Angelus 4a57k

ANGELUS.

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For the Angel who saved me.

Table of Contents

Title Page

One. | “Man only sees what he can understand” | Goethe

Two. | “Angels are all around us, all the time, in the very air we breathe”.

Three. | “All God's angels come to us disguised.”

Four. | “Insight is better than eyesight when it comes to seeing an angel.”

Five. | “In Heaven an angel is nobody in particular”

Six. | “Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings.”

Seven. | “Without belief you may never see your angel”.

Eight. | “Angels do find us in our hour of need.”

Nine. | “We are each of us Angels with only one wing, | and we can only fly by embracing one another.”

Ten. | “The Angels are always near to those who are grieving, | to whisper to them that their loved ones are safe.”

Eleven. | “It is not known precisely where angels dwell, | whether it be in the air, the void or the planets.”

Twelve. | “The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.”

Thirteen. | “An angel resides in each one of us, though we rarely | choose to allow it free.”

Fourteen. | “When our mortal eyes close on this world for the last time, our angels open our spiritual eyes and escort us personally before the face of God.”

Fifteen. | “Angels may come in many forms, at | many times, throughout the day.”

Sixteen. | “The presence of an angel, | is like a taste of heaven itself.”

Seventeen. | “The paths that angels tread | are not as ours.”

Eighteen. | “To angels, our lifetimes | are mere moments.”

Nineteen. | “And I was lifted on | the wings of Angels.”

Twenty. | “And the angels came, | and fear was vanquished.”

Twenty One. | “In your darkest night, | your angel waits to light the way.”

Twenty Two. | “We feel the eyes of the Angels | When we feel the heat of the sun.”

Twenty Three. | “Though angels may try to teach us, | the decision to learn is ours alone.”

Twenty Four. | “Even in your deepest darkest times, | your angel sees you.”

Twenty Five. | “Angels show the path, | The decision to take it is yours.”

Twenty Six. | “Angels are always nearby, | waiting for you to find them.”

“And I’d give up forever to touch you, | cause I know that you feel me somehow,

| you’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be, | and I don’t want to go home right now.”

One.

“Man only sees what he can understand”

Goethe

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The first time I heard It I was lying on a hammock in my garden. It had been a normal day, well better than normal really. I was on a day off from work and I had spent the last twenty minutes meticulously getting everything ready for a day of lounging before they all came back from their busy days and ruined my sanctuary. I had ordered perfect weather and, though it had threatened rain earlier, bright hot sunshine now flooded my garden. My ancient Ipod was loaded with my favourite play lists, it was fully charged and I had music playing into my ears, filling my head with smiles as each song began. The new fridge had excelled itself and there was now a cold beer sitting in the birdbath surrounded by ice cubes, within easy reach from the fully reclined position which I was now adopting. I had figured out a while ago that the birdbath was just about the same height as the hammock and, after all, the birds never seemed to use it. All was well with the world. The odd squirrel occasionally ran across the top of the fence at the end of the garden, scratching its claws along the timber rails as it hopped and scrambled around the bushes that overgrew the s from behind. Even the cat was curled up on the paving next to the lawn, basking in the heat. Every now and then she would roll over and yawn, a quick stretch and then back to the basking. It wasn’t

often that the English weather allowed for days such as these and they normally arrived when I was working, leaving me to gaze out of the windows and wish I’d gone sick. ‘An Englishman in New York’ was playing through my headphones, one of my favourites. It seemed to compliment the day perfectly. So that was me then, gently swaying and soaking up the warm sunshine with good music whilst partaking of the occasional sip of my purely medicinal beer. My mind was completely relaxed, I had made sure there were no jobs left to do around the house, I was alone and if any one rang the doorbell, well they could ring forever. If they knocked, let them knock. So, there I was, at peace with the world. Then it came. A voice...through or over the music I couldn’t tell which. It wasn’t loud, but it was there. At first, I thought it was a fault with my Ipod, a glitch, or a software crash. The precursor to me losing all of those tracks that I’d been far too clever over the years to back up to USB’s. Just as I’d always been too clever to back up photo’s, programs and everything else that was of any importance to me, because of course nothing would ever go wrong and I couldn’t lose anything. It’s an idiot’s gamble of course but, be honest; you’re just the same, aren’t you? I checked the display; it looked fine, it felt fine, the wheel that controlled the menus seemed to be working as it should. There was an instant of momentary panic then the music just kept playing. I sat up and looked around thinking someone must be in the garden talking to me, they must have either came through the house or else had climbed over the garden gate like my son or the window cleaner sometimes had a habit of doing. My own fault really for keeping it locked but these days you just never know. The days of unlocked doors were sadly consigned to the past. Maybe the kids had come home from school early? That would be an end to the idyllic afternoon I had spent hours quietly planning before it had even begun. I looked around again fearing the worst. I was most definitely alone. There wasn’t anyone there at all. Not a soul. Actually, in light of what was to come...that wasn’t entirely accurate.

But the voice, where had it came from? If my Ipod was still playing without skipping or freezing then it wasn’t that. I’d never had songs skip or blend into other ones before or heard of anyone who had. It was, on the whole, a remarkable reliable device. Maybe it was the farmer walking down his path on the other side of my fence. The end of the garden backed onto what was quite a busy farmyard and you could often hear him chatting or joking as he wandered down to his fields with his workers or his family. But it was a solid voice and his was normally quite weak and distant and would fade off as he walked away. This voice, or whatever it was, did not fade and it was not distant. It was solid. It had come into my head despite the headphones, my ear bud noise cancelling headphones, which really did cancel out nearly all other sounds except what you actually wanted to listen to. Though I tried I just could not recall what the voice had said. Infuriating as it was, I just couldn’t . It was definitely a spoken voice though, and it had spoken to me. There was no one else there for it to speak to. I took out my headphones and sat up waiting, listening intently for it to come again. Waiting...waiting...more waiting, silently. Nothing came. I got off the hammock as elegantly as I could and went inside the house to check the front door. I was forever being told to lock the door and I was forever forgetting to do it. Funny how I insisted on and never forgot to lock the garden gate. There was never anything in the garden worth stealing yet when it came to the house with all of our life’s possessions and memories in it, I just never bothered. Funny that. The door was locked and the house, after a quick check upstairs, was most definitely empty. Had it just been my imagination? I told myself it had to be my imagination. It had been strange though and I couldn’t recall it happening before. Anyway, it was gone, ed-unimportant, so I took the next logical step and made my way back to the hammock via the fridge. That would solve my mini mental aberration. So, armed with fresh supplies and a fully locked up house I headed back to the hammock and found a spare spot on the grass for a cold glass of Franziskaner. I wedged my buds back into my ears squeezing and twisting, and put my music

back on as I raised my legs onto the hammock and finally put my feet up for a well-deserved rest. I was slightly confused by what had happened but the feeling soon drifted away as Sting carried on where he had left off when he had been so rudely interrupted, I was soon back in business. The beer had never tasted better as I lay back with my head on a cushion listening to the music playing and watching the contrails from the silent airplanes way overhead drift away sideways in the upper winds streaking and thinning out as they dissipated slowly away to nothing, spreading their invisible poison into the already overloaded atmosphere. Even the cat, who normally avoided me like the plague, had moved into the shade under the hammock and lay within reach of a lazy hand. Life was good. “I wish you no harm”. It came like a smack in the face. It was strong. It was real. This was not my imagination. Someone, something, was here with me...in my garden. I sat up, startled, and pulled my buds out of my ears. I looked around the garden searching every inch through squinting eyes. There was no one there. My skin prickled and tingled making me feel cold despite the sunshine. My heart began to race. I could feel fear rising in me, a thumping fear, and I couldn’t stop it. I got off the hammock, slightly less than elegantly this time, nearly standing on the cat as I did and checked all around the garden once more. I saw no-one hiding in the bushes at the sides of the garden, or no friends hiding behind the shed having a laugh at my expense. There was no one there. I was alone. “Who’s there”? I asked. Not too loudly in case the next-door neighbour thought I was going mad talking to myself (maybe I was). “I wish you no harm”. I didn’t have my buds in now yet the voice felt as if it were coming from inside my head. How could it be in my head? It didn’t make sense. Was it actually coming from me? Was I going mad? Is this...what going mad is, how it begins, how it feels? I was confused and starting to get a little scared now. “I am not you”. What was left of my hair was beginning to rise; my arms were tingling with

goose bumps on top of goose bumps. A cold chill ran up my back and I shivered. What was going on? How? Why, was this voice speaking to me? “Who are you”? I asked with no idea what I was expecting in reply or if indeed I wanted a reply at all. Maybe it wouldn’t hear me. Was I just talking to myself? It came again. “I hear you...you are not talking to yourself; you are talking to me.” Whatever this was, this thing, this madness, it was inside my head. It knew my thoughts. I was beginning to file feverishly and nervously through mental illnesses in my head, Schizophrenia, Dementia, Paranoia; anything that could be the cause of this ‘episode’ (is that not what psychiatrists called these types of happenings?). Then another fear appeared out of nowhere...work. How could I work if I was going mad? How could we manage if I had lost the plot? My stomach was gripped with fear and I began to feel sick. “I am not you”. The voice came again. Its tone was not impatient, it was more like that of a teacher trying to gain understanding from a student who was struggling to grasp something complicated. I asked again only this time in my head. ‘Who are you then, if you’re not me, what are you if you’re not madness?’ I looked around me; everything was still as it had been. The absurdity of what I was doing came to me and, for some reason, I smiled. “I am what I am, you are what you are, I am not what you call madness and I am not you”. I could make no sense of what was happening. This was all so...surreal. ‘Are you alive?’ thinking I could be experiencing something like a ghost or some sort of apparition (albeit there was nothing to see). I had always said in daylight company when bravado was easy that I would love to see a ghost or any kind of spook, but at night when everyone else was asleep and there was only me left awake alone in the dark, I always hoped that I wouldn’t. “I am as alive as you are”.

It’s strange, when confronted with such an unusual situation, how a part of your brain remains steady, how it tries to find a way to find out more. How it begins to deduce to rationalize, to reason regardless of the seemingly ridiculous situation it finds itself confronted with. Maybe It’s some sort of defence mechanism, to protect the owner from harm by coming up with a plan or an escape route away from harm. I didn’t know if it was a separate part of the brain to that doing the thinking but I distinctly being very confused in the main, but strangely calm and thoughtful at the same time and still able to come up with questions. So, you’re alive...which means you’re not a ghost, I think? Another thought stuck me. It was quickly laid to rest. “I am not evil; I do not wish to ‘possess’ you or take over your body”. Slight relief to an embarrassing thought. Too many late-night movies. This ‘thing’ then, which I shall call a him (not because it sounded particularly like a him in my head, if indeed it had any sound at all, but because it didn’t sound like a her ) was not evil, did not wish to possess me, did not mean me any harm and was not dead. Was I then safe? It ‘said’ it was not a ghost or a demon (if indeed they even existed). I was not going to end up being flung around like some scene from an ‘Exorcist’ type Hollywood movie, spitting green gunk around a room and swearing my head off at visiting priests. So apparently, I was not going mad (I hoped). Yet I still could not see it. I could ‘hear’ it talking to me but could not see it. Could it see me? “I am aware of you”. Is that the same thing I wondered? Slowly realising that my fear was leaving me and curiosity was beginning to take over. There was no one here to see me which meant that I had time to figure this out before anyone came home and thought I was barking mad. Time to ‘talk’ to this presence...for want of a better word, to try to find a way to get my sanity back if it truly was deserting me. The strangest questions formed and were duly answered. ‘Are you God’? (maybe I was ‘getting religion’ or hearing the voices that cause people to devote their lives to a particular faith or even to commit unspeakable acts of violence or cruelty using the excuse that God told them to do it). “I am not God”.

‘Are you alone’? “I am the only one of my kind with you”. His kind, what kind? Did that suggest a group or a race, maybe a type or species of being that we as humans are unaware of, maybe even aliens? ‘How many more of you are there?’ “We are many in number”. So, he was not God or ‘a’ God, I didn’t know if I was relieved or not. He was not alone; but he was alone with me. Did that mean there were others of his kind with others of my kind? I was trying to put the pieces of the weirdest jigsaw together. ‘Why are you here, why me, what do you want with me?’ “It is enough for now to know that I am here. I am with you because you have called for me. You are ready for me”. I couldn’t calling anyone and then another thought. A bad thought. What if this voice was the Grim Reaper, the angel of death that is supposed to show up and claim people whose time was up? I’d seen it in a movie with Brad Pitt a while ago where this character turned up to take Anthony Hopkins off to wherever, Heaven or Hell. Maybe the figure of the ‘Grim Reaper’ or ‘Death’ as a real being was only folklore or myth but if it were true and he did come to claim you, then by the time you realised it, it was already too late and you weren’t coming back to tell anyone. Ridiculous thinking, I know but so was this whole thing. So, was this my time? Was I going to flake out in my garden right here alone with no family only for them to find me later? My funeral began to play out in my head, bad thought...go away. “I am not here to guide you there”. That was a bigger relief than some of the other answers and my nervous smile at the ludicrous nature of this situation returned. But thinking then; he said he was not here to guide me ‘there’ so somewhere like that must exist...and this presence must know where ‘it’ was or he couldn’t have guided me to it if he had wanted to. Was I getting ahead of myself?

