GAS (Guardian Angel Society)
“Couldn’t they come up with a less offensive acronym?” I moaned.
Eloise, who had also been in the car, playfully punched my shoulder. “I think it’s funny. Besides, aren’t you excited? Isn’t this the most riveting thing that’s ever happened to you?”
I blinked slowly. The high altitude must have turned her brain into marshmallow, because if she thought saving some every day Joe’s life was more riveting that being ground into hamburger meat and splattered against the windshield of a moving Chevrolet, she was crazy.
Today might have been beautiful, what with the sprays of cherry blossoms and the pearly creek, but a thick atmosphere of dread pressed me down. I felt like I weighed a million pounds with anxiety.
“Miranda, your feathers are wonky,” Eloise said.
She reached over to smooth the feathers on my left wing. As she did so, I stared longingly at her cute, puffy white wings. If she wasn’t careful, Martha Stewart would stuff her in a pillow. Then I looked over at my wings. Disgusting. What had I done to be cursed with this big, garish sails? Honestly, what kind of angel has emerald and scarlet wings? I looked like a mutant parrot.
While I was scowling at my newly added limbs, the administrator called our names. Eloise unleashed a loud giggle, grabbed my hand, and dragged me towards the desk.
The administrator was a large woman that reminded me of a powdered donut. Her pinkish wings were folded neatly on her shoulder blades. She peered up at us through her spectacles; then glanced down again at her mounds of thick paperwork. Never mind. She was a mentally challenged donut.
“Yeeeeeees,” she whispered. “Miranda Caldwell and Eloise Van Morrison?”
“Uh-huh,” Eloise and I said, our voices coming out like molasses. Mrs. Donut’s sluggishness was wearing off on us.
“Okaaaaaaaaaaay. Um. Well, here you go.”
Ms. Donut held out an inverted felt hat, which was stuffed with little strips of paper. Eloise dug right in, her hand riffling excitedly through the fateful confetti. She proudly withdrew a piece and read it aloud. “Hailey Van Morrison. Are you serious? I get to be my mother’s guardian angel? Wicked!”
“Um, yeah that’s great Eloise.”
She shoved me towards the hat. “Hurry up! You’ll probably get, like, the president.”
“Lucky me,” I muttered, my voice ripe with sarcasm. I would have hesitated until the moon turned blue, but there was a long line of angels behind us, and I couldn’t keep them waiting. I dug into the hat.
My fingers brushed hundreds of paper slips. Cold sweat broke out on my forehead as I wondered which one was which, which one was a drunken stripper, and which one was a totally gorgeous male. Before Eloise could chose for me, I closed my fingers around one. Decision made. No going back.
“Read it,” she urged me.
Feeling sick, I unfolded the slip. My stomach fell the infinite number of feet to earth.
“Well? Who is it?”
“James Redd.”
The administrator goggled her eyes at me. “Hon, did you actually think this was random?”
“God dammit!” I raged.
Okay, so maybe that’s the wrong thing to say when the big man himself so kindly invited you through the golden gates, but I couldn’t help it. As a mortal, my language had been inexcusable, and death sure as heck wasn’t going to change that.
And besides, my cussing was justified. This was surely the biggest storm in the history of the world—so big, in fact, that I wouldn’t be surprised if it washed away all the color and the world would be black and white in the morning. I had abandoned flying long ago. Now I floundered meekly through the deluge, guided only by the blurry streetlights. All the colors bled in the wet pavement, turning it psychedelic with reds and greens.
I raised my wings over my head like twin umbrellas. Of course, it did nothing to ease the torrent of misery dumped on my head. This was so unfair.
When I came to Delancy Street, I stopped. Just a few blocks down, and I would be home. Forgetting all about my mission, I launched myself into a run, counting house numbers as I passed them by. Before I reached the green house with the funky landscaping, I stopped again. This was ludicrous. I couldn’t just walk into my house dead. I would probably see my own photo surrounding by plastic flowers, waxy fruit, and burning candles. And my parents… No way. I couldn’t do that to them.
