting a status update, kind of like a follow-up appointment with the dentist," Sebastian explained. "Just making sure...ah...everything was going well."
"Well you really helped me. I never really thanked you guys, but I think I've gotten things figured out now - at least as much as anybody ever does. But you guys should know that already. Did you get promoted?"
Both of their faces lit up. "We did - Angel First Class," Finley said as he looked at Sebastian. "Finally made it to the show." They gave each other a half-hearted attempt at a high five, but their smiles faded quickly and they turned back to him.
"What? Didn't it turn out to be what you thought?" Amit asked.
"A1C? Nothin' better. Except..." Finley said and stopped.
"Except..." Amit said, trying to draw out the explanation.
"Except when you don't meet the metrics," Sebastian finished before he too fell silent.
"Come on guys," Amit said as he sat down on the bench with them "before I couldn't get you to shut up - now you got a big secret. What happened?"
"Tell him," Sebastian urged his partner.
"Let me check the manual first," Finley said as he produced a blue binder out of nowhere with the title Policies and Procedures. He scanned the index. "It doesn't saw we can't; as long as we don't use any of the key words, it should be allowed."
"Key words?"
"You know, like when you asked if we came from...you know...the 'H' word," he whispered. "We've got a list of words we can't use."
"Like what?"
"Like..." Sebastian started to say until Finley put his hand over his partner's mouth. "Don't. We're bad enough off as it is."
"Sorry," he said after the hand was removed.
Finley went on to explain. "Like we said, you were our ticket to the big time. Well, they liked our work and we got the promotion to Angel First Class. But we still had to serve a probationary period of seven years."
"But it's only been six months."
"Time works different there. We burned through five years before you even took your dad to the hospital. Good work, by the way. The boss was really happy about that." Amit had met their archangel superior and couldn't imagine him happy. "But before we could get tenure, we...we..."
"We messed up," Sebastian finished.
"Yeah," Finley went on. "We forgot one of the cardinal rules: Life is for those alive. We tried to help someone too much. We ended up trying to solve their problems for them, and everybody knows the person has to work it out for themselves or they don't learn. And the regulations say that if you lose someone during probation, you get a review of everything you've done and the feedback from the clients."
"Yeah, we missed it by that much," Sebastian said, holding up his fingers just a little bit apart. "One more good review would probably have been enough."
"So why are you here?" Amit asked, as he looked at the sullen faces.
"We can't say because of the rules, but it sure would have been nice to have one more positive review." Finley joined Sebastian in staring at Amit with eyes that approximated a puppy's - if that puppy was an angel.
Amit thought about it. He didn't fill out the survey when Finley asked - he was still coming to terms with his life and the glasses at the time. Now, in hindsight, they had done a pretty good job with him. Probably. He didn't have any frame of reference with any other angels to go by, so it was rather subjective. But they were earnest - that quality showed, even if they weren't flesh and blood. "Would me filling out a survey help you guys?"
Somehow, Finley managed to produce a clipboard from the same thin air he had drawn the binder. He started to hand it to him, but Sebastian stayed his hand. "Is it going to be positive?"
"Is there any possible way I could fill this out that would make it worse for you guys?"
"Since you put it that way," Finley said "I guess not" he said as he handed the clipboard to Amit.
Sebastian handed him a pen. "We'll be back after you're done. Come on Finley, let's get some ice cream." The two angels, instead of disappearing in a wink, stood up and walked toward a nearby shop. Amit sat down with pen in hand and looked at the survey before filling it out:
Client: Amit Gupta
Guardian Angel(s): Finley and Sebastian
Date: May 21, 2015 (Thursday)
CONTACT
What were the circumstances surrounding your first contact with GA(s): I was lying down on an unused railroad track trying to kill myself due to depression.
Did the GA(s) identify themselves? Yes, both name and profession - if angel is a profession.
Was a miracle needed to provide proof? No. Knowledge of events in my life was sufficient to convince me what they were.