I ed programs which I had seen on TV in the wee small hours, when obscure channel hopping made perfect sense, where people on shows that I wouldn’t have dreamt of watching when sober believed they were being watched, protected or even somehow looked after by ‘beings’. These strange characters came out with stories of being saved from disasters or certain death by the influence or action of these beings. They felt some ‘thing’ pull them out of the way of speeding cars and certain death or these ‘beings’ had somehow saved them from some other sort of harm, their guardian angels. Most, if not all of these people were deeply religious...they were either devout believers in some sort of religion, or even a bit nuts. I was not one of those. I held no religious beliefs at all apart from the obvious slight worry that I could be wrong. If anything, I was a sceptic, an agnostic...a doubting Thomas. Still, the question was worth asking. ‘Are you (I was almost too embarrassed to ask and I was so pleased no one that I knew was here to listen to this)...are you...an angel...a guardian angel...my guardian angel, here to save me from something or someone else?...silence. The other questions had been answered instantly or at least without too much delay, this one was not. This was a question that I needed an answer to, but it didn’t seem forthcoming as the others had. Was I in some sort of danger? There was a long pause in our ‘conversation’ and just as I was beginning to feel as if I’d asked the wrong question or offended or insulted him, he answered. “I am not here to save you from another person. You are in no danger of harm”. Still...what of the rest of my question? He had not really answered my question. I tried again, gently. ‘So, are you an angel then...are you my angel’? Visions of a winged being came to me, shining with a bright light and the usual gold halo hovering over its head as I’d seen from pictures from as far back as I could . I couldn’t believe that I was actually coming up with this rubbish but it was another stab in the dark for some sort of answers. “I do not always have wings”. Hold on a minute! Was that a yes? because it certainly wasn’t a no. I asked again, surprised at myself for being so forthright in this strangest of situations. ‘Are you, or have you or any of your kind ever been called- by my kind- an ‘angel’...yes or no?’ Got you there, I thought, couldn’t make that any plainer; a

one-word answer with no room for wriggling. But I didn’t get my one-word answer. Instead I got another heart stopper. “Your kind, have known mine, by that name”.

Two.

“Angels are all around us, all the time, in the very air we breathe”.

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I was ‘talking’ to an angel, if it could be called talking; more...communicating. ‘Am I dreaming’? I asked without asking. I could have fallen asleep in the relaxed heat of the garden, rocked gently by the hammock with the encouragement of a couple of beers and the purring of a cat. Could I just be dreaming? Some part of me hoped I was...but no. It wasn’t going to be that easy. “You are awake. I am not a dream”. Bugger! That’s that path to normal life firmly closed off. What now? Does this mean all of this religion stuff is actually true then, the God stuff, and the church stuff? Does this mean that only the religions that have angels in their history and beliefs are correct? Does this mean that the others are wrong? What a massive question. Wars had been fought, campaigns had been waged, millions of lives had been lost over thousands of years, in the name of religion or maybe the ‘wrong’ religion. Were they all for nothing? What of the peoples of the ‘other’ religions, the priests, the devotees, the multitudinous followers, who spent their entire lives denying themselves worldly pleasures for the promise of a better ‘next life’? Were they all wrong? Was that devotion all wasted? Was there really no Heaven or even Hell for the people of the ‘wrong’ religions; and which were those ‘wrong’ religions? But surely then his very presence here now would suggest that there was

something afterwards, an afterlife? Would that then mean that the ‘other’ religious believers who did not have angels in their belief history would not go on to the afterlife? For that matter does this beings existence confirm the belief in a Heaven? From a simple voice out of nowhere my head was starting to spin with the questions flooding into it, the massive questions. Did he have the answers to these questions? Even if I got answers to them what could I do with them? Who could I tell? Who would believe me? I didn’t know where to begin. But what a chance this was to maybe find out the answers to some of the greatest questions. Questions that mankind had pondered over for all history. I wondered how far this angel’s (there...said it) knowledge went, backwards and forwards. How much he knew. Did he know of man’s future, of other worlds and other life in the universe; of the world’s problems with climate change of disappearing lands and environments, of pandemics, of the energy crisis? These were all new ‘plagues’ which, if not resolved, could seriously threaten man’s existence. This angel could answer everything. Not only could he answer everything he could actually be the answer to everything. This was just getting bigger. This could shatter and re-shape the world. Could I really do this? Could I ask the questions? Get the answers (if he would give them) and get them somehow out into the world? What if I did? Could I convince people or would I be locked up with a lovely white strappy jacket on? I knew, and was myself guilty of, the ridicule that so called ‘prophets’ were subjected to. I saw a picture in my head of me on Sky News being dragged off by the police kicking and shouting from some public event where I’d been trying to get my message out, family in the background shaking their heads in despair. Not good. This could really be a double-edged sword. I may be able to get access to the most important information ever out of this being and then find myself in a position where I am never be able to tell another living soul about it. On the other hand, what if I got nothing? The cat moved against my leg and jolted me back to my senses. What on earth was I thinking of? I was talking to an angel and all I could think of was to get something for myself out of it. That would impress him. Basics, that’s what I should be thinking of...basic building blocks. I was getting so carried away with what I could get from my visitor that it never even entered my head that he may want something from me. Maybe that was why he was here, but if so, then why was he not asking me anything?

Better try some basic questions, some ‘get to know you’ questions. Simple stuff first. Stuff like what would he look like if I could see him? That’s a good start. “You have seen me countless times throughout your life...though my appearance has varied”. Mind reading again. ‘I have never seen you sir (sir?)’, I replied, ‘I’m sure I would have ed if I had’. “I saw you on the day you were born into this world...and you saw me. You have seen me all through your life, at your best times and your worst. You have spoken to me many times”. What a strange statement...did he have the wrong person? You don’t come across an angel every day; it would have stuck in my memory. What if this being thought I was someone that I wasn’t, someone important? Maybe he thought I was someone of religious importance, some bishop or cardinal of sorts or maybe someone of power. Had he got it wrong? I had never encountered him before. I was sure of that. “You are my charge and I am, and always have been, your guide”. My goose bumps had returned. ‘My charge’, does that mean I am his responsibility somehow? He had said he was my guide. I was getting more confused by the minute. Exactly what was he here to do... and why? ‘I think you must be mistaken; I have not ‘called’ you; I didn’t even know you existed and I’m afraid I have never seen you before. I would have ed, really’. Quite calmly, he answered. “Before you could talk you would cry, as all your young do. You would stare past your mother and father; you would stop crying and you would smile. It was I you were staring at, smiling at. Most of the young of your kind stare at their ‘angels’ if you wish to call us that. The adults of your kind either do not see us anymore or choose not to see us. But we still remain. When you wake in the night and feel sure you have seen a shadow move across your open door, it is then that you see me.

When you feel eyes watching you and yet you see no-one; it is then that I am with you. It is my eyes you feel. When you see a face in a crowd of your kind that you feel sure you have seen before; maybe a friend, it is then that you see me. You have seen me...countless times. When have you called me? If ever you have prayed; you have called me, though your call does not need to be in prayer. If ever you have wished for help, in the quiet, in the dark, when you are alone or at your lowest; it is I you have wished to. When you have hoped for someone to watch over you or your kin; it is I who has answered. When you hear a voice inside you, some of your kind calls it your conscience; that is when I speak to you. I may seem strange to you here and now but you know, and have known me, for all of your days...and from before”. Wow. How do get my head around this? I asked myself, though I couldn’t answer. He said he wasn’t ‘God’ so how had I prayed to him? He... “I am not God.” He interrupted, “If you pray to God, then you pray to another ...not to me. When you pray without asking for your God then it is I who answer.” ‘Are you saying then that there is actually...a God’? There it was, the question. “I can give you no knowledge of God”.

Now I was as confused as ever and was actually beginning to get used to it. If this being, if he were even here at all and it wasn’t just my mind after a few beers on a perfect day, was my guardian angel then how could he have no knowledge of God? Angels were supposed to, as far as my limited knowledge told me, spring from or at least be connected to religion and therefore to God. Was I making some sort of mistake connecting this all together? Maybe I was hallucinating. Was I trying to find an explanation for this strangest of situations, something to tell me this wasn’t really happening to me? “Reach beneath you.” “Sorry?” “Reach beneath you.” I reached beneath me as he had said. The cat was curled up underneath the hammock right below me. “Do you feel the heat from her body?” How did he know ‘she’ was a ...she? Her body rose and fell as she breathed, contentedly purring the day away, seemingly oblivious to my visitor. “She will soon rise and move over to the steps.” I watched and waited. Sure enough, after a minute or two, she got up and stretched as cats do, protesting at the effrontery of movement. She walked, or rather slinked, over to the foot of the steps leading up the garden and sat again, pure elegance. She looked over to me then turned her head back to where she sat and looked up slowly, focussing on something. ‘What’s going on now’ I thought. Why did she do that? And how did ‘he’ know she would do that? “She moved to the steps because I called her.” “But I didn’t hear you call her.” “You did not hear me because I was not addressing you. You cannot hear my voice when it is not meant for you.”

“So, you can talk to animals too?” “And they can talk to me.” I allowed myself a smile as a vision of Dr Doolittle popped into my head. Looking over to the cat, she appeared to be leaning against something, as she did when we would stroke her soft thick coat. Looking closer I thought I could see her fur moving as it did when our hands ran over her soft undulating body. Suddenly the sun broke through the trees which overhung the garden and a wide beam of sunlight shone across her back. As well as the cat the sunlight struck something else. Something like a blur over a bleary early morning eye recovering from the excesses of the night before. This was not however a blur on my eye, something else was there. Something was next to her and she was leaning against it...feeling it. It looked like a shadow or a mass of cloudy gassy air. I had no idea what it was but it was, most definitely, there and...it was huge. He spoke. “So now you see me.”

Three.

“All God's angels come to us disguised.”

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So, there it was. I had accepted the fact that, for some reason, an angel or rather my angel, better...my guardian angel, was now in my garden next to my house in my unimportant village in the middle of nowhere, talking to me; Discovery Channel style. Although I had accepted it, I still, (even now) don’t think I fully grasped what was happening to me. After actually ‘seeing’ something next to the cat, something which I believe she also either saw or felt, my conversation virtually dried up; although I did manage one more question. ‘Why me’? He answered. “There are a number of things I should explain to you, one of which is why I am here, for I think a better understanding will come and hopefully a peace with my presence. I am your ‘guardian’ as you call me...and you are my charge. That does not mean harm cannot befall you. I am not charged with protecting your body from harm. I am charged with protecting your mortality until your time to is due. I am charged with protecting your being, and no they are not the same thing, until your time is due. When that time arrives, I shall be released from you and given another charge, though you will thereafter always know me. That is my purpose and has been for longer than it is within my power to . I do not know where my next charge is or when I shall be released from you. That is not for me to know. Although others are charged with that duty, if it is

within my power, I shall endeavour to protect those who are close to you and those who you feel responsible for. In protecting you I cannot alter physical things, I cannot stop your body being damaged by one of your vehicles if it strikes you, though I can influence you to move away from its path before it reaches you. I cannot heal you if you become sick or injured. The outcome of those things is for others to decide and it is not my place to involve myself in that. I am not solely from this world, though neither am I solely from any other except to say that I am from, and have knowledge of, many. In at least the first we are the same. There exist other beings that have knowledge of your world. I cannot say that I have knowledge of all things, suffice to say that when your mortality is over you shall come to know all that I do. I can travel between the worlds that I know of, in that at least we are the same. There are worlds within worlds and the one that you experience every day is not the only one in which you exist. There are beings and peoples that live alongside you within what you understand as your world. They are beings of a different light, a different realm to your kind; they are rarely glimpsed by your people though you do have the ability to see them as they travel their own journey through their mortality alongside you. I can give you no knowledge of Heaven or Hell, as your kind calls them. At the end of your days you will be judged, though not by I. As a species you are capable of showing more love, caring and sympathy than any other I have knowledge of; though you are also capable of more hatred, cruelty and apathy. The love, care and sympathy belong to you as beings, the others do not; those you have made for yourselves. They have no place among you and with your mortality. The others remain. Your mortality and your death are not the same thing. I have seen the end of mortality on your world since your kind first walked its surface. I have never seen death. I do not know by what means your days will end. My presence with you now may guide your choices afterwards; for there are choices. I can appear to you when I choose to though you can also see me whenever you choose. I can appear to others as I see fit, in whichever form I choose. I have appeared to many of your kind but only ever for their benefit. I bring peace, comfort, and solace. For others that is my purpose, for you I can bring only

guidance. I can feel the beat of your heart; I can feel your joy and your sadness. I cannot bear your peoples inhumanity; I cannot bear your wars; they darken this precious world on which you are only caretakers. I am one of many. We, my kind, leave the presence of those who begin those acts which take you to war. For those we cannot influence judgement. For the rest of you, we are heard. When your innocents suffer, when they fear each day or when they shed a tear; although we have no voice, we scream louder than all of your oceans roaring at their fullest. And your world hears us. When you do not need my presence or guidance, I am with others who do. When I am not needed by any of my charges, for there are many, I go back to rest with my own kind. I am, however, needed more in these days than ever before. Your peoples have more need now of guidance, , comfort and help than they have ever needed during your past. You are beginning to tear your world in two. There is more fear in the world than there has been for millennia. There is also more confusion, more worry and more sadness. Your people are turning away from me and my kind. They no longer believe in our existence as they once did. In so doing they forget we are here. Your children do not learn of us as they did. Some do not even know we exist. They are growing in a belief that there is no one to help them except for themselves. Money and greed are becoming the new masters of your peoples, all of your peoples. They are bleeding your world dry. This may lead to your destruction. Through all of this though there still exist in small numbers some of your peoples who believe in the power of this world; the power to heal and to protect itself from the folly of your people. They believe this world has a consciousness...a ‘Gaia’ as they call it. They believe it can repair the damage which they have, and continue, to cause. They may or may not be correct; it is not my place to tell you of these things. But it is my place, my responsibility, to come to you when I am called, whether you believe in me, and mine, or not. It is my responsibility to tell you that I am real and have been for aeons. It is your decision whether to accept me and my guidance or not but know this; I will not leave you now I have been called until I am needed no longer and that time,

and when it arrives, is not for you to decide.”

