Missy watched me inquisitively for the longest time. I didn't say much, but when I did, I asked her a question I wasn't ready for. "Is there…a God?"
Excited to be asked anything at all, the little angel was very enthusiastic in her reply. "Of course there's a God! But not the bearded old man you expect. In fact, the God we trust has no physical form whatsoever. No one true identity."
"So, what is he?" I inquired.
"He or she…is mystery! The question is bigger than all of us, Daniel, and probably incomprehensible to your mushy brain right now! That'll improve over time."
"Please," I insisted. "I'd prefer to know everything, even if I can't get a handle on it."
After a conceding nod, she began to ponder the ultimate question, and then gave me her simplest explanation. "How can I describe it? Imagine a cloud, Daniel, a great, crackling storm cloud. Can you see?"
I closed my eyes to concentrate. "I think so. Yeah, sure."
"Now, imagine that cloud has every planet, every star, every galaxy, every dimension, and every atom of every possible universe within it. Everything! God is physics, Daniel; God is that cloud!"
"A living cloud?" I muttered. "Honestly?"
"More a cosmic consciousness," she explained. "The spark of creation, I suppose. We cannot grasp the will of this mind, we cannot explain why it wants certain things to happen a certain way, or how it shapes destinies and why; but we do not stop trying. The secrets of the universe and the ultimate truth are there to be uncovered, and we all are discovering them together."
With a hasty duck, I only just avoided her wings. "So…" I said, "you're in the dark here, too?"
"We are in the light." she corrected. "God is the science, and our greatest minds collectively study it. We are all angels essentially, each with our different rank and ranks with different jobs to do, but all of us sharing one common goal, to understand God and his meaning for life. It's a very fulfilling existence!"
Light as a fairy, Missy fluttered and danced. Her supreme agility was a sight to see, and I could not help but reach a hand to my shoulders, hoping to find my own personal pair of wings.
"One day," she grinned, as I rubbed the spine of my back.
"So," I shrugged, "what's your job then? Your rank?"
"Life support! Yours. The job required me to keep you on the straight and narrow, advising, warning, supporting you through existence. Life support is the most frustrating task for any angel, but without a doubt the most rewarding. We are the inspirer, Daniel, feeding the subconscious with an urge to write classic works of fiction, to compose an opera of epic beauty, sculpt a David, or paint the Mona Lisa. Course, I could not inspire you to that level of artistry, some do not have it in them, but I gave you my very best shot! I secretly hoped you would remember some fragment of my influence when you awoke here. Some folks do recall their life support and share that special bond right away. Unusual, but it happens."
"I remembered your name, didn't I?"
Missy sighed, and I could only shrink at her disappointment.
"Must have been a pretty dull job," I said. "Like talking to a brick wall. My life wasn't that exciting, either. I did nothing extraordinary; no great achievements there, that's for sure."
"Every life is an epic," she returned, casually. "Some climb mountains, others raise good children, both are great achievements. Will you test me? Oh, do test me!"
She asked the question with an infectious enthusiasm, and took my amused nod as approval to proceed.
"Deep breaths, Missy!" she said, sucking in that crisp air. "From your birth on February 22nd 1971, 8:45 a.m. Ontario, Canada, to your death in that same province, Nov 9th 2012, 20:09 pm…twenty-four minutes ago!" She briefly stalled to enjoy my mystified expression.
"I was there for your first tooth! First day of school! Was watching when they removed your tonsils and then later that afternoon when you lay in bed, thick chocolate ice cream streaming down your front; you were the cutest! I was over the kitchen table when, at six years old, you shaved the hair off the dog's back and reapplied it with jam. My oh my, what a mess!”
"I still have that picture," I mumbled, overwhelmed by this floodgate of forgotten memories.
Missy lowered herself to my right ear, but finding nothing there but wax, she ploughed on. "Ugh, your obstinate mind still hopes you'll wake from this any second! Luckily, I've trained for the fight, and this should convince you otherwise!" She huffed and puffed and…"Your Aunt Audrey? I am the one who urged you to check on her that morning. You got the ambulance just in time, too. I was the one who warned you about wearing a seatbelt an hour before your car hit that tree in Colorado."
I nursed the lump in my hair from that particular accident, whilst Missy parted my fringe to the side she preferred. "An only child, Daniel, your father was a hardworking Scot from Glasgow; your mother came from Bordeaux, and you speak French fluently. Together they made quite a team, and didn't they pour so much love into little ole you!"
She carried on with her facts, but I was lost for the moment in the memory of my parents. Fortunate to have them, I was their, and clearly Missy’s, most treasured possession.
"At thirty-six," she said, almost finished, "you made it to detective sergeant for the Ontario Provincial Police. They were the happiest days of your life. Today is the happiest day of mine, Daniel. Been such a rich experience, and an absolute pleasure to be…"
"Stop!" I demanded, stunned by her battering ram of information. "All of this…It's not possible, is it?"