Even though it felt like steel pliers were yanking my heart out, I turned around and marched back to the main street.
A green Hummer roared by, splashing me with liquid mud. “Jesus Christ!” I shrieked. “Can’t you idiots read the speed limit signs?”
Their answer came as a beer can tossed out the window. It landed at my feet and rolled a couple inches. I ground my teeth together and crunched the little bugger into the pavement. Even when it was a flat aluminum disk, I kept grinding, imagining it was James Redd under my heel. Pretty soon, hot tears sprouted from my eyes. A scream tore from my throat. There I was, crying and cursing, venting all my troubles out on this hapless can.
I couldn’t help it. I hated James Redd. I hated his perfect teeth and his perfect hair. I hated how he preached vegetarianism, handing out pamphlets in the halls, and was then seen at lunch with a cheeseburger. But I especially hated his car. Oh God, I hated that car.
For the record, hell doesn’t exist. (Sorry, Christian guys; your threats are empty.) But if it did exist, I would kick James Redd there myself and make him eat rats for the rest of his life.
My emotions matched the weather. As the rain fell, my eyes continued to drool salt water. This night was painfully familiar, a slap-in-the-face of déjà vu. But the first time had been better. We were all warm and fuzzy with alcohol; each boy kissed every girl, and each girl felt like one in a million. My favorite was James, though. Ours lasted the longest. We were practically stapled together by our teeth, stitched with our tongues, bleeding from an act of savage passion. The deeper the better. I could have eaten him.
Yes, it was quite beautiful. The amber froth in my veins. The dazzling human at my mouth. Let this moment last forever.
Maybe if I hadn’t made such a stupid wish, it wouldn’t have shattered. Or maybe I shouldn’t have gotten in the car at all. Only, James was on a high from kissing me, and he wanted to take us outside the city to let off illegal fireworks. Fireworks aren’t fun unless they’re illegal.
The rain.
I have a hard time drinking water now, since it killed me. They had bored us to tears in driver’s ed with the hydroplaning lecture: slow down in bad weather, stop two car lengths behind the other vehicle, etc. Stupid James. Stupid car. Stupid median—invisible through our intoxicated fog. Crunch of metal. Screams choked off by seatbelts; soft bodies ripping through the windshield; hot, salty drops flying everywhere.
Only James survived.
Eloise handled it nicely. I was a wreck when I arrived in heaven, but she acted like it was Christmas. Oh yeah, I got my own tombstone in my stocking.
“It would have been much more romantic if you’d died together,” she said.
“What? Ellie, there was never romance to begin with.” I had sobered up since being decapitated.
She laughed. “Hey, I wasn’t that drunk. I remember you guys. You were so…” she hugged herself and sighed dreamily. “adorable.”
“But he killed me!”
Eloise shrugged. “You have to make sacrifices in relationships.”
Yeah, and I had made the ultimate one. I had traded in my jeans for pair of wings, just so he could keep on carousing. For all I knew, he was locked in another girl’s lips right now.
And yet, he was in danger, and it was my irrevocable duty to save his life. As Ms. Donut had put it, “It’s not his time yet.”
Then why was it my time? Why did I have to go? At least it was instant, none of that ER, searching for on organ donor crap.
Through the rain, I heard a distant moan. I could have been imagining it, or it might have been my supernatural hearing. In any case, I followed the agonized groaning through the city streets. Despite the thundering rain, it was deathly quiet. The only sound was the blood pounding in my ears.
Then, there it was. The headlights blinked feebly, just in case any late-night angels should be wandering the streets. I froze. Time dripped slowly off my wings.
I snapped out of it and raced to the mangled car; a fresh wave of tears gushed out. Forget any dramatic appearances. I tore open the door and began digging through the leather and plastic like a dog digging up a bone. Desperation turned every fiber of my body into a singing wire.
“James!” I sobbed. “Don’t die! I love you, I love you!”
“Manda?” a thick voice said.
“Close enough. Just, um, keep breathing, okay?”
“M, kay.”
