Complexities of Faith

Trying to keep this idiot from accidentally dying is making me rethink my immortality.

I had spent the last 5 years of my immortal existence watching over this human, trying to keep him from dying before God’s allotted time.

For the first few years it had been okay. A touch here, a twist there, a change in direction, a moment of enlightenment.

Easy.

Then two years ago, after “the incident,” it was like a switch had flipped. Nearly everyday, I was trying to prevent a cascade of events that would most likely lead to an untimely demise and thus an end to the Great Plan.

I believe he became what most humans referred to as “an adrenaline junkie.”

Whatever he wanted in life, he took it with two hands and ran with it. It was similar to when you leave a child unsupervised with no knowledge that consequences even existed.

He took up dirt biking as the first thing. Do you know how hard it is to control wind and minute angles in a split second? Hard. The probability of serious injuries in dirt biking is rather high, and I couldn’t keep him from all the cuts and scrapes and some broken bones.

Otherwise, that would have looked suspicious - miraculous even.

Miracles either happened by accident or necessity. Too much force put into a Guardian Angel’s meddling, shall we say, defies the laws of the Earthen plane. Sometimes they were necessary to spur on the Great Plan, and other times it was simply a result of an Angel misjudging an effect.

The world was made of checks and balances, forces shifting both against each other and together.

Next, he had taken up rock climbing. He’d had the good sense to ease into it on the walls inside the buildings, but after that, he’d been persuaded into doing it outdoors. On big crags. Then cliffs. Freehand.

I mean, he did use ropes more often than not. I don’t think he is completely bereft of all sense. But sometimes, he really did seem to be directly challenging me.

Then he travelled a lot. Through dangerous terrain (Sahara Desert in summer) and dangerous places (Amazon Rainforest and/or any currently war torn country).

Why? Because he could.

Why? Because he had quit his job two years ago after “the incident.”

Why did he quit his job?

Because I accidentally made him win the multi-million dollar lottery.

I meddled a little too much.

So, I supposed this was my punishment, trying to keep this human alive at God’s decree. He was one of the points on which the Earthen plane turned. What his ultimate goal would be, only God knew.

Us Guardian Angels did not ask questions. We simply served and trusted in our divine duty.

My human was called Darren. He was not very old, 30 years, I think. He was tall and athletic, although on particularly cold days he still walked with a slight limp from “the incident” of two years ago.

He lived alone, although he was not always alone, and had been an accountant. He had a penchant for numbers, which added to the irony of him winning the lottery. He liked how orderly numbers were, and how honest. Numbers couldn’t lie like words could.

So, he had taken his winnings as a sign from God – which I guess inadvertently it was - and set out upon this “adrenaline junkie” path.

But perhaps it was all God’s Plan.

He was back at home now, taking a siesta from his last trip base jumping off a cliff parallel to a waterfall. He looked after himself well enough, I supposed. His diet was exemplary, and he of course kept fit with all of his daredevil nonsense.

He had an evening planned with his friends going out to a pub, and I wondered if I could weave some threads there to make his friends convince him to settle down, take up knitting or something safe and simple.

Now that was an idea.

I concentrated very hard and tried to find which tiny, infinitesimal threads would lead to the outcome I desired. There! I pulled them gently and moved them upwards, pushing them towards a higher goal. Just on two of his friends, not all four of them. All four might backfire, might be too much.

I felt very confident in my meddling.

*****

The night started out tame enough for Darren. He met up with his friends, one of whom was the president of a bank and thus a good person to know if one wanted to make an impact on the world. The others were less powerful people, but still had some influence. They laughed and they spoke and they sang along (very badly) to songs played by the band and drank, and drank, and drank.

I should have watched the alcohol consumption level.

“Pffft you’re not invincible mate! One of these days something is gonna go wrong and then kaput!” said the older of the friends.

“Yeah, you’re not as young as you used to be, show some common sense,” said the banker.

I knew I shouldn’t have made him one of the reasonable ones.

“And how did you make it to your big, fancy CEO position, huh? Was it by playing it safe or by taking risks?” Darren asked accusingly.

“It was by taking risks, yes, but not the kind of risks that could result in death,” he argued back.

“You think I’m risking these things so I can die?” Darren shouted back, his face reddening even more from both alcohol and anger now.

“Woah mate, calm down. He didn’t mean it like that, and you know it,” soothed his younger friend.

“I ain’t no quitter! You guys all know that! I could have quit all those years ago, when Kerry died but I didn’t. You think if I survived that then, I’d do it now,” he raged at them.

He stood up tall then and I felt a growing sense of dread.

“I am invincible. No matter what stupid shit I do, I’ve got a Guardian Angel to keep an eye on me,” he said, voice even louder.

And then it seemed he looked at the very spot I was standing in as only a shaft of almost imperceptible light between the planes.

He winked.

He couldn’t see me… could he?

I had never had to ask myself that question before. I did not like it. I did not like it at all.

His mates were trying to calm him and sit him back down as he drew looks from other patrons. He threw off their arms.

“I’m gonna prove it, right now,” he declared then started stumbling to the front of the pub towards the road.

I followed.

He reached the sidewalk, which was moderately busy, and looked at the street which was definitely busier as it was a Friday night.

His friends tumbled out behind him, trying to call him back, trying to pull him away from the sidewalk.