Four.

“Insight is better than eyesight when it comes to seeing an angel.”

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I felt beyond any more questions. I was in tears. I felt beyond anything, talking, thinking, moving...anything. I was accepting this presence and ‘talking’ to it without talking. I knew however that I had not called this being from wherever it lived (if indeed it was alive as I knew it or even lived anywhere). I had not asked for help from anyone, I had been enjoying an afternoon of sunshine, music and beer. I was not in trouble or in need of anyone’s help so why would he think I’d ‘called’ for him. I was quite happy with my lot. Wasn’t I? Sure, I had the usual wish list that most people do, a bit more money, a few more holidays, maybe a nicer car but on the whole, I would have said that I was happy enough with my lot. “I am not here to help you with possessions”. He came again, “What you learn in your mortal life you take with you afterwards, possessions are not part of that. They are unimportant however they do not hinder you; your wealth measured in possessions has no effect on what comes to you afterwards, or your age to it. There are many ways in which you can call me to you, despair, pain, injury, fear; these are but some of the things which call me to you. You may call me without asking for me; without knowing that you have reached out to me; and in the course of your days you are not normally aware of the times that I have attended to you. My presence, and that of my kind, is rarely visible on this world. In times past, when your people had a belief in us, we could not hide ourselves from discovery and sometimes our physical presence was observed and often embellished upon

by many through tales and folklore which have been ed between your generations throughout the ages of man. We were given various titles, statues, adornments and garb of many different kinds. The most common image your people held of us was that of the ‘angel’ as we became called. The image gave succour, peace and hope to many of your people and so we have endeavoured whenever our physical manifestation has been necessary to appear in that form; but that is not how we appear to ourselves...we have no wings, no halo’s, no white gowns, though your idea of angels did not exist before we were first seen” “So, you’re saying that, (breaking it down in my head) if you wanted me to see you...I could”? “That is correct.” I swallowed and asked...nervously, my heart banging in my chest, aching to be released. “Can I...can I...see you? Now? Here”? There was a long period of silence, too long. Had I said something wrong, something I maybe wasn’t supposed to? Had I offended again? “How would you like to see me?” He was back and I, quite strangely, felt relieved. But I didn’t understand. “Well...just here, how else could I see you? I don’t follow...” “The first time you knowingly see me and know me for who and what I am, you see me as a familiar.” “A ‘familiar’...” “I’m sorry”? An angel was apologising to me. This was precious and I nearly smiled. “A familiar is an image of a person whom you have known, a person who you loved or liked during your time on your journey. It can be someone who has helped you, someone whom you have trusted, male or female. Someone you are

happy to see, someone you are comfortable with, at peace with, someone who you feel no threat from. Someone who is...’familiar’. Then came the punch line. “Whomever it is however cannot be part of your mortal world.” “You mean they can be dead?” Surely not? “No. They cannot be dead. For nothing truly dies, but they can have- as you call it ‘ed away’.” That means dead as far as I’m concerned. He could actually appear to me as someone I knew...someone who had died. I knew of course that it wouldn’t actually be that person but oh... what a thought. What a dilemma. How many of us have wished for five minutes more, even one minute more, with a relative who has died (ed away-he was listening)? A chance to hear a voice again, see a smile again, look into a face again? What if you were given the chance? Who would you choose? The agony of such a choice. For all of us there are people, usually family , who have shaped our lives more than others; who we have loved, even though we know we shouldn’t, more than all others. There are those that can still draw a quiet tear many years after leaving us, their loss causing such profound heartbreak that true recovery never really happens. Thinking of these people takes us back to a different time, a time when –illusion or not-our lives were better; these thoughts can make us feel like vulnerable children all over again, yet often, we can’t explain why. I felt guilty even thinking about choosing. I felt like I was considering who was ‘better’ than someone else. “Would you find it easier if I chose for you? , I have been with you...always.” “I think that may be best.” “Close your eyes.” I did as he told me. Who would he choose? It could be anyone, absolutely

anyone from my past. I was so nervous that my mouth dried up. The garden was silent. No birds...did they know? I sat for what seemed like forever...waiting. Forever. How would I know when to open my eyes? How would he tell me? Would he talk to me, touch me, make some sort of noise? I sat for an age with no noise anywhere before I began to realise a strange feeling was coming over me. There was no temperature, or rather, there was no hot or cold. I felt as if I were sitting in some sort of bubble, protecting me from the outside world of noise, of heat, of wind; of anything. Then as we all do when we think we have been left alone, I asked the question, “Are you still there?” “I am here.” I opened my eyes slowly as a voice came into my ears for the first time in over twenty years. I squinted through tears which instantly flowed heavily down my face as the figure in front of me became clearer. Sitting on the garden steps, no more than ten feet away from me, so nearly within reach, sat a slim figure in a tidy dark green tweed suit. His tie was, as always, neatly fastened. Brown suede brogues covered his feet and the sunlight glinted off his thick black hair, swept back with oil. His military years had ingrained self-discipline and self-respect into him to the point that I had never seen him looking shabby or out of shape. A true gentleman and a perfect role model for a young boy as he grew into manhood. The gentlest man I had ever known and whom I respected above all others. He smiled at me and, as always, I felt supremely protected. “Grandad”?

Five.

“In Heaven an angel is nobody in particular”

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My skin was prickling. Heat filled me completely and my eyes welled up and then gave way. My nose streamed. I gulped at the air, desperately trying to find enough breath. Everything was silent, as if my ears could no longer hear. I stared...and he stared back. Every line, every wrinkle, every hair was there just as it had been, all those years ago. He was perfect. I couldn’t speak. I could feel rivers of tears running down my face. I was shaking. This was just not possible. I could feel my lips quivering and I closed my eyes. Even though I had probably thought of this man at least once a day every day since his death and pictured him a million times over; when he was here, right in front of me, I closed my eyes. I was almost too scared to open them in case he had gone. Why had I closed them? How stupid. He was still there. I wiped my eyes and unceremoniously rubbed at my dripping nose with my hand. “You see me?” he asked without talking. “Oh yes” I replied, suddenly feeling unbelievably sad. “Beautiful” I wept. I stared and stared, memories flooding back of my youth, when he was younger and stronger. I had forgotten how much I had missed this man. He had been so important to me; his influence, his patience, his wisdom. I had grown up trying to spend as much time in his company as I possibly could. Even simple things like watching him tinkering around with his car or messing about with plants in

his greenhouse had taken on magical significance for me. I had often wondered, as the years had ed, whether I had built this man up to be something different to what he actually had been. Had I put him on an unrealistic pedestal with an unrealistic image by which I’d judged other men? I knew I had compared others to him, in their nature, in their behaviour, in their manners; and I knew they had never measured up. I suppose grandparents have a special place in all children’s hearts. They are always more patient, more willing to spend the time to talk, to listen. They have a knack of making children feel so special, unique, and important. Or at least that’s what this man had been to me and, as I looked at him in his neatly pressed suit with his Windsor knotted tie and his polished shoes; I realised that I had not been wrong or guilty of building him into something he had not been. He was as I’d always ed him...a true gentleman. I realised that, whilst I’d been staring at him, reminiscing in my mind on our times together in the past that my tears had gone. Something else had replaced them. In their place was an overwhelming feeling of warmth, of love, of somehow...completeness. I watched as he sat on the stone step, his clothes moving as he adjusted himself, his hair catching the sunlight. I imagined the smell of him, of his suit, of the Kiwi polish he had always used on his immaculate shoes, as he had sat for hours buffing them to a glassy shine in his chair next to the fire which was always far too hot for me. He had always smelled of the various polishes and waxes he had used, on his shoes or on his car which he had tinkered needlessly with until its virtual destruction; polished into thin air. There was the smell of tobacco from his pipe which he had poked and cleaned with his tiny little penknife, before stuffing it full and lighting it with a satisfied smile. I had loved the time we had spent in his tiny lounge, warm and snug watching horse racing on TV, as my Gran had kept us stocked up with tea and chocolate cake. He had been a military man, having enlisted in his early teens by lying about his age. He had been a prisoner of war and his health had always suffered since and, though he rarely talked about it, there were times that I would catch him daydreaming and wonder what horrors he was reliving. He had been in the Royal Veterinary Corps and had a special love for most animals, especially horses. He really loved his horses and his knowledge of them was second to none. He would give a running commentary as we watched Grandstand or World of Sport or any racing program. I rarely understood the ins and outs of his explanations but there, in that little lounge I was his captive audience and would not have wished to be anywhere else in the whole world.

The absolute devastation at his loss, after a long period of poor health, was my first experience of death. It had a profound effect on me. I had lost the man who understood me more than any other, including my own father. Even in later years, as I grew into an adult myself with my own family, the thought of him, his presence, his influence and his understanding would bring moments of silent sadness. They would remind me of my promise to myself to try to live up to his memory, to be as much like him as I could. To be as patient with my children as he had been with me, to drop everything at a moment’s notice to help, to be as knowledgeable as I possibly could be, to be proud of my appearance; to make him proud of me. I realised as I watched him now that he had been the most important influence in my life, he had shaped me as a teenager and then as a man; and I had never got to tell him just how important to me he had been. He smiled. Turning to face me, he spoke. This time his lips moved and the voice came from within the man, though it was not the voice of the man I ed. It was the voice who had spoken earlier, the Angel. “It seems that I have chosen wisely.” Imagine if you can that your wife, husband, mother, father-whoever-talks to you and a different voice to their own comes out. Fascinating...but unnerving. I replied. “Yes...very wisely”, it didn’t seem to cover it. “You understand that this man is not truly with you now?” I nodded, wishing he had let me live with my illusion a bit longer. “I chose this body as you have a connection with it that is stronger than any other. I cannot appear to you now as a person who is mortal. This body is memory, theirs would not be. That would not be allowed.” By who? “Not yet.” He leant forward, holding his hands together as he rested his elbows on his knees, as if about to tell me a secret.

“You will listen to this body, this image, like no other. You do not have to listen to me, you have a choice; you always have a choice. I am here because you are ready to understand the things which I will tell you. If you listen your choices may change.” “What choices”? “Choices about what your life here is to become, how you will live this life you have now. How you choose to live this life here.” “You say my life here as If I have another one...somewhere else. Do I have another life...another life elsewhere or...?” “You have many lives, this is not your first, and it may not be your last.” First answer, reincarnation...fact. “What you call reincarnation has no meaning. The only truth of it is that you exist, you live, and you are alive. Time does not change that, nor does what you think of as your physical form. You will always be alive. You will from time to time be mortal; but not always.” “I don’t understand” and there I was thinking I was getting somewhere. “You will, in time.” “So, this is not my first life, right?” Grandad (Alfie) nodded. “And it won’t be my last?” “It may not be your last.” “Sorry; right, it may not be my last.” Here I was explaining English to an angel inside my dead grandad’s body. - Surreal. “But that’s what we, (I gestured with my arms as if there were other people there; daft), think of as reincarnation. If you die and come back again as something else, a dog or a cat, or a bug or a whatever, that to us is reincarnation.”

“There is much to tell you.” He looked down to the ground and paused, before his gaze returned to mine. Those pale blue eyes. “Before this life you may not have been mortal, ever.” He raised his eyebrows as if asking for my understanding. “After this life you may never be mortal again. These things, these orders of being are not of my knowing. They are for others. After this period of mortality ends you may become as I am or you may not. That is dependent on your choices.” “You mean, if I’m good in this life, make the right choices, when I die, I become an angel? I go to heaven”? “You ask me questions which I cannot answer. I can only give you understanding.” “So, I could come back as a cat”? I pointed at the perfectly peaceful sleeping ball of fur at his feet. “No, you cannot. You cannot revisit an earlier developed form; if indeed you ever had one. All beings whether they are of your form or of hers” he glanced at the cat, “are the same. It is not of their choosing in which state in which their first mortal life appears. But you cannot go back. You also cannot now go forwards. Your current form is the greatest extent of what you can become in a mortal life. Hers is not.” So, she keeps coming back until she comes back as a human? “Yes” How many times does she have to come back before that happens? “I do not know” “But I can’t come back as she can, as something else?”

“You cannot. You can only return to a mortal life as a human once you are human. How many times you return before the end of your mortality I do not know, maybe once, maybe a thousand lifetimes. Your pet however, can return in many forms until she too eventually becomes human. Then she must remain in that form until her mortal life is complete regardless of how many times she may return” “But that’s reincarnation!” I exclaimed, “Dying and coming back as something else.” “As I understand it, your reincarnation is based on your idea that you cease to be mortal and then return in another form or as another person. I am telling you that you may not return, ever; and that you as you are cannot return in another form.” “I see,” I said thinking that he was splitting hairs. “Let me put it differently, you may choose not to return.” I was taken aback, “So, after we die, we can choose not to be, for want of a better word, reincarnated?” “That is correct. If that is your decision then you cannot be forced to take another mortal life.” “So, what happens then?” “Then you are lost. You cannot belong amongst those who are mortal and you have no place amongst those of us who are not.” “So where does that leave you if that’s your choice?” “It leaves you in a place of which I have no knowledge.” “Hell”? “I have no knowledge of Hell.” “Does that mean it doesn’t exist”? “I have no knowledge of Hell.”