Did you provide an explanation why you needed help? If not, please explain why you didn't. Yes.
Did the GA(s) provide you with a means to help you, and was it advice, an artifact or both? They gave me glasses to see "good" and "bad" people. They offered me the Hallelujah upgrade but I turned it down.
Were any warnings, disclaimers or restrictions given at the time? Yes, although I didn't listen to them.
FOLLOWUP CONTACTS
Did the GA(s) initiate a follow-up visit on their own, or did you call them? They showed up several times on their own.
Did you sign a contact verification form? Yes (1st time only).
Were any Angel Cards used? Yes.
How many visits did you have from the GA(s) in total? 5
On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate each of the following? (Add any pertinent details)
Positive attitude: 5 (Really enthusiastic to help me.)
Professional demeanor: 4
Dress: 4 (I didn't recognize them as angels at first, but they blended in. Sebastian had shirts with "angel" spelled wrong.)
Language (Dialect, accent, clean language): 5, 5, 5 (I could understand them clearly - they spoke just like I do, except they don't curse.)
Communication: 5 (I know they can't use certain words as answers, so some things were a little cryptic.)
OVERALL
Would you recommend the GA(s) to someone else? Definitely - they make a great team.
Best Strengths(s): Never came off as pretentious or overbearing. Guided me without forcing me. Used 'The High Touch' on me to great effect.
Weakest Strength(s): Not very good in a musical number.
Did you feel as though you could contact a superior if required? I requested, and received permission to speak to a superior.
Was your problem resolved? (Be specific) Yes. The glasses were only a tool to help me get my confidence back, and after I realized that I was relying too much on them I learned how to discover people for the whole spectrum of behavior that they are. Now I want to live.
Any additional comments? I really think that I would have killed myself if I had been left alone long enough to find a pair of railroad tracks that had actual trains using it. Finley and Sebastian were instrumental in helping me work through my issues and become a better and stronger person. Some of the Angel Cards were really good. I think anyone that meets these two are really blessed.
Current rank of GA(s):
Earthworm
Lady bug
Grasshopper
Hedgehog
Meerkat
That thing that looks like a pig but it isn't
Dairy cow
Antelope
Cheetah
First Class
Archangel
If we have any questions, is it okay we contact you? Yes, anytime. Except when I'm making love. Or driving. Or in the middle of an interview with a client.
We thank you for your efforts in completing this survey. We understand your time on Earth is finite, but your feedback is valuable towards GA promotion and retention.
Before he returned the clipboard to the returned angels, Amit asked "How far down did you get demoted?"
"Meerkat" they both answered simultaneously.
Amit marked the rank and then handed it back to Finley. "I hope that helps you out. Can you get them to include that with your review? Do some sort of time-travel thing or something?"
The angel was looking it over. "Take a step forward, now!" he yelled without looking up. Startled, Amit did as he was told. Shortly afterward, a truck drove by and through a puddle in the road, splashing water where he had just been standing.
"I thought you could only see three seconds into the future?" he asked.
"I've been working on it - we can improve our super powers too, you know. Now I've got it up to almost ten seconds." Finley finished looking over the form and looked up again. "We do have a chance for one appeal. I think we can just swing it with this - if you had given us a lower ranking, it probably would be hopeless. And you mentioned the Angel Cards and the High Touch strategy too - that should win us some points."
"Hey, you guys really helped out. You deserve it," he said earnestly. It looked like they were the ones that needed a little boost in self-confidence now.
"Thanks, Amit. You're guardian angel material - think about it the next time you're not alive anymore. Hey, there's our bus." Amit looked down the street but didn't see anything. When he turned back, the bench was empty except for a t-shirt. Amit picked it up and read the design on the front - 'Guardian Angle in Training'.
"Back at it again," he said with a smile.
The End
A/N: This was a little independent movie that I came across that was interesting. It was a little predictable, and it must not have had a very high production cost based on the limited sets - but I thought it was a very good effort (and certainly better than I could have done) and entertaining.