But he ignored them and closed his eyes, then took one step out into the busy street.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

The mental strain it took to stop the threads of fate of 50 different beings all at once was phenomenal. The ripple effect would be boundless, no matter what I did. A major car accident here could change the trajectory of so many lives, unravel so many carefully laid plans. All I could try was to lessen the blows but I couldn’t alter everything at once without revealing myself in a blinding flash of angelic light.

I had not felt such anger in centuries.

He had almost made it across the street, to screams and screeches and crushing metal. He opened his eyes victoriously as he neared the edge and grinned the hugest, most smuggest grin I’d ever seen.

Then he looked right at me again wkth that look upon his face.

I could say that I was so startled at the fact he really did seem to be looking at me. I could say that it made me just a moment too slow in clicking my incorporeal finger. I could say I didn’t see the repercussions of that thread if I let the car sideswipe him.

But then I would be lying.

*****

Several hours later, he was wrapped up in the hospital with a broken leg and some heavy bruising on his side and his ribs. Nothing that wouldn’t heal, nothing that would leave any permanent damage.

A part of me was glad. Another part of me knew I had almost made a terrible mistake.

After his friends had left him and the nurses and doctors had let him be for overnight observation, I settled into a meditative state, trying to relieve the strain of my earlier efforts.

I was jolted into the real world by Darren suddenly speaking surprisingly clearly despite the circumstances.

“Why didn’t you stop the car?” he asked quietly.

He didn’t look at me, but I knew he was speaking to me. Still, I remained silent.

He turned, his dark blue eyes boring into the very spot where I existed.

“I know you’re there,” he said simply.

“You can see me?” I asked despite myself. But I had to know for sure.

“Yes. I’ve been able to see you for the past two years, ever since the accident. You’ve always been there, hovering, floating. I can’t actually see the shape of you. It’s more just a… shift in the air, a glimmer of light that shouldn’t be. I imagine you as a carved, marble statue from a museum.”

“I am nothing and everything,” I replied.

How had this happened?

Never in my entire existence had my charges ever seen me, or even acknowledged my presence. Sure, they sensed that something was watching over them, called it their Guardian Angel. But none of them had ever actually known.

“Answer my question. Why didn’t you stop the car?” he asked again.

Lying was a sin, but so was forsaking and failing your duty as a Guardian Angel. But he was not meant to discuss the Divine Plan, or acknowledge even his own existence to his charge. He listened, hoping God would say something, but all was silent.

Perhaps this was his test.

“I hesitated,” I said. “I considered, briefly, whether or not to let you go unscathed or to…make your feat seem far less miraculous. I do not create miracles lightly.”

Darren’s eyes flashed in anger.

“I don’t mean tonight; I mean two years ago when Kerry died!” he whispered harshly. “You were there. You were there the whole time and you could’ve stopped the car, stopped that stupid, idiotic drunk driver and you didn’t!”

His heart rate monitor started beating rapidly as his anger rose and I hushed it.

“Why? Why did you let her die and let me live? Huh? Where was your all powerfulness, all greatness, all Holy Spirit then,” he practically spat.

I was aware that he was still technically drunk, in pain and overly emotional. But what he said drew dangerously close to blasphemy and that I would not stand.

“It was not her destiny to live. She had to die,” was all I said in reply.

It took Darren a great effort to rein in his anger. He drew deep breaths in and out, trying to calm himself.

“I loved her,” he said eventually. “She was going to be my wife, the mother of my children. And you took that away from me for what? Fate? A bigger destiny? Does God have a greater plan for me? A way to use my suffering for the greater good?”

I paused. I had often wondered some of the same things. Kerry had been a good woman, a faithful woman, a happy woman. She would’ve been a wonderful wife and mother. I had seen the happy future they would have had together.

“I do not know,” I said slowly. “I did not – I could not save her. The threads of fate and destiny and the Great Plan are so delicate, so intricate, so twisted. I do as I am bid. I can do no more or no less. I was told to guard you, to watch over you, to stop you from dying before your allotted time. That is what I must do.”

He was silent now, drained, tired.

“If it helps,” I began, then paused, wondering if this was the correct thing to say, “I know that she is in a better place. I have seen that place of endless green and golden sunshine. She is happy. She is at peace. I am sure she waits for you, when your time finally does come.”

He stared at his hands for a long, long time, tears dripping down his face.

“Fine then,” he suddenly said, voice cracking and breaking the silence. He sat up straighter in bed.

He grabbed his phone and started scrolling through it. He found a picture of something and waved it in my general direction.

“I think we, or moreso I, should climb Mount Everest,” he said solemnly. “I’m sure you can keep me alive well enough so that I reach the top and come back down safely.”

I glared at him, even if my eyes did not physically exist on this plane. My immortal glare is something to behold I can promise you.

He didn’t flinch.

“You don’t really have a choice anyway. I can do as I wish, as part of God’s Great Plan.” There was malice in his eyes. “I wanted to die, right there with Kerry the moment her heart stopped beating. In the cold, in the snow with her warmth fading alongside mine as we both left this life together. You robbed me of that, forced me to live. So fine, I’ll live. But buckle up, oh Guardian Angel. I don’t forgive easily and I hold grudges. I won’t make this easy for you. I haven’t made it easy for the past two years already, right?”

The flash of anger I felt made the lights flicker violently.

Darren smiled smugly.

A small part of me admired his courage, saw that glimmer of a quality in him that God obviously needed for his Great Plan.

The rest of me wanted to smite him, and it was only God’s decree, my duty, that kept me from doing so.

“No, you have not made it easy,” I said calmly, too calmly.

This was going to be the longest few decades of my eternal existence.