“But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist does it”? “It does not.” Victory! However victorious it can be to prove the existence of Hell...sort of. “You assume too much.” “Sorry” I felt as though teacher had just rapped my knuckles. “I just thought that...” “You may wish to have more knowledge of those things on which you are basing your assumptions.” “But how am I supposed to have knowledge of something like that”? “That is one of the reasons why I am here with you, why you called me.” I wasn’t going to argue again that I hadn’t called him. He was here now. Why, I still didn’t know. “My time here is complete; I shall leave you now.” He stood up. “What? You can’t just leave! Not now! I don’t understand, I thought you were here to guide me, to somehow help me, talk to me. I don’t understand.” “Again, you assume too much,” he smiled gently “I am leaving you now, but I shall return. I am to spend one of your days with you, in your company. To experience what you experience, to travel with you, to talk with you, to give you knowledge and understanding beyond what you have now.” So, you’re coming back, to spend a whole day with me, morning to night”? “That is correct.” “When”? “When you are ready.”

“But I thought that I was ready”? “You are not yet ready for that.” Bugger! Had I offended or annoyed him in some way? Had I said something wrong? Was it the Hell business? Had I made a complete mess of this all somehow? I didn’t understand. He couldn’t just leave me like this. I wanted more. I needed more now. As a non-believer this whole ‘thing’ today was life changing. I could be so wrong. I didn’t know what to think. What I did know was that I was panicking that he was about to leave. “I’m sorry if I’ve said something to offend you, please don’t leave now, not like this. I have so much to learn, I’ve so many questions for you, I could talk to you all day.” “And you will, but not on this day.” “Then when”? “When you are ready” Frustration was beginning to get the better of me. “But I’m ready now!” “How can you be”? “I don’t understand.” “What time of day is it for you here”? “What”? “What is the time of day”? I looked at my watch as he sat patiently watching me in my panic. The everpatient face smiling gently. “It’s just gone four. But I don’t get it; why would an angel need to know the time”?

“It is not morning.” “What!” I felt as if I was going daft, I just didn’t get this at all. “Therefore...I cannot spend a full day with you as there is not a full day ahead of you.” “Oh!” at last the penny dropped with a huge clang. How stupid did I feel? “I will return, and then I will answer your questions, but only after I have spent one full day with you.” Then it dawned on me that if he left, he would take Alfie with him. Gone again, after years of missing that face only for it to come back in this manner; and then go again. I had forgotten though about his ability to listen to me without me actually speaking. “If you find it comforting, I can return in this same form.” “Yes...please.” and then guilt. I could choose any one. I had seen Alfie so shouldn’t I choose someone else, another member of my family who had died, my Dad? I felt as if I was being disrespectful in choosing or not choosing. How hard was this situation? “Do not be in such turmoil. , no-one truly dies; there is no need for you to feel as though you are making a choice. If it makes it any easier, the body you see does not contain the being it once did.” Of course, this was just an image of Alfie. It wasn’t really him. I wasn’t choosing anyone over anyone else. How could I be if none of them were really there? “You are beginning to show understanding.” “So, when will I see you again?” “Close your eyes.” “But”

“Close your eyes” I knew that arguing or pushing him was pointless. I looked all over him desperately trying to save his features and then closed my eyes. As expected, when I opened them, he was gone.

Six.

“Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings.”

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For the following few days, I was in a different world from everyone else around me. I hadn’t told anyone about what had happened in the garden. I didn’t really know why except for the worry it would cause. Dad was going mad, what was wrong with Dad? I saw in my mind my wife laughing at first, then the worry when I didn’t laugh along or back down, or the kids being upset by the whole thing; of colleagues at work looking at me out of the corner of their eye, suspicious. Like it or not, right or wrong, it’s how people are; how we are. People do not react kindly to others who mention these kinds of experiences. We pigeonhole them as fruitcakes or not to be trusted. It’s natural, a protection mechanism. I didn’t want that for me, that stigma. So, I said nothing. After a few days I was beginning to doubt it had happened at all. Nothing else unusual had happened, no visions, sightings or voices, nothing. Everything was normal. There was no indication or evidence of any kind that an angel had popped into my garden for a chat. My conviction that it had happened was beginning to slip. Although nothing physical had changed since my visit in my surroundings or the people around me; something in me had altered. I didn’t know if anyone else had noticed any change in my behaviour but I felt different. I had a feeling of calm, of contentment-of inner peace. I felt an acceptance or a resignation with other people or events. When people said stupid or mean things, when things didn’t go as well as I would have liked, when bad news came on the TV I wasn’t as upset or annoyed as I would have been before. Things just didn’t seem as important. It was as if I’d been shown a bigger picture and these minor things or annoyances

didn’t matter much anymore. I smiled more, at random things, at random times and for no apparent reason. I just found things to be...better. I did though start to fear that I was ‘getting religion’. I’d never got involved in religion. It was for the weak minded who couldn’t see that it had all been based on fear, on control, on greed. It was there to quell the masses and indoctrinate or brainwash them, to subjugate them and then fleece them of their money. Not just Christianity, which ‘my type’ was presumed to prefer but all of them. I’d pretended to be out when the Watch Tower came knocking. I’d gone to church before getting married for the charade of having something or other read out. I’d had the kids christened. Hypocrite. I knew that but what if I was wrong? What if there really was a religion that was right, if God existed? Well then by going to church when I really had to, and by having the kids christened blah, blah, blah, then surely that was some sort of insurance policy against being sent to some sort of fiery Hell just in case it did actually exist? Every Christmas Day I’d celebrated the birthday of someone who I didn’t really believe in. And I’d taken the time off work...and the presents. Who amongst us isn’t guilty of the same? I’d watch Albert Finney every Christmas play my favourite Scrooge on TV and see the vision of Hell depicted in it. It was enough to inspire a teeny tiny piece of religious doffing of the cap for one or two weeks, but not much more. That was the extent of my religious beliefs. A doffing of the cap when I felt I had to as a bit of an insurance policy. Pathetic. I know. So, assuming that I wasn’t going mad, and I really had been visited by an angel...my guardian angel, then when was he coming back? He hadn’t said, only that he was going to spend a whole day with me...not when that day would come. Would it be this week, next? It could be next year or in twenty years’ time. What if he never came back? Strangely, I didn’t seem to mind. It wasn’t that I wasn’t bothered that I didn’t know when he’d return, I was. It was more that I felt contented that he’d come to me at all. I was content with everything. It took me a while to understand why. When the annoyances of daily life came the quiet voice in my mind, my conscience, unlike before would not race me to frustration or anger. Now it would just whisper softly ‘it doesn’t matter, let it go, it’s not important’ and it calmed me. I wasn’t getting as upset as I had before, at anything. My inner voice had calmed my frustrated mind but it was only when I listened quietly and calmly that I began to realise that it wasn’t my voice at all doing the calming. It was his.

Seven.

“Without belief you may never see your angel”.

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So, the days ed slowly. I looked for my visitor every day, everywhere. After a while I stopped looking and normal time resumed. Daily life however felt dull, mundane...ordinary. The sun still shone, colours were as bright as ever and birds sang as loud as they ever had but something had changed. Of course, it was me. It was as if some bright light had outshone everything else and now nothing could compare. The weeks drew on and I began to lose the feeling of disappointment that my angel hadn’t returned. After he’d gone at first there’d been a feeling of euphoria. In time that gave way to the contentment. Now that had given way to sadness. Not a depressing, moping sadness, no, but a general melancholy. I just couldn’t shake it off or explain it. I did try but probably not in the best way looking back. Wine, white wine (easier to cope with the hangover than red). Chardonnay, Chablis, even Champagne. A bottle a night (at least) became the norm. It became my friend. I looked forward to a cold glass of wine every evening, one after the other. I found myself sneaking a glass mid-afternoon, then during the mornings. Tea or coffee just didn’t do it; I just needed the top layer of consciousness removed, that was all. Did it work? Of course, it did, but only for the night. In the morning, after a sleepless night, the melancholy had returned, along with a headache- a big headache regardless of the colour of tipple. Supermarkets became my friends. I would park next to the mother and child bays (sometimes in them), to cut down my walking distance, walk through the car park and make for the last aisle in the store. I was a regular.

Days became the same. Except for the day I parked next to the DB9 after dropping the kids off at school. I was nearly across the road into the store and took one last look back at my dream machine when a little Fiat hurtled past, nearly knocking me off my feet. My fault entirely for not watching where I was going but of course, being a man, I still had to give the lady driver a piece of my mind as she sped off. I was just about to commence my driving lesson when, just for a moment, my eyes focussed on the bench outside of the store. Someone was there. It was a man, and he was smiling at me, as he adjusted his tie. He stood and pressed down his green tweed suit with his left hand flattening down his thick, black, oiled hair with his right. Alfie.

Eight.

“Angels do find us in our hour of need.”

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I walked slowly, and nervously, over towards the bench not taking my eyes off him for fear that he would disappear. I walked across, what only moments earlier, had been the busy road. Everything except for the two of us had vanished. No cars, no people, no movement at all, not even sound...there was just us. As I approached the bench he sat and I silently sat next to him. I felt ashamed. He was here, waiting for me. He must have known why I was there. Did he know the rest? I bowed my head to my knees. As I did so, his hand came to rest next to me, palm upturned; as I had done so many times before to the kids when they were younger to tell them to take my hand in theirs. Did he want me to take his hand? To touch him...could I? I had forgotten that he could hear me without me actually speaking. “Take it.” That voice. It felt like a lighthouse beam shining through the fog that was enveloping my days. A fog that I could feel myself beginning to get lost in. “Take it, and let me restore the colour to your life that has faded. You are ready for this day. Learn from it. It is the only one we will share.” So, this was it...the day. I placed my hand nervously over his perfectly formed palm, perfect fingers, wrinkles, creases...just as I’d ed them, though my hand then had been smaller. I put my palm to his and closed my fingers

around his. There was no flash of light, no clap of thunder, there were no singing cherubs. There was nothing on a grand scale to see, as might be expected when you touch your skin to that of an angel...but it was so much better, so much more. The heat of his skin burned into me. The intensity washed over and completely enveloped me. All of the emotions that had taken over me since his last appearance swept through me once more in one flood, the euphoria, the disappointment, the expectation...and the shame. I wept. I wept with shame. I wept with hope. I wept with relief. My hand was in his. I could feel him, as solid as the bench that we were sitting on and yet he I knew he was something different. I knew he could not be as he appeared for his appearance took the form of a man who had died years before; but here he was and here was I, touching this solid man, this being, this...Angel. He was as real as I was. His voice came through the storm that was swirling around inside me. Crystal clear, calm, solid. “Open your eyes.” I looked through reddened eyes towards him. He smiled and spoke again. “I must take my hand from yours now, but do not fear.” I was begging him from within not to take it away, not to remove the feelings that his touch had awakened. “Have no fear, the feelings you have will not leave you. Within you is the ability to experience so much more than you do from every day of this mortal life. I have given you nothing, what you have felt is what is and always has been within you. I have only opened a door within you to a place where you do not normally allow yourself access. Your perception is changing.” I released my grip on him. “Sorry” I apologised meekly as the colour (colour?) restored to his whitened hand.

“Not necessary,” he smiled, “Before our day begins, I have been requested to give you a gift”. It hadn’t begun? But what about what had just happened? “That was your gift...to me.” He watched me patiently, the confusion evident on my face as I grappled with his words. The familiar feeling of confusion had returned. “You have shared the experience of your life with me, as you held me. I have learned from you, just as today you will learn from me. There is no secret to the meaning of this life, of mortal life, even though you have searched for it for thousands of generations. It is before you with every waking breath.” The meaning of life...no, surely he wasn’t going to tell me the meaning of life, here, now, on a supermarket bench? “The place where we find ourselves on this world is unimportant, and no place is better than any other, for they all become something else...with time.” Maybe he was going to answer the greatest question of all right here. On the very bench where I’d sat many times before, unsuspecting how it would play such an important part in my life to come. How ironic. “So, the meaning of life then”? Fishing for an answer. “Not yet.” Fascinating. “And...there are far more important answers to far more important questions.” More important? I’d almost forgotten. He’d said he’d been ‘requested’ to give me a gift. What gift, and by who? He smiled. “I had forgotten how curious you are. It is endearing. As for your questions? You will come to understand.”

He held out his hand again, for me to take. “There is nothing for you to fear. It is a gift others wish that you should have.” I took his hand cautiously and waited nervously, squinting as if readying myself for a blow. Nothing, I stopped squinting and looked at him. He was actually laughing. It hadn’t even occurred to me that he could. “Very endearing” He said through his obvious amusement, “Ready”? I was smiling now; the clouds of the past few months had lifted. I was myself again. It felt good to meet me again. I felt lighter. He had made me feel lighter. I looked into his eyes as we smiled at each other. I couldn’t stop smiling! He nodded towards his hand. “Ready”? “I’ve no idea”! His head went back as he let out a laugh and, looking straight into my eyes. His hand closed around mine.

Nine.

“We are each of us Angels with only one wing,

and we can only fly by embracing one another.”

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The man, the Angel, Grandad, Alfie, whatever or whoever he really was; was a man no more. He had changed. He was now a small, frail old woman. He was my Grandma. She had died long ago but here she was, gripping tightly onto my hand with her thin fingers. Every detail was perfect, the clothes, the eyes, the smell, and I just stared. Then she changed. Before my eyes another Grandma appeared, again perfect in every detail. If this was the ‘gift’ he had been requested to give to me then had my relatives who had gone before requested it? How could they? Were they not dead? Of course they were. But they were perfect, and they were here with me. Or were they elsewhere and yet somehow within him and with me also here now? Grandma spoke. “Now you are beginning to understand”? It was the voice of the Angel, not my Grandma though it was her lips that moved and it was her hand that held mine. I surprised myself by how calmly and matter of factly I was taking all of this. I was talking to and touching one of my dead relatives. Or maybe my brain had accepted that it wasn’t actually them. “Who requested that you give me this gift”? I asked. “It was a request from those who are here with you now.”