I could practically hear the life leaking from his voice. My frantic digging intensified until I had ripped all my nails. Oh jeez, what if I didn’t make it in time? Would I get kicked out of heaven? And where would I go? I imagined myself as a washed-up freak show bum, trapped in a cage with little kids throwing popcorn at me.
Finally, I saw him. At least, I think it was him. It was too bloody for me to be sure.
“What happened?” I demanded.
Duh.
“I got hit by a karma,” he said, managing to crack a joke.
“Shut up. Don’t talk. Um…”
I growled in frustration. Some help I was. I mean, it wasn’t like I had a bottle of Save My Life pills on hand. And as far as I saw, healing beams of light weren’t shooting from my fingertips.
Shaking, I lowered myself next to him. Jesus, I sucked at this guardian angel stuff. And for the objectivity test, I got an F. Instead of calmly saving his life and moving on to the next unfortunate mortal, I found myself swamped with emotion. Most of all, guilt.
“James,” I moaned again.
So maybe it wasn’t real passion. Maybe it was just a drunken kiss, and the next day he forgot all about it. Maybe I didn’t even love him. At least, not in that sense.
I tried to assess the damage, but I couldn’t concentrate; all I saw was red on Redd. Then again, head wounds tend to bleed a lot, so it might not be that bad. Still, I didn’t have the gumption to stick my face in one of his open wounds to make sure he still had all his vital organs.
Two crashes in one year. This guy was definitely not getting his license.
It wasn’t alcohol this time. And there were no other cars involved. Just a guttering streetlight that had practically split his car in half. I couldn’t believe anyone could be such a terrible driver, but then a terrible thought occurred. What if this was intentional? What if he felt obligated to die in a car crash, just like his five best friends had?
I gingerly unfurled my right wing and draped it over his body. The words poured from my mouth, completely detached from my brain. “That’s okay; I understand. It was a mistake. You never meant to hurt us. And you felt horrible. You had taken lives—innocent lives—and…oh, James. Don’t die.”
I reached into his pocket, fumbling through all the loose change until I found his cell phone. It glowed like a blue gemstone in the fog. 911, I dialed. Oh joy, the good ol’ emergency number. Shouldn’t I be calling 1800-GOD or something?
“Hello?” the voice on the other end said.
“Hey, can you get down here? There’s a car crash on…um… Central and Maple Haven, and—“
“Hello? Is anybody there?”
Uh-oh.
“Hello? Look if this is a prank call, it’s not funny. Don’t call back unless you have a real emergency.”
“This is a real emergency!”
The line went dead.
“No!” I wailed. I hurled James’s cell phone to the floor, where it split into two chunks of plastic and buttons.
That’s it. It was over. James would die and I would be stuck here for the rest of my existence (I can’t say life anymore.) If I was lucky, I could find a friendly flock of parrots in South America that would adopt me.
“M’anda?” James mumbled again.
“Didn’t I tell you not to talk? You’re…you’re…” No, I couldn’t tell him he was spitting blood all over himself. I took a deep breath. “You’re going to live.” My own confidence shocked me. “It’s okay.”
Outside, the rain was abating. The night gave way to a flesh-colored dawn.
“I love you,” I whispered.
Only it wasn’t high-school love. Not that silly crush stuff. It was the real thing; the sort of love that heaven encourages you to find; the passion that extends to every gopher, grub, and molecule squirming around the earth’s crust. The realization was shocking. For the first time since turning into a feathery freak, I felt deeper than myself, as deep as the ocean. I wanted to dive inside myself and explore it.
Finally, the rain stopped. The clouds parted like scraps of lint, giving way to an annoyed sun. Are you going to save his life or not?
From somewhere nearby, a siren screamed. Whoops, time to go. I scrambled over James and out the window, but his hand caught my wrist before I was airborne. I looked back to see that his eyes were completely clear and lucid. “Miranda, don’t go,” he pleaded.
“Don’t worry,” I said, spreading my wings in the milky sunrise. “I’ll see you later.”
.
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