"Why not?" she returned, softly. "Do tell me why not?"
I ransacked my thoughts for an explanation, and drawing a blank, I replied just as softly. "How can there be an invisible angel bleating about me all the days and nights? How can there be an irrational place like this with no walls, windows, or doors? How can that be?"
Disheartened, Missy tried again. "What makes a heart beat? How can the sun nourish the Earth and the moon attract the seas? The human race is surrounded by miracles: the bees and butterflies, the roses and rainbows, not to mention the profound power of the brain. The universe is strung together by thousands of tiny little miracles Daniel, scattered everywhere. One day soon this new world will seem so old and rational to you, and like all miracles, it will be taken for granted. Trust your eyes and your instincts at a time like this; and trust me, trust that I have always been there and with your best interests at heart, an absolute rollercoaster of emotions, and we rode it together."
The girl fell silent now, allowing me some time to take it all in. No, I wasn't going to wake from some drunken binge on a stranger's sofa. I wasn't going anywhere. Missy had finally pierced her skeptic's shield.
"Dead," I whispered, retracing the steps in my mind. How did I actually die?
The memory returned quicker than I expected; more than a memory, it was a recording fixed in crystal clarity, followed by an injection of pure adrenaline. Everything began to spin now. My lips quivered, my teeth chattered, and all of a sudden, I found myself transported atop that fairground Ferris wheel, with death staring back at me. Before I could relive the experience all over again, however, my mind shut like a book and returned me to the world of white. I vomited down one side of the stone, and Missy came swiftly to prop up my head.
"There is no more pain!" she hissed. "It's over! Open your eyes and breathe! In and out, breathe…"
I now knew how one could lose his mind in a place like this, and where it could be lost. Steadying myself, I wiped my mouth clean with a sleeve, the swirling nausea and vision of death gone, for now. Only the refrigerator drone could be heard for the next few minutes. Tears glittered in my eyes, and when I cleared them, I was struck by an unconditional love written over this young girl's face.
"Is this Heaven, Missy? This place?"
"Heavens no!" she declared, insulted. "Does this look like divine architecture to you?"
"I guess not. How does this usually work then?" I asked, dreading the answer. "You know I never gave money to charity; or any of my time to religion. Does that…put me in trouble?"
"Only religion starts trouble," she returned, further confusing me. "There are no churches here, Daniel, no mosques or synagogues. Religion is a divisive invention, filling voids in some and making the darkness less frightening for others. You will learn that wisdom is the highest of all virtues, not devotion to ancient superstition. Believe in God, Daniel, not religion. Come with me." With elegant haste, Missy pushed forward and pulled me along by the wrist, her wings wafting cold air into my face.
"Where are we going?" I asked, struggling to make my legs work.
"We have an appointment," she answered, over her shoulder. "This minute, an angel of the highest order will be combing through your ledger. Cannot figure who it might be, though. The secrecy is most unusual; the life support is made aware of all things concerning their individual. It's compulsory!"
"A ledger?" I panted. "You mean, like an account?"
"Catching on, Daniel! Your ledger has precisely forty-one pages, each documenting a year of information. Pages show life through your eyes; details you've looked at during your time, no matter how trivial, will be recorded in the ledger."
"What if I was blind?" I asked, and she chuckled like the child she was.
"The ledger doesn't just show images Daniel, it allows the reader to experience you! To wear your shoes, feel your thoughts, and hear your words! It's a conclusive biography!"
Mulling over this daunting information, I felt extremely exposed, stripped naked. My life, my inner most personal thoughts and feelings always open for strangers to read in some supernatural exposé?
"It is completely natural!" she stated, rifling through my head. "And although revealing, the ledger is the only way to the truth. It is the way of things. Rest assured, Daniel, the angel reading your ledger is under oath to keep their findings sacrosanct. So, try and relax. Every person who has ever lived, every pharaoh and president, king and queen have gone through this process. If it still embarrasses you, then think of this: You also have an afterlife ledger, a fresh start for nobler pursuits, and today is page one. "
For all her words, the idea would never sit comfortably with me, or anyone else, I imagine. However, I guess there are some things in life — and death — that are unavoidable.
***
Missy kept her wings flapping at a steady pace in front. By this time, I was adjusted to my rejuvenation, and to the plain white world, which thoroughly disappointed. This certainly was not Heaven, but it wasn't really any place. It lacked life, care, and color, the ingredients that made the planet I left special.
"I'm to be judged here?" I asked, the pace and nerves causing my heart to race. "This dull space?"
"This dull space," Missy informed, again over her shoulder, "is called the Waiting Plain, the other side of space, actually. There is nothing to fear. Hurry now."