“But how can they ask for anything, how can they be here as they are”? “You assume that they are no longer with you”? “But how can they be, how do they ask for this from you”? “Everything about you is known to them, everything that has ever happened to you and everything that will...until you re- them.” “You’re talking about the future, my future”? “It is only the future to you, not to them. For them your concept of time has no meaning. They are beyond time.” “So, if they still exist somewhere, if you exist somewhere, where is that place? Where do you exist”? “Everywhere” I wasn’t getting anywhere with my questions. I looked around; we were still alone. How could we be completely alone in this busy place at this busy time? I wasn’t ready for the shock when I turned back to him. My father was looking into my eyes. He had ed away after an accidental fall and never regained consciousness. I had never got the chance to talk to him except when we were alone together in the ICU with no indication that he could hear my final words to him before the machine keeping him alive was finally turned off and the wound had always remained very deep and very raw. “Dad”? He just nodded, without speaking. I looked him up and down, taking the ‘five minutes more’ that we all would wish for. Then it dawned on me why he hadn’t spoken. The Angel was giving me my five minutes. For that small time, he was allowing me to imagine that this actually was my father, without the disappointment of the voice which would immediately shatter the perfection of the moment. I was grateful for his understanding and comion and, in those five minutes, I made my peace with what had happened. I was no longer angry or sad or resentful about my father’s ing. It was ok, and I was ok. I looked into his watery blue eyes for a long time, feeling sure that he knew I was there. I could let go.

“Thank you.” I said. “You are very welcome” The Angel replied.

Ten.

“The Angels are always near to those who are grieving,

to whisper to them that their loved ones are safe.”

––––––––

Alfie stood up from the bench. “Walk with me?” I rose and as I did, I became aware of noise, of movement. Everything was back to normal. Cars drove past, people rushed about doing their morning shopping, chattering and fishing through their pockets for keys and other bits and bobs. It was as if the world had suddenly woken up again or as if someone had released the pause button and the world was playing again. “How did you do that”? I asked him. “I did nothing.” “But everything stopped.” “Are you sure, or was it just us”? “Ok, ok,” I said, resigned to the fact that I might never understand some of the things he said. “So, say only we stopped, then how did you do it”?

“I did nothing.” He repeated. “Well then who did”? How maddening was he? “Sometimes, such as when gifts are requested, scenarios develop that are not meant for others. On these occasions others are precluded from that place that is only meant for that person at that time.” “You mean like what just happened”? “Precisely”. “So how is that done, how would you do that”? “Let me say to begin with that it was not I who arranged that place for you. I do not have that ability, though it happens without the asking if the need is present. It is for a higher power than me to alter normal states of being for those who are mortal.” “Are you saying that God just stopped time”? “I can give you no knowledge of God.” Here we go again. “Time, as you refer to it, is not the way my kind sees it. For us, time has no meaning except that all is present, together, here and now. For you tomorrow is in the future. For me, your tomorrow is now. Your yesterday is now. For you, time is a physical object which you measure; it counts down your mortal life. I, we, have no mortal life; therefore, time cannot count it down. It has no meaning or existence. When your mortal life is over then for you too, time will have no meaning. Time needs mortality to exist. Without it there is no time for there is nothing for it to count. When those who have ed from their mortal lives appeared to you, were they any older than the last time you saw them alive? Had they grown older by the count of the years they have been gone”? I’d actually missed that. Even Alfie here now, walking with me, should be over one hundred years old, but he wasn’t. I’d never even considered that. Come to think of it, when people see ghosts or apparitions of dead relatives they always look as they did in life, yet if they truly exist, why haven’t they aged?

“Understand? Time can only measure mortality. Nothing else; and it applies to nothing else.” “So how did that happen”? I pointed back to the bench, “I’m not immortal, yet time for me appeared to stop”? “Time did not stop. It continued counting. For you however it counted differently than it did for those around you. If you close your eyes, time does not stop yet you do not perceive its movement or its effects. For the time we sat, your eyes were closed to your world but they were open in mine. Time has no effect in my world hence time had no effect on you. When we returned to your world and your mortal life then time claimed you once more and here we are.” “So, whose world are you, or we, in now then... mine or yours”? “Both, they exist together as one. It is mortality that provides what separation there is, and even that is a very fine separation, sometimes breaking down entirely. There are times when mortal beings are in both, mostly at their point of release, what you call death. There are times when your kind believes they are dying, yet they are not. In these moments they exist in both worlds, open to the possibility that there is something else, they may even glimpse it or enter it, only to return back to their mortal lives, confused at what has happened.” “Near Death Experiences.” I said, “When people either leave their bodies and rise above themselves or when they see ‘the light’ and then something pulls them back to life. Is that when they are in both worlds at the same time”? “It is.” “But some people don’t believe in that, they say it’s false or just a function of the part of the brain that shuts down when we die.” “Some people do not believe in me...yet I exist.” “So it’s not just a function of a dying brain”? “To a part it is, but that is not all.” Watching him as we walked it was amazing how his gait, his every movement, even his body language was exactly as Alfie’s had been. He fiddled with some

unknown object in his pocket as he walked, he moved his hair off his brow with his hand and he brushed the front of his jacket down with his fingers. How beguiling. “Your brain, your human brain, is the key to your very existence. It is all that is important in your body. All functions are there to serve it. It is an enigma to even the most educated of your kind; they do not understand it, its functions, and its purpose. They will never have a true understanding of it, whilst they are mortal. It causes them confusion when they try. They are not meant to understand it, so they speculate. He paused then held out his hand to me. “Touch my hand”. I touched him. He was flesh. “Do you believe that I am real...that I am here...that I am with you”? I thought carefully. “Honestly”? “Of course.” “I don’t know. But I can feel you, your physical presence.” “Yet you still do not know if I am really here”? “No...I’m not sure.” “So, you are not convinced that what you are feeling is real, yet you see me, you know where my hand is to touch it, you feel me on your skin”? “Yes, but I also know that who you appear to be cannot be real so...I don’t know.” “Let me try to explain what your men who give you your answers do not seem to appreciate. Close your eyes.” I closed my eyes and almost immediately felt the weight of my body somehow

leave me, as if I had been raised from the ground and gravity no longer drew me down. A lightness, but with no means of , no part of my body taking any weight as it would if I were being lifted by hands or a harness wrapped around my arms; an even lightness. “Keep your eyes closed and listen.” I did as I was told. In truth I was nervous at the thought of opening my eyes only to find myself high above the ground and uned; ready to plummet the next second. He continued. “Your physical world only exists within your brain. It exists nowhere else. Your brain holds the entirety of your existence. When your fingers touch an object, how do you know it exists? You believe it exists where your eyes tell you it exists. Is that where it truly is...if indeed it is there at all? Your knowledge of existence is based solely upon what your brain tells you is there. It does this by signals. When you touch an object, you know you are touching something because it s in your brain and that signal tells you that you are touching or have touched something. When you see something, it is your brain whose signals tells you that an object is there. When you hear a voice of a loved one that voice is only a signal sent to you from your brain. All of these realities, do not exist. They are manufactured by your brain, as sensations. Every possible experience during your mortal life is manufactured by your brain as a sensation. Touch, taste, and sight, everything which you consider to be your reality. They are all sensations manufactured inside of yourself and your brain then tells you they are real. But if your brain is manufacturing your reality as a sea of sensations and telling you that your existence is real because of these manufactured sensations; then who is the brain communicating with? Who is the you? The brain cannot talk yet without the brain you cannot listen. When you talk to yourself...who are you talking to? When you smile to yourself...who is that smile for? If the brain is manufacturing the sensations of your reality, then who is it manufacturing them for? It would seem then that the body serves the brain and that the brain then serves the you. So, the questions are...who or what is communicating with who and how; and if the you is not your brain, yet it serves the you...then who is the you?” Wow. The logic felt just so...pure. “Would it then not also be beyond understanding that if the you is not your brain,

then as the brain dies...the you may survive it”? A thought occurred to me. “Are these ‘ghosts’ then or, whatever you may call them to explain the form you appear in, these people from my past...are they the you of those people; what is left after their bodies have gone”? He sighed with what seemed like relief. “You are beginning to show understanding. You may now open your eyes.” I slowly and nervously opened my eyes, still all too aware of the persistent feeling of lightness. “Oh, my sweet Lord!”

Eleven.

“It is not known precisely where angels dwell,

whether it be in the air, the void or the planets.”

––––––––

I was nowhere that I had ever been before. Nowhere that I had ever imagined. Surrounding me was the deepest darkest black. Total blackness, but it wasn’t the sort of black that you could see by just closing your eyes, it was so much deeper than that. It was a total absence of light that wasn’t just surrounding me or on the outside of me. It was part of me, inside of me as well as outside of me. I looked down to see what was suspending me here (I must have been suspended I reasoned because there wasn’t any visible floor). I couldn’t see my legs. I raised my hand to my face, it wasn’t there. I could feel it. I could feel my fingers moving no more than a foot away from my face but could see absolutely nothing. “I don’t understand”, I felt myself speak but heard nothing “Wait”, he was with me. Through the blackness something was moving. Far away. There seemed to be a wispy gaseous swirling. Against the black it appeared blue in colour. The brightest electric blue in parts and fainter where it looked to be thinner in density. It twisted and turned like strands of something or maybe thin, flat blue ribbons which met at a brighter central point but where they drifted away from that centre they turned and flared and flapped away to nothing. There was no

sound but there was a definite small central sphere forming, rotating slowly as it did; and these ribbons of blue energy (reminding me of a plasma ball), seemed attracted to it in the darkness. I stared for an age, and then began to turn around, if that were even possible. Where I had been looking had just been the one ‘energy sphere’, with its ribbons attached to it or ing through or around it but behind me was a scene which was breath-taking (if I was even breathing). In the black, near and far, were a mass of small spheres. They stretched into the infinite distance. All across my field of vision were the same blue ribbons of energy but here they wrapped around many spheres, touching some, missing others but constantly moving and twisting through the void. It was astonishingly beautiful and very moving. “What are these things, this place?” I asked my host, hoping he was both here and that he could hear me. “This is where you are” he answered. “I know I’m here,” I replied, “but where is here”? “You misunderstand...this is where you are; the you.” “The me”? “The true you, the you that your brain and your body serves. The you that your brain sends sensations to, talks to if you like.” I understood. The you (or rather the me) that he was referring to was the me/you that he had talked about earlier, the essence of what I was as a person, or whatever It was I actually was. “So, which one of these...is me”? I looked over the sea of spheres with their flashing ribbons. Beautiful. “You are the first one”. “The one that was alone”? I asked, feeling sadness or maybe it was loneliness. “That is correct.”

“So why am I all alone here when all of these other ‘energies’ are all so close together”? I couldn’t think of anything else to call them and the description seemed quite apt. “You are alone because you cannot yet be with the others.” “Why not yet, am I not ready, maybe I don’t know understand enough”? “You cannot be with the others yet because you are mortal.” “And these are...dead”? “If you mean by that that they are not mortal, then you are correct” “So, these ‘spheres’ are the souls of dead people (I corrected myself), I mean they are the souls of people who have ed on...before me”? “If that is what you understand by them then yes. You are correct.” My God, (though I didn’t know if I should be thinking that either) there were so many of them, thousands, millions, more. “So, is this where I will come also...when I’m no longer mortal”? “It is.” “And will I then know any of these souls or do they just...wander”? I was struggling to even comprehend what was happening to me or where I was never mind trying to come up with questions befitting such an experience. I had turned again and was now staring at the me sphere. It moved slower than the rest and its blue ribbons also fluttered slower against its intangible form. I was looking at me. The me. I felt something gently rotate my vision back to the sea of spheres. They were so...alive. “You will know each and every one of these ‘souls’ as you call them.” He said quietly. Suddenly I felt myself rushing forward towards the spheres as if a hand were pushing me forward. I approached the first one and its light became too bright to bear. I turned my vision away from the impact and felt myself wince. His voice

came again but loudly and from all around, filling the void. As it echoed all around me, I was engulfed in the brightest, bluest light imaginable. “They are your family.”

Twelve.

“The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.”

––––––––

The intensity of the light was dazzling, almost blinding but, as it eased to a glow, I could make out the spheres. They were all around me, some above some below. I was surrounded. Although I knew that I had no body here I could feel some part of me reaching out into the darkness, where the spheres gently drifted and rotated. I could feel my muscles, my hands, my fingers reaching forward and around me. I knew I was smiling though I knew that, here, I had no mouth. “What you are experiencing...” He was with me. “...Is the brain, which is still serving you, sending the sensations of touch, of movement.” “But if I have no body, at least none that I can see, and therefore no brain; how is it sending me anything”? “Until your mortal life is over, your brain will always serve you. It will inform you of your place in your world, even though you cannot see it or feel it talking to you-it still does. It is only when your mortal life is over that your physical brain can give you no more. Here there is no need for a brain, it ceases with your mortality. During your mortality there is only ever a one-way age of information between the you and your living brain. It es information to the

you to help it to survive in a physical, material world. The you however, never gives anything back to the brain for there is no need. It is a physical part of a physical body and it ceases to live when that body ceases to live, once it is no longer needed. These energies have no need of a brain, and while you are here in this place, neither do you. That is why you see no body, no hands, no arms, nothing. What you see here are the pure energies of beings. They can group together, they can touch each other or through each other or, in some cases they can even become one.” “Become one”? He paused before answering. “Beings that have become close beyond a physical or mental connection during their mortal lives can become as one when that time is over. It is not common but there are times when an energy leaves the physical world and, instead of flourishing here it...suffers.” “Suffers”? I wondered how that was possible in such a place where there appeared to be no pain or hurt. “I cannot find another way to describe it to you. The energy does not with it’s others. It remains alone, without the connections which you see now.” So that’s what the blue ‘ribbons’ were; connections. As he talked the sea of spheres faded into darkness and a single sphere appeared, as if it was demonstrating his point to me. It was still blue but so much paler than the others I’d seen. It had no blue ribbons of energy twisting through and around it. It moved very slowly. It looked somehow...sick. “The energy chooses to remain alone, it does not connect with others, and it waits, lies dormant if you will.” “For how long?” as I watched the slow rotation of the pale blue sphere I felt an incredible sadness. “It remains thus until its partner appears. Until the other mortal life that it connected with in the mortal world es and that being’s energy comes to it.” “And then what happens?”

