Falling into Heaven's Hands

I have been alive for three lifetimes without living or dying. I am the opposite of Death, though we sometimes see each other on the job. There is no rivalry or companionship between us, only understanding.

A life comes, a life goes. Both can be sad, both can be joyful, it all depends on who you are and what you seem to get out of it.

You can’t let your emotions enter this type of work. You must be dutiful, loyal, responsible, and along with those traits, you must remain cool and calculating.

In this work I am considered to be young, although I can only imagine how old I am compared to any human if they were to meet me. Except things like that aren’t supposed to happen. In fact, they can’t happen. Who knows what would happen if a human and I exchanged words. Other than the young souls I bring to the young and unsuspecting mothers, a human has not had any contact really with my kind. They often seem to have more companionship with Death, surprisingly. Yet, by that time it is all over. They are allowed to rest within his steady arms, as he brings them to The Ultimate Destination.

Those in my profession, however, are required to keep all contact at a minimum. The souls we handle are young, impressionable, and although they will never remember us, we will remember them. I suppose that the rule is solely for our protection against the attachments we will have, and possibly the desire to interfere.

          But no. We cannot. We are forbidden. It cannot happen. It has not happened, until a few weeks ago.

There was an especially bright soul, and although I am not supposed to care, I happened to find myself seeing into her life. First I saw her. Bright blonde hair. Deep dark green eyes. Pale skin with freckles marking her body like the stars mark the sky. Then I understood her. A quiet, yet determined girl. Awkward, yet always placing herself in new situations with new people. I heard the echo of her soul across all time, social constructs, and the walls humanity puts up in hopes to bar each other off from the knowledge that they are all quite similar.

Of course, my day dreaming and peering into the life of the individual is not unusual, although it happens more often than it probably should. I steered my thoughts back to the destination. A dusty alleyway with trash littering almost every free space. I continued on my descent, closer to the drug addict mother, and the crack head father. I had my own opinion on people like these, but today my opinions didn’t matter. I had a delivery and it was due today at precisely 3:49 am.

The grungy couple did not see me as I neared the mother. I looked up at the hot sun, I was five minutes early, which was not unusual and I would often wait in what would seem like an awkward position. Since I viewed each earthling as a young soul, however, I never paid more mind to people than one might to a couple of animals.

Yet today the soul nudged me in a restless, but curious manner. It seemed as if she knew who her parents were going to be and that she did not want to go with them. “You’ll be fine.” I whispered, although the soul would not be able to understand. All they could understand, (more accurately feel), at this point was emotions.

I knew that the time was coming when I would have to leave the soul with the mother. I told myself there was nothing wrong with doing so. Any mother could carry a soul. Whatever happened beyond then was not of my concern. As the seconds ticked I grew uneasy, but desperately attempted to brush it off. Eventually I made the awful mistake of contacting the mother. This is a term we use in our field to describe viewing the child’s life, which can only be done after somehow making contact with the mother of the child. I am technically not supposed to have this power, being only a 3 term angel, but I was given the right earlier this year due to my higher levels of delivery. This was the second time I decided to use it. The first time I was only curious of what it was like, but that child had a reasonably easy life with some hardships. This was immediately after I received the privilege, however, despite my earlier excitement on receiving the power. I now wish it had been bestowed upon me later. Perhaps if it had I wouldn’t have gotten involved.

Immediately after reaching down to the woman’s oily shoulder I was sent on a series of scenes from the girl’s life. Being born with an addiction. Going to school with raggedy clothes. Being abused by her father. Running away. Getting into fights. Her mother forcing her to smoke. Again her dad beating her, over and over. Her mom beating her. Her mom being beat by her dad. Getting pregnant at fourteen by her father. Her waking up in the middle of the night, shooting him in the heart. Going to jail. Eventually giving birth before hanging herself in her prison cell.

The soul I saw in my hands had no chance here. In situations like these there are back up lists. Mothers who are next in receiving the soul. Of course there is only a handful due to the limited amount of mothers compared to the surplus of souls.

I quickly went on to the next mother, found in a dark, suffocating room. I contacted the mother, this time the soul has an okay childhood for the first three years, then her mother end up killing herself, and her father turned out to be her mother’s rapist. The soul witnesses the death and then her life becomes a series of running out of the house whenever possible to escape her father’s sickening breath that smelled like alcohol. Eventually she finds a boy she trusts. I relaxed. Perhaps she would be able to recover. But quickly I realized he perpetuated the abusive man she grew up seeing in her life and her worst nightmares. It led to a murder spree. She became crazed and went on to kill at least twenty-six twenty to forty-five year old males.

I again went in search of the next mother. A sickening pattern began. Each mother on the list of fifteen all caused the young soul’s life to end up in a tragic story where the girl had never experienced rest, or complete happiness, for a period longer than three years. All I saw was abuse, suicide, homicide, and even in an extreme case terrorism. I continued down the list till I reached the very last mother and lost all hope.

These mothers were the only ones that could be chosen, unless another one could be found in under one week. That would mean that I would have to return to Purgatory, undergo a trial, file a report, and gain a new list of mothers. It was the only choice I had in such an extreme case.

The trial came and went; I was allowed a new list of mothers, but by this point, no mother seemed good enough. It was if all that tragedy that had occurred had rose my standards for the girl’s living conditions.

