To Speak With Angels

I cock my head to the side and pretend I didn’t hear her while readjusting my grip on my groceries.

“Don’t do this again, dear. You know how this will end.”

I keep walking, turning up the music on my headphones. It doesn’t work. It never does.

“She needs help, you know.”

“Then go to her,” I say. I’m twenty feet away now. If I go further, she may drop it this time.

“You and I are bound.”

“I didn’t ask for that.”

“Yet it is true all the same.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Demon.”

“That hurts my feelings.”

I sigh and stop at the crosswalk, knowing full well that no matter how many steps I take away, no matter how hard I try to ignore her pleading, I will somehow end up right back here again. She was annoying that way. Maybe my dreams would be full of her disapproving voice, or perhaps she would alter my fate so that my path crossed the bus stop behind me again. It had happened before.

But my life is my own, and she needed to understand that. She was the passenger. Not me.

“And this really brings luck?” I ask, staring up. The clouds were getting darker. Maybe it would rain soon. I scowl. I had forgotten my umbrella at home.

“Of course.”

“It never feels like it does.”

She doesn’t respond.

“Sometimes I doubt that you’re really an angel and think that I’m just going crazy.”

She chuckles. “Upon saying that, the people around you certainly think you are.”

I grimace and stare at the few others waiting to cross the road. They all pointedly avert their gazes. I feel my face flush and avert my own.

“Go back,” she says softly. “It is such a small thing to you.”

I lower my voice. “And what if she’s got a knife?”

“She’ll only use it if you threaten her. She’s lived a hard life.”

“I don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“Yeah, well maybe this time she’ll mug me.” She makes a noise that sounds exasperated. I grin. “Should you be doing that? From what I understand, angels aren’t supposed to get annoyed.”

“Have you known many angels?”

“Touché.”

“My child, please.” The feeling of arms draping gently around me from behind presses softly on my shoulders. I can’t see them, but they feel warm. As always. “She needs help.”

“Don’t want to.” I change the song to something more metal and screechy just to annoy her. She hates that kind of music. “I can’t keep doing this every time I pass someone in need. I can’t afford it.”

The light changes and I move with the crowd to cross. “That’s something you could guard me from. Poverty. How about you guide me to the winning lottery numbers? Then I can help as many people as you want.”

Her arms leave my shoulders and the cold returns swiftly. As always, it makes me pause.

She’s upset.

I stop in the middle of the street like an idiot while the people around me move on. She’s been upset before, but it’s different this time.

My grip tightens on my bag. I say, “You can tell I’m fed up, can’t you? Giving money to bums or scammers who probably use it for drugs. Breaking up bar fights when I just want a nice night out with my friends. Working overtime so that Conor can go home early. That’s not luck, and I don’t deserve it.”

“Do those bums deserve to starve?” she asks quietly.

I pause.

“Did someone deserve to die in that bar fight? Did Conor deserve to work late and miss the birth of his child that would happen that night?

The clock is nearly done ticking down, and the drivers are giving me weird looks. I ignore them and close my eyes. I whisper, “Why do you do this to me? You’re my guardian. You’re meant to keep me from harm, not put me in it.”

“A guardian,” she says.

I snap my eyes open just as the light changes again. “A guardian.”

“Yes.”

“Guardian of what?”

Silence.

“Well?”

“Go to her.” Her tentative touch reappears on my shoulder blades. “Please. There is more at work here than you can see. Do this, and I will give you a glimpse.”

Cars start honking. I groan loudly and come to a decision. Turning on my heel, I quickly jog back the way I came, grumbling, “You and I are going to have a long discussion when I get home.”

The homeless lady was where I had left her. She had been here for some time and had made the place her home, as evident from the amount of cardboard and newspaper strewn about bus shelter. She laid on the bench, wearing an old winter jacket that was far too big for her and seemingly stuffed with paper. Her face is crinkly, but that’s the most I can make of her beneath all the padding.

I say, “Now what?”

The lady’s eyelids flutter open and she locks eyes with me. Her body tenses in an instant as she reaches for something I can’t see. I shift awkwardly, suddenly anxious. “Um…hi.”

She doesn’t say anything, and merely nods with a wary look.

“May I sit here?”

She lifts an eyebrow with open skepticism.

“I’ll um…I’ll trade you.” I reach into my bag and pull out a candy bar.

“I could really use a moment’s rest.”

She pointedly turns her head to look down the road where an empty bench is waiting. My face flushes as I follow her gaze. “Oh…right. I’ll um…I’ll leave you. Sorry to bother you.” I turn to walk away, muttering to the angel, “Thanks a lot.”

“Hey. Wait.”

I stop and look back. The old lady is staring at me with an odd look. “You can sit if you’d like.”

I blink in surprise. “Are you sure?”

She shrugs and makes room, coughing loudly as she sits up. “I don’t mind.”

Hesitantly, I step into the bus stop and sit a comfortable distance away, glancing at her. She looks ahead, not meeting my gaze. “Here you go,” I say, offering her the candy again.

She shakes her head. “Too much sugar. Hurts my stomach.”

It takes me a few seconds to pull my hand back. I look down at my groceries and root around a little before pulling out a water bottle, offering it to her instead. She glances at it and her stoic face crinkles into a humored smile. “Kind of you,” she says, taking it from me and drinking. “What’s your name?”

I give it and ask, “What’s yours?”

“Allison.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Same.”

We fall silent, staring at the cars as they pass by. She doesn’t speak. Eventually I ask, “So what’s your story?” She lifts her eyebrow at me again, and I hurry to follow up with, “Just to shoot the shit. You don’t have to tell me anything.”

Her smile returns. She regards me for a while. Then she says, “I’ll swap you. How’s that?”

I shrug. “Sounds good.”

The rain starts to fall the moment she begins her story, pattering gently off the roof. It stops the moment I end my own.