“Observe.” As the sphere slowly drifted a small patch of light appeared out of the darkness and crept slowly toward it. When it neared the other sphere, they both brightened and began rotating slightly more rapidly. As they were just about to touch a small finger of blue, like an electrical spark, flashed across the void between them until it connected with them both. What happened next was astonishing. In the silence there came a deafening roar, it felt as if it welled up out of nowhere and blasted the silence away. The darkness erupted into a blaze of bright orange light, it began swirling as oil swirls and blends with water. When finally, the brightness and sound faded the two blue spheres were no more. All was black and silent again. “Where are they, are they gone”? “Wait.” Out of the dark a small pinpoint of light appeared. It grew and as it did it shimmered. It span as it grew. Another sphere developed, no larger than the others but different. All the others were blue, bright electric blue; but not this one. In size it appeared no different to the others but it was not the same. It was spinning far faster than the others and the colours; it swirled with a mix of bright oranges and reds and the ribbons that enveloped it were the same. The ribbons faded from orange to red to the normal (normal?) blue as they reached out across the darkness. When ribbons approached it out of the darkness from other spheres, they were blue but as they approached this energy, they too turned first orange then red when they connected with the swirling mass. And the heat; it gave off heat as the others hadn’t. It was quite beautiful and it gave off an intense feeling of warmth, of love. He spoke. “These two energies connected in the mortal world beyond what most others do. They have chosen to , afterwards. They have become one.” “So that first one was waiting for their other half to appear here; waiting for them to be together again”? “That is correct.”

“How long would it wait”? I asked in awe, unable to look away from the beautiful vision in front of me. “The length of a mortal life is not an issue here, time is nothing.” “Soulmates.” I stared in wonder. “Are they soulmates”? Again, a long pause, and then he spoke, “That is also...correct.”

Thirteen.

“An angel resides in each one of us, though we rarely

choose to allow it free.”

––––––––

The idea that a love found during a life can transcend beyond that lifetime and live on forever; the idea of ‘soulmates’ who were meant to be together, is an idea that has survived throughout the generations. But that’s all it had ever been, an idea, something even to be scoffed at by some. Yet as I watched the scene which was before me, the swirling and the intensity given off by the rotating, writhing mass of energy I could do nothing but stare in awe at such beauty and overwhelming emotion. The same feeling of warmth and protectiveness I’d had years earlier watching the kids sleeping when they were small. It was such an intensity of love, of emotion that could reduce me to tears there and then. I wondered what was happening inside the writhing orange red mass as it turned and folded and mixed. How would the souls of these once mortals feel now, fused together for all time? I felt a tinge of jealousy. To be made so...complete. How wonderful. He spoke. “There are souls, as you call them, who have a bond which cannot be broken, by time, by distance, by circumstance. These souls will be together, they will meet however fleetingly maybe many times over many lifetimes or maybe just the once; but they will be together, they will meet, that is certain and unavoidable. When they do eventually meet, wherever their lives have taken them, they will both know that something is different between them than it is with all others. It

is obvious to them but not to the others in their lives. They have a connection, beyond a physical or mental connection, which is very real and very powerful. That connection and relationship can be one of peace, calm and quiet or one of huge gestures demonstrating it. Circumstances in their mortal lives may often oppose this connection. They are of no matter. These souls may not be in every day of their lives. That again is of no matter. The love that these souls share is stronger than anything that may come between them; and it never lessens, it never stops, it never tires or surrenders. It weathers the ages and lives of these souls even as they may through many lifetimes until mortality ends. Their mortal lives often end at different times. The energy here will wait, as will the mortal life, both knowing that the other waits. Of that they will have no doubt. When that waiting ends, they become the greatest of all things. They shine beyond all else. There is calm in the intensity of their glowing energy. They become wondrous to us. (Was he including me in that us? in the company of ‘angels’?) We learn such things from them, answers which we cannot find elsewhere.” Suddenly my whole being was pulled backwards as if by a pair of huge strong arms. Then, abruptly, it stopped. Before me was the field of blue spheres which he had called my family. They nestled softly in the darkness. Scattered sparsely amongst them, like rubies amongst sapphires, were spinning orbs of orange and red. Soulmates. Why had I not seen them before? “You see them now because you have understanding; before you did not.” Was it that simple? Is that how it is? Do we not see what is in front of our eyes because we just don’t recognise it or understand it? What I had missed in life just through not understanding? The ribbons of energy from the blue spheres twisted through the darkness, touching each other but, when they came into with the orange spheres, they changed. They then took on the orange colour and continued through the void slowly fading back to blue as they did; it was as if something was ing from the orange to the blue and then moving on. Before I could even ask the question, it was answered. “The others are learning from them, learning from their experiences during their

mortal lives. That is how the knowledge grows” “The knowledge”? “Not yet”. I didn’t ask more. I knew, even then, that it would have been pointless. Patience. “Would you like to touch one of them”? I was surprised, “You mean I can actually touch one of these energies, these...souls”? “You can, for here you are no different to them and they are no different to you.” “But how...I have no body, nothing to touch with”? “You have no need of one here, just reach out.” I reached forward and I could feel movement as if I were moving an invisible arm, and then stopped. “Which one”? “That is not for me. It is your decision.” “Could I touch the orange one”? I asked nervously. “A wise choice,” he said, sounding satisfied. I reached forward into the darkness and felt my body that wasn’t there move forward towards the writhing orange mass, ing by the blue energies, one by one. The ribbons flicked past me, it felt like I was being splashed with warm water without getting wet. And there it was, no more than two feet away. Though the idea of size made no sense here it was no larger than a baseball. I slowly reached forward to touch it. It was as if it were gas. Not solid. My hand slowly sunk inside. Something wrapped softly around my hand and gently drew me inside as if into a warm pool.

Fourteen.

“When our mortal eyes close on this world for the last time, our angels open our spiritual eyes and escort us personally before the face of God.”

––––––––

I knew instantly where I was. I was no longer in the void. I was inside the world of the soulmates but I was perfectly at home. I knew every nook and cranny of this place. I knew every sound, every smell; everything was familiar to me. It was like coming home. I was in a room. I could see it all perfectly. I could touch it; I could feel it. I was sitting on a soft sofa. A sofa covered with an orange fabric that wrinkled at the corners of the cushions. On the floor was a fading red patterned carpet. In the corner of the room was a television playing a program with a presenter whose face I knew of old. In the centre of the room was a fireplace with a fire burning away behind a glazed front. The Parkray fire, just as it had been. The flames licked against the strips of glass, blued with the heat from behind. On the tiled hearth lay a tortoise, unmoving apart from the occasional lunge at a lettuce leaf by the end of its nose. The boiler, hidden in a cupboard in the corner of the room, bubbled as it threatened imminent explosion as it had done for years and in the other corner sat a bureau stuffed with all manner of paraphernalia fascinating to a young boy; penknives, smoking pipes, medals. The room smelt of smoke, pipe smoke, and of the mince pies that were slowly warming on the top of the fireplace frame. On each side of the fire was an armchair and, in the armchairs, sat two people. In the chair to the left of the fireplace was a man. He was poking away at his

pipe with his tiny penknife, keeping one eye on the television and the other on the pipe bowl. In the other chair sat a very small woman. She was thin and no more than four and a half feet high. Her wispy grey hair hung over her brow as she breathed slowly up and down in her sleep. Her hands, twisted with arthritis, were clasped over her chest and her legs were crossed and finished off with tiny red slippers. The room was so hot. After a minute or two the glazed lounge door nudged open and a furry ginger cat strolled in. Very long haired and very much in charge it slinked over to the chair in which the old lady sat, jumped onto her lap and curled up into a fat, furry ball; ready for bed. I sat on the sofa and watched the room for a long time, taking it all in. I hadn’t sat on this sofa for over twenty years and not in the room such as it was, with the people and that cat for well over thirty. It felt like yesterday; it felt like home. I was back with the two people who had shaped my life, my personality, more than any others. The old man stopped poking his pipe just as the old lady woke with a start, as she always had. They both matter of factly looked over to the sofa where I sat and, as if rehearsed, spoke in unison. The voices were their own, as they had been; music to my ears. “Hello son.” Alfie and Eva. Soulmates.

Fifteen.

“Angels may come in many forms, at

many times, throughout the day.”

––––––––

“Are you both really here”? I asked quietly, nervously. “Is this all really here”? Looking around the room it was just as I’d ed it but I knew that this wasn’t reality, or at least my version of it. I had stopped questioning a lot of things. I realised that I didn’t, or couldn’t, understand everything which was happening. I was beginning to just accept. They both watched me for a while and then Eva spoke. “We are both as real to you as you are to us, and this place? If it isn’t real then how can you be here”? I’d not thought of that. If this place wasn’t real, wasn’t here, then how could I be here, sitting on this sofa; my feet planted firmly on the floor? I could touch. I could feel. Things felt...solid. I felt sure that if I were to reach out and touch her arm it would be there, but...how? I knew that these people were no longer alive, I knew that this room no longer existed in this form; and here I was, in it. Inside of this energy, or field of energies I was sitting on a real sofa in the lounge of my dead grandparent’s home, talking with them. For some reason I allowed myself a smile and shook my head. They are as real to me as I am to them. I knew that I was real and that they couldn’t be, as they were. Did that mean that I could not be real to them because they could not be real...to me? But I was real, am real.

But then how could I be here, in this place inside these energies, floating in this...nothingness? Eva clapped her hands together quietly and looked over at Alfie, who was slowly nodding; they were both smiling a knowing smile. She raised her eyebrows to me as if encouraging me to say more. I tried. “I’m lost,” I itted; although confused I was relishing this, every minute, this place and these people. I was feeling very happy. Very...home. Alfie turned away from me and looked upwards into thin air, as if he could see something that I couldn’t. “It seems that you’ve left a few loose ends here my friend.” He turned to me again, those blue eyes. Eva stood up; I’d forgotten how small she had been. She shuffled over and leant towards me, so close I could touch her. It was definitely her. This was a real, solid flesh and blood being. This was my grandmother. Then she took me completely by surprise and touched my arm with her small frail hand. “I’ll put the kettle on,” she smiled. She was warm, soft; alive. Reaching up her sleeve, she took out a small handkerchief and handed it to me. I wiped the tears from my eyes. “I thought this would come in handy.” Alfie looked at me, concerned. “It’s a lot to take in isn’t it?” I nodded as I wiped the bubble from the end of my nose. Classy. “I don’t know what to say...what to do. I don’t know what to think anymore.” “Would it help if I explained a few things?” he said “maybe in a slightly simpler way”? “I’ve no idea,” I itted, “it might.”