"I'm not afraid. It's just the weirdness of it all. The Waiting Plain?"
"Here one first meets his life support, as you have. One also waits for his case to be heard, as you will."
Confounded by the idea of a celestial law and order, I was nonetheless intrigued as I avoided the draft her wings produced.
"This is a waiting room?" I asked. "Where are the magazines?"
"We do a different sort of reading here,” she said, happy to satisfy my curiosity. "Souls take time to be heard. The life ledger contains all the facts, though, and every one must be taken into account. For example, a child may be brainwashed into a belief system by small-minded parents, but with education can grow out of that ignorance. A man may commit a petty crime one year and cancel it out with charitable penance the next. You see, Daniel, qualification for Heaven does not come through solemn prayer or blind devotion, but through moral fiber, the makeup of heart and soul in all living things. Once all that has been taken into consideration, a verdict is returned and justice carried out. Death truly is the great equalizer."
"And how long am I to wait, Missy?"
"You are to be heard immediately! As I said, it is most unusual. Faster now… Tardiness is unacceptable!"
On the move a while, Missy rambled on and on about her favorite subject — me. Her passion made the girl impossible to dislike, but I quickly discovered that hearing only about oneself gets extremely tedious. Her knowledge seemed bottomless; the most intimate and banal details of my life were hers to sift through — good habits and bad, long standing friends and brief acquaintances. She knew what I preferred to eat and what made me wretch; she knew the ideal hours of sleep my body required — seven, apparently — and was weirdly jealous of the women who kept me from them. She was privy to how much I earned and the junk I spent it on, and how many years I worked to become a police officer and the pride I felt wearing the badge. My dreams and nightmares were hers, too; there was absolutely no hiding place from this angel's eye.
Does she know when to shut up? I thought at one point. The phosphorescent glow of this blank world brought about a migraine, and I began to question if we had actually moved at all. The smooth surface seemed to flow backwards whilst my feet continued forwards, as if trapped on one, vast, go-nowhere conveyor belt.
"Just your imagination," she answered back. "Headaches are common, too. It'll pass."
Remembering Missy's remarkable ability to hear my thoughts, I focused them on the question at the forefront of my thinking, and awaited her telepathic reply. I concentrated hard, but Missy floated on without reaction or comment. Frustrated, I shouted the question several times over in my head, but still nothing. Finally, I clutched her elbow and braked with my heels.
"What?" she complained, jolting back. "Why do you stop us?"
"Don't you know?" I said, unapologetic. "Or are you just avoiding the issue?”I have someone I'd like to see Missy, and you know it."
Wearing that expectant expression, sadness descended over her bright face.
"Let's keep moving Daniel. Let's?"
"What's wrong?" I asked. "Tell me."
"Nothing. Now we're almost there, so…" she tugged at my wrist, but I rooted my feet put.
"There is someone I'd like to see," I insisted. "Don't ignore me. You've told me everything about my life, but nothing of hers. Didn't even mention her name, did you? Where is she? I won't take another step until you…"
"No!" the girl interrupted, shunting her palm at the end of my nose. "Do you think I haven't heard you? Do you think I cannot feel your pain? Shame you can't feel mine or you wouldn't have drunk your life away over it!" This was the serious adult speaking now, the ripe wisdom she hid so well behind a youthful face. "How can I put this?" she said, caressing my shoulders. "How can I?"
Her difficult expression gave me cause for concern. What could be so hard to say?
"Your daughter," she stuttered, "is in Heaven. You are not."
A gunshot went off in my head, striking my brain and all it controlled dumb. The mention of my twelve year old tended to do that, but the idea that she was somewhere close by, somehow, tangibly alive, hit me harder than usual this time.
"Kathy," I said, feeling the life drain out of me.
Postponing our rush, Missy gave me a much-needed minute on my backside.
"The living do not realize the grief the dead go through," she said. "Your daughter lost a father, but she had a strong life support, and loving grandparents to see her through the worst."
Astonished, I could only shake my head. "This is fucked! Totally fucked!"
I sensed Missy's disapproval at the language, but I didn't care. Gazing up at a ceiling of white nothings, I tried to imagine Kathy's life in Heaven. Had she grown out of her glasses? Would her eyes even need them? I pondered the possible changes to her personality, how her new home had shaped a mind so young, and what influence my parents could have over her life there. Who were her friends? Where did she live? How did she live? I thought over these and more mind-bending questions as Missy assisted me to my feet.
"My girl is in Heaven," I said, proudly.
"That she is," said Missy, smearing a tear from my cheek. "That she is."
I felt the distant presence of my daughter inspiring so much energy back into me. I could move mountains with this power, sweep the seas and ravage all the armies in the world. I would do whatever it took.
Facing my life support, I asked my last question — the only question: "How do I get into Heaven?"
"That is what we are going to find out…”