Good Things

I’m not the best guardian angel. It’s not like I was down there watching Adam and Eve. Or Cain and Abel. Still, I’ve been around a long time. We all have. We watch these puny little humans live out their whole lives and then we move on to the next one. Sometimes, I feel like I’m living every moment along with them. But once it’s over it feels like it’s only been a second.

I have been alongside 40,956 humans. I keep count. I remember them all and their greatest triumphs. And their lowest lows.

And right now, I’m standing on an interstate with nothing but rows of corn on either side. There’s a little girl sitting in the grass next to the road clutching an old blanket to her chest. She keeps looking for someone that will never return. Her piece-of-trash father, a neglectful alcoholic, finally decided he was tired of her and dumped her on the side of the road like a sick puppy.

I felt my hands twitching. I had to do something.

“Sister. Leave it be.”

I turn to see my fellow guardian angel, Hashmal.

“I can’t just leave her.”

He shakes his head, “We must. It is all part of the plan.”

My eye twitches. Something I picked up from human number 36,912. His name was Jeremey, and his eye twitched any time someone said something he didn’t like.

“She’s a little girl.”

“And some are just babies. Good things can’t happen to everyone all the time.”

“It gets cold tonight. She doesn’t deserve this,” I beg.

“They so rarely do. But her father will be punished for his actions.”

“Why does she have to die in order for him to face punishment?”

Hashmal sighs, “Come, let’s take a walk.”

We end up in 2005. One of our sisters, Marut, is performing a miracle. Two lovers who thought they would never see each other again happen to reunite in an airport by chance. Well, not entirely by chance. They embrace each other. Happiness. Tears. Human emotions running rampart.

 “The good things and the bad must exist simultaneously. Lovers reunite. A small child dies. It is life. It is human life,” Hashmal says. He steps into the human world, and takes human form. It is typically not necessary as angels exist and interact in their own plane of existence.

I follow him.

The smell of coffee has always been strong to me. Someone is drinking it. And someone else has a sandwich. The mustard is almost as strong. The building is cold, air conditioner running on high. And there are voices everywhere. People all over the place are talking. Thinking. Feeling. I feel goosebumps on my skin and my hair blow slightly as someone walks by. Oh, to be human.

Hashmal is walking, so I catch up. “So many people here and now, and every moment is part of a bigger plan,” he is saying. He comes to a stop at one of the terminals. There are a lot of people sitting in the chairs waiting for a flight to arrive. There is a family. Two parents and two children. The two boys are young and playing with little plastic cars. They run the cars all over the ground, and over the seats, and over people’s luggage. They are enjoying life.

“Their mother had a miscarriage four months before she got pregnant with the twins,” Hashmal says. He continues, “If that child had survived and been born, the family would not have had the extra money for this vacation. And young Martin there,” he motions to one of the boys playing with the cars, “wouldn’t have gotten to ride this plane and wouldn’t have made the decision to become a pilot.”

He turns to me, “Don’t you see? It’s necessary. Some die, yes. But others go on.”

I feel a sudden hollowness I’ve never felt before. Perhaps existing in a human form does that to an angel.

“And then they die too. Why were we created to love these humans, care for them, watch over them, perform miracles for them, only to watch them die in the end?”

We are back by the highway. Back in our own plane of existence. And there is a tiny shivering girl wrapped as tightly as she can in her thin blanket.

Hashmal puts a hand on my shoulder. “It is not a perfect world. And they are not perfect beings. And so, they must. They must die. At one time or another. It is what awaits them that makes it all worth it.” Hasmal steps back. “Do not cry for her, sister. It is all part of the plan.”

And he is gone.

I look down at the girl. There are tears in her eyes. She is so young. And so innocent. And she has experienced so little.

I find myself back in the human plane. Back in a human body. I feel how cold the night air is. Colder than the airport by far. It is not goosebumps, but visible shivers that race across my body. The wind blows with a violence.

There is something wet on my face. I look up but there are no clouds in the sky.

Oh. I’m crying.

I must have picked that up from her.

The little girl with the tearstained face looks up at me. She can see me now, in the human plane of existence. “I’m cold,” she says. Her voice quivers.

“I am too,” I tell her. I sit next to her and wrap my arms around her shivering shoulders.

“Thank you,” she says. Her tiny voice almost lost in the wind. She leans against me.

Maybe I can be there for her final moments. Maybe I can offer her some kind of relief in not dying alone.

My eye twitches. No. No.

The plan must be rewritten.

I find myself in 1965 and a man is realizing he doesn’t have enough money to keep his farm. And suddenly, his son comes running in. He found some kind of old civil war artifact buried near the barn. The artifact sells for just enough to keep the farm.

1990. The man’s son inherits the farm after the old man’s death. His wife, however, wants to move to New York. He is inclined to agree with her. A few weeks later as they are preparing to move out, the wife feels sick. She is nauseous that day. And the next. And the next. The doctor tells them she’s pregnant. Suddenly, she doesn’t want to move to New York to have a baby, It’s too loud there. The farm is the perfect place. All the nature. All the family history. They decide to stay.

2020. The couple’s baby, now a grown man, owns the farm. He’s run it ever since his parents decided to retire to Florida. He sometimes goes down to the bar to catch up with friends. He typically doesn’t stay late; he’s got to be up early to work after all. But one night he meets a man at the bar. A handsome man. A man with a stunning smile and gorgeous blue eyes. They become friends. And then they start dating. They start having nightly dates.

2022. Once cold Autumn night, the farmer is driving to the bar to meet his boyfriend when he sees a figure on the side of the road. He thinks it might be a stray puppy and pulls over. It’s not. He carries the shivering bundle to his car. Drives into town, and directly to the doctor’s house. Despite being woken up late at night, the doctor rushes to help.

None of it was part of the plan. The farm was supposed to be reclaimed back in 1965 and then sold to a corporate farming conglomerate. No one was going to be driving down that road late at night. No one was supposed to stop. No one was supposed to get the doctor.

But I changed the plan.

Just this once. Just this once something good can happen.