He looked around the room, as if looking for something to give him a starting point. His eyes settled on the fireplace. “Ah”, he said with a smile, “pies.” Lost again. “Do you accept that there are no physical pictures in your head, I mean real solid photos, of solid objects, on real paper if you like”? “Well, yes”, I replied, still wondering where ‘pies’ was about to fit in. “Alright then, what did you have for your tea last night?” “What did I have? I don’t understand...what”? Another curved ball. “What did you have for your tea last night”? he persisted patiently. “Erm...pasta, I think; yes pasta, but”? “Right then, you had pasta last night”? “Yes.” “How do you know”? “I ed” “So, you ed. Now think carefully about this. Where was that memory of your pasta before I asked you the question, the picture that told you what you had, of the pasta”? “It was... in my head, my memory” I was waiting for the sting. “But there are no physical pictures in your head. You’ve just accepted that. So where was it”? “It was in my memory.” I repeated, wondering what he was getting at. “But what is memory? If it’s not a picture of your pasta, because there are no pictures stored in your head, then what is it, where is that image; that ‘snapshot’

of your meal stored”? He paused, “You see where I’m going”? “Honestly? Not really.” “What I’m getting at is that everything that you think you know is just energy. Your memory is nothing but stored energy; you are nothing but energy; as are we. Your body is made up of physical building blocks, of cells. The cells that make up your entire body are physical, mortal objects; they can be seen under any microscope. They do not live forever, they are mortal, of flesh and blood; they are replaced throughout your life by new cells. At the end of your mortal life not one of your cells that you were born with still exists. They have all been replaced thousands of times over by new, fresh, cells. At ten years old your cells are not those of the two-year-old you once were. Those two-year olds cells have all been replaced. Not one of them remains. The body you inhabit at ten is not the body you inhabited at two. The replacement of cells is essential for growth of the physical body,” he paused again, “am I making sense”? “Yes,” I itted, though I’d not heard things explained like this before it did actually make a weird sort of sense. “Here’s the punch line then,” he paused, “do you agree that by the time you reach ten, every single cell of the two-year-old you once were has been replaced, every single cell; skin, hair, brain”? “Yes”, I replied. I couldn’t argue with anything he’d said so far. I knew that cells died and were replaced all through our lives. That wasn’t anything special was it? “So” he smiled, “what then remains of the person that was the two-year-old when every single piece has died and been replaced hundreds or even thousands of times over? Every part of the brain that was used to think is gone, replaced by a new part, a fresh part; memory, if stored in the brain cells, has died and fresh cells, with no memory, have replaced them. So how does the same person continue? How do you stay you”? I looked at him blankly, astounded by the profound, obvious, simplicity of the

truth of what he’d just said. “Have I lost you”? he said, smiling. “Just carry on” ...fascinated. I could have listened forever. “The two-year-old dies so the three-year-old can come into being, gradually though it may be. The three-year-old dies for the four-year-old and so on and so on. You are living with your own body’s death every day of your mortal life. At sixty years old your body has died countless times, completely replacing itself, leaving nothing of the old body. And yet you survive.” He stopped talking and looked right at me, studying me quietly. Then spoke again in a very low voice. “So, you see...your physical, mortal body, is dying every minute. The early you is dead and has died many times yet here you are, with us in this ‘room’. You have no body with you, not here. We have no bodies here. What we all see and experience here is what we create for ourselves. It is all that is left of us. It is what remains constant throughout, as our bodies die. We are no more dead than you are; we just aren’t having our physical form replaced as you are when your body regenerates and replaces old cell with new. What you are now in this place is what continues throughout your life as your body is renewed. It is where your memory resides, your being, your energy. It is what makes you, you. Here you are pure energy. As for death and dying? You need have no fear of dying for, as I’ve just shown you, parts of you do it every day. Neither should you should have any fear of what is the you dying, the thing that makes you who you are in essence-in soul. Your body has died so many times throughout your mortal lifetime and yet, here you remain; aware that you are not gone. And here is where you will come, into this field of energy where we all are, regardless of your physical form because here you have no physical form. So, you see, have no fear of death, of your mortal death; for it does not affect you; it cannot, for the you within the body...remains.”

Sixteen.

“The presence of an angel,

is like a taste of heaven itself.”

––––––––

I sat quietly. If our bodies do indeed ‘die’ as we age, which is what cell regeneration is after all I supposed; then the question of ‘how does the person inside of the body continue?’ seemed to be perfectly valid. I supposed also that I’d always naturally assumed that it was the accumulation of knowledge gained through a lifetime’s experience that made me the person that I had become. That seemed a fair assumption to make but, in the light of this, the only way that accumulated knowledge could be maintained through an entire lifetime would be if it were moved around the brain as parts of that organ died or were replaced by regeneration. That just didn’t seem feasible. How could memory, if it was a physical thing, like a piece of an organ, move? If it was a diverse thing however, spread throughout the brain through multiple tendrils or strands of nerves, then how could it remain when random cells died, severing those tendrils and their connections as they did? The survival of memory then, made sense only if it were a fleeting thing which inhabited various parts of the brain at various times, randomly. How that could work when it came to accessing the information in it with the lightning speed which we seem able to do, I didn’t know. If some part of your consciousness tried to access memory, only to find that the particular information it was looking for had moved elsewhere then what happens? Is that what forgetting something is, just an inability to access information that might have moved?

“You seem to be forgetting something.” It was Alfie. I’d almost forgotten where I was. “The pasta.” “The pasta”? “Where is your brain today, do you have it with you”? “Er, no.” “So, if your memory is in your brain alone, and you don’t have your brain here with you; then how can you that you had pasta yesterday”? Again, I was flummoxed by the simplicity of the question. The logic of it was hard to argue with, but it left me with more questions than answers. I figured that wasn’t unusual. Just as more questions were forming in my tortured head, I heard a sound coming from the ageway outside of the room. It was a sound so familiar but from so far back that I’d almost forgotten it...wheels. As the lounge door opened in came a squeaky trolley. It was an old, dark wooden trolley, waist height with a top that was covered with plates, rattling cups and biscuits. “Tea”? Eva came in, pushing the trolley just as if it were an ordinary day all of those years ago when I’d been the schoolboy lying about a headache to get the day off school and spend it here. “Watch the tea, it’s a bit hot.” This was so surreal; hot tea and biscuits with my dead grandparents in their nonexistent home in front of a hot fire with a cat and tortoise who weren’t there and if they were would now be well into their fifties. “We were just talking about memory,” said Alfie, “I don’t know whether I made things simpler or not.” “Ooh you’re rubbish at that sort of thing,” said Eva, “honestly if it’s not horses,

shining shoes or fiddling with that bloody car!” I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing or seeing. They were actually arguing. “Really, look it’s quite simple” she sighed “memory is everywhere, it’s all around us. It’s everywhere that we are; it’s all that we are. It’s in that teapot, it’s in that fireplace, it’s in the squeak of those wheels,” she pointed to the Jaffa Cake biscuit that I was happily crunching without thought, “you probably even think that’s a real biscuit”. I took it from my mouth and gazed over it, the chocolate was melting and the orange, sweet sticky filling was dripping slowly over the crisp edge where I’d just taken a bite. I just smiled at them both, a smile which, to me, meant ‘ok, I give up’. They both looked at each other and laughed, actually laughed and for that beautiful moment as I laughed along with them, I was a child again in my grandparent’s front room, I’d sneaked off school and the years between then and now had never happened. We laughed together and the warmth of the room filled me with, what I can only describe as an intense feeling of belonging; of love. “Is this heaven”? I asked when the laughter had faded to smiles. Eva answered. “It’s our heaven,” she said and looked to Alfie who was sipping his tea in his chair. He looked up from his cup, smiled at me and said quietly. “”It seems that it’s part of yours too.” I looked at them both, these people who had shaped me into the person I had become. I could feel dampness once more on my cheek. “I’ve missed you both; so much.” We talked for hours, late into the afternoon. We reminisced about the years when we’d all been together, of the summer’s, of the laughter and of the tears. We talked of the time after Alfie had died, when Eva had been on her own. How I’d spent many nights sleeping on the very sofa I was now sitting on so she wouldn’t

be alone in the house. How she had eventually ed away and how the house had found a new owner and life had moved on as if the two of them had never been there at all. I told them how I’d often driven past the old house. I mainly told my family that the reason I did it was to show my kids the house where I’d been born but I knew myself that it wasn’t for that reason alone. It was also to reset the colours of that time when I’d been at my happiest back into the image of it, which I had carried with me in my mind for years; to help me . “You know that you aren’t staying with us don’t you”? Said Alfie softly. “I’d never thought about it,” I replied honestly. I was taking each moment as it came now; no assumptions. “You’ve got a lot more to see and you won’t get what you need from here.” “I don’t know what I need; I still don’t even know why I’m here, why I was chosen.” I still didn’t really know or had explained to me why it was me who had been picked for this ‘experience’. “That will become clearer as you see more, but for now I think it’s time that you carried on with why you’re here.” I got the hint. It was time for me to leave, to learn more maybe or go somewhere else, and to see something else. “Will I see you both again”? I asked, and to my surprise I felt no sadness. “You only have to close your eyes to do that, we’re not going anywhere,” said Eva. “But you’re not in the same place as me; you’re here in this other place.” “Think of it this way,” said Alfie, “just because we’re not where you are and you can’t touch us when you want; doesn’t mean we’re not real. We’re as real as the biscuits you ate, the tea you just drank or the pasta you had yesterday.” “We’ll still be here,” said Eva, “where we always have been, go on son...close your eyes.”

I did as she asked, nervous of what I would see when I reopened them; and even though I now felt that there was no need for fear, things had changed when I looked again, for I wasn’t in my grandparent’s house anymore and they were gone. I was somewhere else, somewhere completely different.

Seventeen.

“The paths that angels tread

are not as ours.”

––––––––

The smell of the ocean filled my nostrils and the cool breeze blew gently across my face. I could hear voices, lots of voices, laughing, shouting, crying. I was sitting on a bench made out of steel or aluminium or iron or whatever metal it was. It had a chequer plate finish to it which was covered in flaking blue paint. Behind me cars ed by along the coastal road and pedestrians walked along the wide pavement, some arm in arm, some guiding children on what looked like first bike rides. I was alone on the bench but it was all familiar, I knew where I was but not how or why I’d been brought here. I’d visited this place so many times as a child with my parents and as an adult with my own children. Now, as my children were growing, I’d always hoped that one day I’d be able to bring my grandchildren here and complete the circle. I looked left to right over the familiar sight of the beach with the sun casting its light over it, warming the families who ran about on it, played on the edge of the shoreline hunting crabs from the rock pools or just picking sand from their picnic lunches. It was midafternoon, the day hadn’t moved on at all, even though I’d spent hours at Alfie and Eva’s house. It felt like a typical Sunday at the beach in the summer when it throbbed with the sound of lots of people enjoying what the beach town had to offer. I sat in silence, just watching, soaking it all in. I wasn’t bothered or surprised that I was nearly 200 miles away from home where my own family were. As I took in the scene surrounding me something caught the corner of my eye. A young man of about twenty had walked up to the side of the bench and

was standing there, still. He was about six-foot-tall, blonde, slim in tee shirt and jeans with white training shoes on. I turned to look at him, wondering why he was just standing there. “Are you ok”? I asked, not sure whether he could even see me. He moved closer. “Can I you”? He said, “Only, there’s no more space.” pointing along to the other benches, all of which were occupied. “Of course,” I said, relieved that I was solid and visible. I inched along the bench, even though there was ample room. “Thanks,” he said as he sat down, “I’m just waiting for my dad but, as always, he’s a bit late.” We sat in silence. Every now and then I glanced across at him. He was a goodlooking young man, clean, not scruffy as young guys can tend to get as university living or holding down a job takes its toll on them. “Are you from around here”? He asked. “No not really,” I said, glad of the conversation. I didn’t have a clue why I was here or for how long I would be, or even what I was supposed to be doing or learning from this, “I used to live around these parts a long time ago.” He smiled. “Bet you’ve seen some changes here then, since you lived here”? “You know, funny thing is, there really hasn’t been that much change. Of course, that’s now a restaurant and cafe,” I pointed behind us. “That used to be a big amusement arcade, it was lovely when I was younger, all white and shiny in the sun; you could see it for miles.” “Yeah, my dad’s told me about that, he used to go to it when he was a kid with his mum and dad.” “It had dodgems and roller coasters and all sorts of things in there. It used to be great on Sunday’s to bring the kids to, they loved it.”

“Have you got them with you”? He asked. “Not this time” I said feeling a little sad “they’re at home.” He looked around, obviously looking for his father to turn up. “Is he very late”? “Not really,” he sighed, “it’s expected, I don’t think I can ever him being on time.” He smiled, resigned to his wait. “I meet him here sometimes, just for the walk. He loves it, says it reminds him of his dad; he died a few years back.” “Sorry,” not knowing what to say. “Thanks,” he was smiling and looking out at sea as if thinking or ing. “He loved it here to, they were always here. Dad said they used to bring him and my auntie here loads, even if they didn’t want to come; fish and chips or ice cream and a walk along the beach. They used to freeze!” We both laughed, “Yup, that’s what we dads do,” I ed the shivers and moans of my kids as I would drag them on another freezing cold walk along the seafront. “Do you come as a family then or is it just you”? “No” he said with another sigh, “there’s a few of us” and smiled to himself, “The Mrs will be along at some point with my lad, sometimes my aunt s us if she feels like it with her girls” “That’s nice” I said, “It’s good that you can be together, families sometimes drift apart as they get older.” “Yeah...I know,” he replied “grandad moved about quite a bit when he was younger; took my dad and his sis all over the place.” “But you’re settled here”? “Oh yeah, I love it here.” “That’s good, it’s good to be happy where you are, and it’s more...solid, you know, for your boy”?

“That’s true I suppose,” he said, “Gran always said that grandad always wanted to come back to live here, to bring dad back here, he said the people were...nicer, no offence” He quickly added. “None taken!” I laughed, “I’m from here originally, I agree completely.” “Phew!” he smiled “don’t want to get beaten up waiting around!” We sat quietly again, just taking in our surroundings. He reminded me of my own son, Lew; a nice young guy, polite, easy to get along with, comfortable to be with. I was missing him. He looked at his watch. “That’s a beauty,” I said, “Panerai”? “Yeah,” he said surprised and twisted his arm so I could get a better look, “Luminor Marina, it was grandad’s, bit daft on watches he was, he gave it to dad and he gave it to me, it’s quite old now but never skips a beat. Most people don’t know anything about it; you a watch fan too”? “Oh yeah, have been for years. I’ve got one of those myself though it’s not that one, mine’s the one with the small second hand and the brown strap.” “I know it,” he said “dads got that one too, grandad left him it when he died, never takes it off; he keeps saying I can have it when he pops off. Still doesn’t help him get here on time though”. I pointed to his watch, “you should take care of that, they aren’t cheap you know”? “You sound just like dad; he’s always saying that.” He moved his wrist around and the sunlight caught the blue sapphire crystal glass of the watch. “I pretend not to care about it, it winds him up; he’s so easy. I know what its worth though, I’m not that daft and so will my lad when I it on to him.” “Sounds like your dads got the life with you that I have with my son, wind up merchants” We both laughed. It was a very easy conversation. “Has your grandad been gone long then?” I asked, “Not being nosey.”

