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| >> Campfire Creative >> Fiction >> Action/Adventure >> ID #1345974 |   |
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| [Introduction] An angel gets to try out everything we might not want to try. He has the power to undo any mischief. |
 Asymmetrical  “Hi there, how are you today?” I said, as I started to scan the customer’s lone roll of toilet paper.“Huh,” he said, gruff but not unfriendly, “I’m buying one lousy roll of toilet paper. How do you think I am? Broke!” He handed me a dollar bill. I put it in the register and made the machine spit out his change. “Look in your wallet,” I told him. “Hey!” He pulled out a dollar bill. “This is the bill I just gave you! I know it is, ‘cause I only had one. How did you get it back in my wallet?” “Oh, I can undo anything.” I leaned over and whispered, “I’m an angel.” “An angel!” Seeing me wince, he leaned over the counter and said more quietly, “An angel? What are you doing working at a Walgreens, then? Shouldn’t you be going around rescuing little kids from oncoming cars, or seeing elderly cancer victims to a peaceful death, or… I don’t know, smiting something?” “Nah. I’m a Calvinist angel, so I’m predestined for heaven anyway. You see, Lutheran and Catholic angels, guys like that, they have to prove themselves to get into heaven. But I’m one of the elect, so I don’t have to do anything but put in angel time on earth. Might as well just get a job and wait, I figured. Not that I need money; I don’t eat, or need much else. But it’s something to do. Hey, I gave you your buck back anyway.” “Yeah, thanks for that.” He leaned back and thought for a moment. “Say, I have a proposition to make. Wouldn’t you like to do something more interesting?” I looked him over carefully before I answered. He was sort of intense, a thirty-ish guy with thick glasses and a chin full of stubble. Lean and hungry-looking, as they say. Something about the gleam in his eye interested me. “Yeah, maybe,” I answered slowly. “Well, you see, here’s my problem. I write stuff, murder mysteries, things like that. But I’ve never killed anybody, never died, never been a member of the mob, none of that stuff. I can’t sell my books to anybody, and I figure it’s because, well, because I don’t know what I’m talking about. But if you can undo anything, you can help me out. You can murder someone, then bring him back to life. Get all doped up but not get into any trouble. Can’t you?” I didn’t really like the sound of this. “Look, buddy, that sounds an awful lot like work. All I need till my time comes in 6 months is something to do all day, and space to sleep in my urn all night…” “Urn? You sleep in an urn?” “Yeah, I turn into sort of a puddle of goo and have to be in some kind of container. I’ve got an urn. Anyway, I’m not sure I need…” “I’ll give you anything!” He was really getting into this. “I’ll keep my cats out of your urn! I’ll sell my soul to your favorite charity! Just do this for me, please?” “Well…” Just then a 90-year-old lady came up to the counter with about a 100-year supply of Pepto-Bismol and Preparation H. I just couldn’t handle it. “Okay. I’ll try it. But I get to quit if I don’t like it. Deal?” “Sure, deal,” he said. He put out his hand, saying “I’m Joe.” “Bxtrffnlelschnfkdjjslldfjmnnles. But you can call me Les.” I took off my smock, folded it neatly, and laid it on the counter. I said to the customer, “Sorry, Lady. I quit.” As we walked out the door together, I wondered what I had gotten myself into. Eeevil "So, what kinds of weapons have you got?", I asked as we walked. "Huh?", he grunted, looking confused. "What weapon will I be using for the murder? Maybe a gun?" "You think I can afford a gun?" "A knife, then?" "sold those last week. Can't you just smite somebody or something?" "Well, I could, but unless you're making an angel one of the suspects, I don't see how that would help", I responded, a bit irritated. "I hadn't really thought that far. I hadn't been planning to murder anybody before today", he answered, sounding annoyed. Asymmetrical We got into his car. It was the rustiest old beater you ever saw -- full of junk, too. I kicked aside some Acme soda cans and other cheapo snack remnants as I sat down in the passenger seat."Just toss that stuff into the back," he said. I turned around to throw an Acme Fried Chicken bag, but when I looked back there I couldn't believe my eyes. Stacks and stacks of what looked like Walgreens products. "Hey!" I turned to him. "Where did you get all this stuff, and what do you need with a whole stack of home blood pressure monitors?" "Oh, that. Just doing a little...research." "What are you writing, a book about a kleptomaniac?" "Something like that." I didn't like the looks of that little smirk he have me one bit. "Say, why don't you drive? Then you could run somebody over!" "Yeah, sure," I said. Somehow this wasn't how I pictured the life of an angel. Eeevil "Say, where are we going, anyway?" I asked, getting into the drivers seat. "I don't know where you live.""We should probably go to pick up your urn first," he said, looking at me inquisitively. "I'd think an angel would know where everybody lives." That made me laugh. "No, I'm definitely not omniscient" I replied, "only the big guy has that sort of power. I could read your mind, but that's about it." "Why didn't you do that, then? I'd think if you could read minds, you would have looked at mine before you even agreed to work for me." "Well, just because I can do it doesn't mean it's easy. I can't choose a particular part of your brain to examine. I'd have to look at the hole thing at once, and, no offence, but you don't seem like the kind of guy who has a lot of pleasant thoughts. Anyway in general, it's just a lot more trouble than it's worth." "If you say so. still, it sounds like the kind of thing we might be able to put to good use sometime." Asymmetrical Just for fun, I took a peak into his brain, and it went something like this: Why was he so reluctant to use an ability like that? Heck, I'd be all over people's brains if I could do that. True, then I'd find out what they thought of me. Not much, I suspected.Ah well, enough introspection. Time to splatter a pedestrian. "Okay, here's how we do it," he said. "We drive around till we find somebody interesting to run over. I'll get out, so it looks like I'm just passing by. You run into the target, then leave him dead for a minute or two, then bring him back. Then I'll make like I'm calling 911 and have a talk with him. Look, I just ripped off some fresh tapes for my cassette recorder." He proudly showed me his loot. I raised an ethereal eyebrow, but didn't comment. He rummaged around in back for the old tape deck, and finally pulled it out from under a Hefty bag full of air freshener. "Anybody in particular you want for your 'target,' as you say?" I asked, as we came to a big strip mall. "Well, someone reasonably intelligent, of course. I want them to tell me what it's like, not just say ouch or something. And it will have to be somewhere there's not a big crowd hanging around." So we drove through the parking lot and had a look. There were a bunch of kids giving money to a drunk outside the liquor store. Too much of a crowd there. A guy who looked like Captain Kangaroo was walking a dog, but we gave him the bye too; Joe said he didn't want the dog barking, but we couldn't run it over either because that wouldn't be nice. Sheesh. Finally we saw a little black guy with an eyepatch who didn't seem to be doing anything in particular. My employer got out with his tape recorder and a busted cell phone. I waited for him to get into the general area of Mr. Target, then backed the car up to take my aim at the guy. I looked around to make sure no one much was watching, especially no police. But before I went through with it, I had an idea. I changed my mind, and I changed my aim. © Copyright 2007 Asymmetrical, Eeevil, (known as GROUP). All rights reserved. GROUP has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. |
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