It was Friday. I had a single day and four more mothers to go through. The first and third planned on abortion, the second was a thirteen year old who was experiencing severe depression and would later place that on the poor soul of her would-be daughter, and finally the fourth one was a forty-five year old woman who would give birth to the soul only to find she was deaf and blind from birth.

I was clueless on what to do. It finally reached Saturday, 3:45 a.m. I had nowhere to go, no one else to bestow this precious soul upon, no chance to give this girl a normal life. If I returned with the child now, it would either be given to a random mother chosen by The Jury, or she would be a haunted soul, unable to leave earth and unable to reach Purgatory, forever doomed to pain and unrest.

In the heat of the moment, I panicked. I had other souls to deliver, and I felt a responsibility to this one, therefore I decided she would stay with me before the window of time would close at 3:49 a.m.

       It took two days before someone confronted me. My supervisor came up to me with an unfaltering gaze.

             She looked down upon me, “Come with me.” She turned and flew in front of me.

          “Oh, I have-“

She stopped, but didn’t bother to turn around, “Come.” Her voice was stern yet not loud. The message was clearly understood.

I quickly followed behind till we reached The Office. I still had the soul with me, which I named Christine at that point. I couldn’t leave her anywhere and hadn’t find an adequate place to hide her yet, and so, she came along.

My supervisor brought me to my Manager’s desk. He stopped writing and muttering to himself when he heard us enter. He continued to look and flip through papers without bothering to look up.

“So I’m curious, did you really think you could get away with this? You already know we watch and see everything. You know the consequences, we’ve explained to you your duty; we trusted you with this job. I’m not sure how else we could have made ourselves clear.” He paused. I stayed silent until he looked up to meet me dead in the eyes.

           “Well?” he asked.

           “I’m sorry sir?” my dry throat croaked. I was unsure of which question to answer.

He laughed dryly and looked to my supervisor. She smirked, but then continued her straight face with edges carved in stone.

             “I was asking what it was that made you think you could get away with taking that soul along with you?”

             “Well sir,-” I began unfolding my hands until he interrupted me.

           “Also, what were you planning on doing with that soul? Carrying it around with you forever?” He tilted his head in a face that could only be described with the term stern confusion.

He continued signing and noting paperwork until he began again. “Well, I’m not sure if you remember this part in your training, but we tried to stress this as much as we could, although”, he looked up at me, “I do believe that this is when you were day dreaming,” he accused.

I swallowed hard. That did sound like a real possibility, although at the time I believed I knew all the basics. Obviously not, because what he said next came to me as a surprise.

“Well, there are two outcomes you could go with. You either terminate the soul, or you become a human mother, with a life already created just for you.” He said with mock happiness as he got some papers out of the drawers and pointed them towards me, “And since you are so fond of the soul, this will be your child.”

That didn’t seem too bad.

“Only downside is your life until you are twenty-eight, I believe,” he paused looking down at the paperwork, then nodding, “your life until the young age of twenty-eight will be a lie and all you know here will of course be forgotten. You will do your duty, raise the child, and then once you die, you will return to your job here. Think of this as a temporary leave.” He nodded to me encouragingly, although I knew he despised me. “Now. All you must do is sign here and then you’re good to go, since I'm assuming with your attachment to this soul won't allow you to terminate her.”

I paused and looked to my supervisor’s grim face.

         “It’s a shame to see such a hard worker like you go.” she stated with her arms crossed, but a soft look on her face.

          She came up to me as I signed the papers, “We really will miss you.”

            Everything slowly faded out.

           “We really will miss you.” I heard.

           I felt a familiar pang. Who was that?

        “Hey,” my husband patted me, “Your family’s trying to say good bye.” He stopped to look at them, “Sorry, I think she zoned out for a little bit.” He leaned in to look at me. “You okay babe?”

         “Yeah.” I laughed, “We really will miss you” I turned the words over softly, whispering it under my breath.

           John gave me an amused, yet slightly confused squinty-eyed look. He laughed, “Yeah, they’re trying to say goodbye to you. Your cousins and family members.” He stressed the last sentence, knowing I was out of it as usual.

“Oh.” Although I couldn’t shake that phrase from my mind, I looked up at my cousin Jane and waved her big family out the door, “I’ll miss you guys too!” I yelled from the porch to her family and her as they put the remaining suitcases in the van and closed the big doors, starting up the car that lit up the warm dark summer night.

             My husband pulled me close, and all of a sudden I felt something bump me from behind.

             “Come here Christine, tell your cousins goodbye.”

“Bye!” she smiled, jumped, and waved all at the same time with her big incomplete toothy grin. She giggled and continued to eat the juicy watermelon she’d been working on for a solid two minutes until she quickly finished and threw it across the lawn.

“Christine,” her father sternly began, “you know where the trash can is. You’re just so silly tonight.” he softly smiled down at her and gave me a knowing look. Then he gave her a feigned serious-looking face and pointed quickly across the lawn. “Now! My slave! Fetch me the item and quickly as you can. Retrieve it and return it!” he yelled with a king-like authority.

               She giggled again and looked up at me. For a second I became flooded with an intense love for her as if I’d protect her through anything. I quickly snapped out of it, “Go! We’re timing you!” She ran across the lawn barefoot, and as I stood there by my husband while the fire-flies began to scatter the air, the warm breeze filling my lungs with a refreshing summer night smell. I looked up at the first star that shone its bright light towards us with a feeling that everything occurring to me right at this very moment was perfection; life was following its beautifully messy and perfect path, and I ended up exactly where I was meant to be.