“No, its fine,” he said “it’s been a long time now; I wasn’t that old really; I hardly him much. He used to bring me when I was little. He would walk for miles, with my pushchair, from one end of the prom to the other. He must have been knackered.” “I bet he loved every minute of it”, I said, “probably never even gave it a thought.” “You’re probably right,” he smiled “suppose I’m the same with my lad, you just get on with it don’t you”? “You certainly do”. We sat again, waiting. “What’s your lad called then”? I asked. “Lewis,” he replied “but he gets Lew all the time.” “Really”? I said “my son’s called Lewis and gets Lew too.” “Wow” he said “then again Lewis is a pretty popular name around these parts,” he pointed to the beach where hundreds of children were running back and forth, “bet there’s a couple of dozen Lew’s on that beach right now.” “Really”? “Oh yeah, wished we’d called him something else sometimes. Gran said that when they called my dad it there wasn’t many of them about, they’re all over the place now.” “She’s right,” I said “we didn’t know any others when we called our son it. Must be fashionable now; guess we were ahead of our time there.” He fidgeted and stood up, looking around as he did. “I’m going to go see if I can find him, he shouldn’t be this long.” He checked his watch again and then turned to me. “It’s been nice sitting here, talking to you, I’ve enjoyed it” then he did the

strangest thing for a young man; he reached out his hand “good to meet you.” “Err...Mike,” I stuttered, he had taken me aback “Mike” I shook his hand. It was so warm. “I’m Alfie” he smiled, “thanks for the chat.” “Thank you” I said, “I’ve enjoyed it” and I really had. I watched him as he walked off, over the grass toward the path. He’d only got about twenty metres when he turned and called back. “Mike”? “Yes”? With a wave of his hand he shouted back before he turned to walk off. “Looks like he’s been there here the time!” he pointed over to a few people in the distance on one of the paths “and, by the way” he smiled “my grandad was called Mike.” They saw him coming and waved over for him to hurry. When he met up with them a man, maybe in his late fifties put his arm around him as a young boy jumped up into Alfie’s arms, wrapping his legs around him as he held on tight. A tall woman maybe in her forties stepped out from behind the man; she was taller than him with long brown hair. Together they looked over to the bench. From the bench I watched the man and the woman talking as Alfie approached them. I saw the man pat his son on his back as he arrived. I saw the child jump into his father’s arms and watched as the man and the woman turned to look over towards the bench. Although the years had moved on their faces were unmistakable. She was still the tallest, and his hair was still so bright, as was his sons who now stood next to him. They stared over to where the old man had been sitting and both felt something unsettling that they couldn’t quite explain. She spoke. “Lew”? she said wondering if he’d felt the same thing.

“C’mon Soph” he replied quietly, “Let’s go get some ice cream.”

Eighteen.

“To angels, our lifetimes

are mere moments.”

––––––––

Even though I knew it wasn’t possible I also knew that, in light of the day’s experiences, it was also quite real. That was my son as a man, as a father. That was my daughter as a grown woman. I had talked with my grandson as a young man who was at best only a few months old, blissfully unaware of who he was. He knew of me yet he hadn’t recognised me, maybe from old photos. Had he seen me as I am now or as an old man I as I surely would be if he was the age he seemed here? I knew exactly where I was, could I not then find a way of getting to the old house or at least the old area where we’d lived in the hope that they would be living there or close by? But then what? Do I turn up, even if I could find them, at their door and announce myself as their dead (apparently)father and grandad? Would they be able to see me? Then again Alfie had seen me, talked to me; if he could then surely, they could? So many questions raced through my head before I realised that they had gone. I hadn’t expected them to leave so quickly. Frantic, I was just about to stand up and make my way over to where I’d seen them last when a hand came to rest on my shoulder. Its firm grip held me on the bench, preventing me from rising. I turned, slightly annoyed, and there at my side dressed in a long black coat with a fur collar stood a woman. She was of average height, slightly older than myself, slim of figure and standing quite still; smiling at me.

“Why the hurry?” she said and tilted her head slightly. “Err...sorry” I stuttered and tried to rise against her arm “but I need to be going, I’ve got to catch up with...” She smiled again, it was one of those knowing smiles, the sort you give to a crying child to calm them, but her hand-held firm. I was surprised at how strong her grip was in holding me down so steadily. I could not rise an inch off the bench against the pressure of it. “There is no point” she said “for they can no longer see you.” She knew me. She knew what had happened. “Do you not recognise me then?” she said. “No, I don’t.” I itted. I felt tears in my eyes. “You weep for what you think you have lost” she said “you weep for something which you cannot lose.” “But...” “That young man will always the conversation he had on this bench with the old man; he will it every time he es this way, every time he looks upon it. It will stay with him always and he will tell his son one day of it. When he is older, he may make the connection and realise why this event made such an impression upon him and, on another day, he may see you here again.” I stared at her as she sat down on the bench next to me. Nice legs. What a mad thought. “Thank you” she said, again smiling. “Sorry” I apologised quickly before realising that it had only been a thought. Why was I just accepting this so easily? “You are here in this place because it is where your feelings, your instincts, your being if you will, have brought you. It is here where you must feel most in tune

with your true self. The choice of location was yours to make. The choice of experience was mine.” “I don’t understand” I said, puzzled. I looked her up and down. She was quite mesmerizing. Looking around though, she was quite right; I was so at home here by the sea. I had loved the beach here ever since I’d been a boy and though it had changed over the years I still adored being just here, just on this bench overlooking the beach and the sea ahead. I looked back to her and spoke quietly, “I really don’t know who you are you know; and as for ‘choice of experience’, I don’t know what you mean,” and then a thought came to me, “or was that meeting-my ‘experience’?” “It was” she said “and as for who I am; do you really not recognise me just because my appearance has changed”? My angel. Was this my angel? “If you wish to still call me that,” she smiled “though I do have many other given names that your people have chosen for me over the years; if you would find it easier to address me by one of those.” I hadn’t recognised her...him. It was my angel, here on the bench with me. I was obviously here for some sort of lesson though I wasn’t sure quite what it was yet. I felt quite calm regardless, as if I were being re-assured by her very presence. After the meeting with Alfie I’d been confused and worried. I had, according to him, died quite a while ago, before he’d grown up. If that were true then I must have died, or would die, quite young. I would miss their lives. I hadn’t expected this and though I was pleased that ‘he’, or ‘she’ now, was with me I also felt sadness. “You said you had a name”? I asked her quietly. “I do, many” another smile; beautiful. “Though they are only given ones for a name is just a label to be known by. They are names given to me by your people by which they could know me for I have no name of my own and no need of any.” Maybe it would make it easier. “What are my choices then”? I asked.

“Oh, they are legion” she shook her head gently and then raised her eyebrows “maybe the ones most used”? “Ok.” She clasped her hands together on her lap as if in quiet contemplation and began. “I have been Michael, Jophiel, Chamuel, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Zadkiel, I have been Afriel, Anael, Antiquus, Arad, Azariel. I was Balthial, Barakiel, Camael, Elemeniah and Ezra. To some I have been Hael, Israfel or Orifiel. To others, Satarel, Shekinah or Sofiel. I have been many things to many of your people.” She looked back at me from wherever that faraway place was where she had just been. “Who would you have me be”? What a question, how do you give an angel a name, especially when they’re sitting right next to you? I could feel the heat of her leg on mine. She was most definitely there. “I don’t know” I confessed, “which is your favourite, if you have one?” She looked at me with a perfect smile, warm, understanding and completely accepting. “It is not for me to choose a title by which you would know me. That is a task only for you if it is your wish. I have no need of a name but I understand your need to give names to the things of your world and I do not object. That is not my place.” “Ok then” I said, no help there then. “Do the names have meanings or are they just names”? “They have meaning. The names have been chosen to represent certain guardianships, if you will. For example, a name was chosen for one such as I who was then to be the guardian of children; that name was Ardousius. The name Azariel was given to the guardian of water, and so on. The names were chosen for us, they did not bind us to any task to which the given name gave guardianship but we have no quarrel or issue with them for they were chosen to give comfort and hope, which is part of our purpose.” “Is there a name for the angel responsible for love?” I asked, thinking of what I had seen in her company.

“There are names for such charges,” the smile had returned and she turned her deep blue eyes to mine “there are also names for the guardians of soulmates” she spoke, her eyes never left mine but there was a definite sense of the mischievous. “And they are?” “Anael and Gabriel.” “The Gabriel”? “It is only your legends, myths and religions which have placed a higher importance on that name. To my kind, no name has more importance than another, for they all represent your labels, nothing more.” “But does that mean that you were the angel Gabriel”? “It is not so surprising for many of my kin have been called many names by yours. I have been Gabriel, but then so have many of my brothers and sisters; we are all Gabriel and yet none of us are.” “Can you change between female form and male form then, at will”? “We appear as we appear; it is you who decides which form you see, just as it is your brain which decides how we look, winged or not. Our appearance to each other may bear no relation to how you see us; that is the way of things.” “I take it Gabriel is a name for a male form”? “It is” “And is Anael the name for a female form?” “It is.” “Ok then; would you mind very much if I made them a wee bit easier so they aren’t so...crusty”? “If you wish.” “So,” I said. “If you appear to me in female form, I shall call you Ann and if you’re male then how’s Gabe”?

“They will do nicely” she said and stretched her hand out to mine. I took it and, as an intense heat and softness enveloped me, she spoke, “We have been in this place long enough, for there is more to see and it cannot be seen from here.” And with that the bench, the sea and the beach faded away into darkness.

Nineteen.

“And I was lifted on

the wings of Angels.”

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Was I falling? I felt sure that I was, there was a sense of air rushing past me. There was no cold with it which was strange as it surely should have been cold if I was falling. Everything was dark though not the deepest dark. All around me I could make out the faint form and light from the spheres. They were ing by me in the same direction so I was falling. I just didn’t know if I was falling up...or down. There was no reference point and I wondered if this is how it was when divers drowned because they couldn’t figure out which way was up and which was down. I’d seen reports on TV where some unfortunate had actually swam downwards, looking for the surface, completely disorientated. Well that was me now. I had no ground or sky to help me find the right way up. I could have been falling sideways for all I knew. I tried to look around but all I could make out was darkness and the faint light of the spheres ing me by. Where was I? Was I back in that place where I’d been before, where my angel (Ann or Gabe) had taken me? Wherever I was going I felt that I was moving quickly but quietly, no rushing of wind, no flapping of clothes. No arms and legs waving about as hands do when held out of moving car windows. Actually, there were no arms and legs. I had no body. I was travelling through some ‘thing’ without a body. It was just me; the

me. And just as I realised that I was without body, it came back. From a complete lack of feeling a body around me at all there was suddenly weight. Hardly noticeable at first as the weight of a feather would be on skin, but slowly it increased. Heavier and heavier, the weight of my arms, legs, head and torso began to make themselves felt. Suddenly I felt very cumbersome and heavy, almost clumsy. The weight of my body felt so restrictive. I hadn’t felt its drag on me earlier but, as it crept back, I began slowing down, as if the weight my body was actually slowing me down. I hated the effect my physical body was having on me, the heaviness of the crude lumps of flesh. It felt so superfluous, as if it were holding me back from how I had been; how I wanted to be again. I had been moving amongst the spheres, unimpeded by limbs or the drag of a heavy, water filled body. I had moved so effortlessly, gracefully, no blood rushing to all points making me dizzy or giddy or sick from the physical effects of movement. I had felt free. Free to change direction at a whim, to slow down or speed up. And now this lump of flesh was stopping me. It was a dead weight to me and I disliked it. I wanted rid of it, to be back as I was; just energy. I wanted to be unleashed from it. I could feel the pressure of movement on me, was it gravity, drag, weight or all three? I felt trapped by it. Pressure; I could feel pressure on me. I could not identify where the pressure was coming from, where on the body; this horrendous body. “It is only I.” My hand. The pressure was from my hand. It was Gabe (the voice was male) and he was gripping my hand tightly. “Do you understand what is happening to you”? I didn’t and I didn’t need to tell him so. “You are still afraid of your mortal death”? I didn’t answer. “Even though you have just felt what it means to be free of your mortal body”? Is that what I had just felt, being free of my mortal body?

“It is.” I hadn’t spoken, there was no need. “It is another gift given to you by those who would have you unafraid.” Afraid of what? “Life.” Afraid of life? “It is not I who has given you this gift, I cannot answer that.” Was I afraid of life? I didn’t know. Maybe I was. Was I afraid of death? Isn’t everybody? “What you first felt when I brought you to this place was the absence of your mortal body, the death of your mortal body if you will. What came later was the return of your mortal body; it is where you are now.” I preferred it without the mortal body I had to it. Is this then what death is and what follows? But what of the pain of death, the loss, the waste of memories, of future life, of knowledge? “When you first came to this place, was there pain, did you feel loss, have you no memory now, do you know less now than when you came here?” I knew the answer to all of those questions was a definite no. “When your mortal body dies the circumstances dictate what pain is felt, if your ing is natural then there is no pain. If your ing is through an accident or other trauma then, yes, there may be pain; but that is not the pain of death. That is a physical pain which is fleeting. The loss caused by death? Loss is felt by those who remain, not by those who have ed for they then have understanding. Memory? You are in this place and yet you still have memory do you not?” I do.

“The loss of knowledge? The only loss of knowledge is to mankind. For those who have ed to this place, knowledge is infinite...eternal. The knowledge of all worlds, all galaxies, all universes-for there are many- lies here.” So, this is where we come to when we...die? “That is correct.” And where do we go from here? “That is for you to decide, not I.” Could I go back, I mean to where I came from? “Not as you are, though you can return whenever and wherever you wish...though again, not as you are; some have tried and caused only distress to those who remain. But to answer your question-yes you can return. Have you not already done so?” Alfie? The bench? “Again, correct.” So that was me, but not as I was...as I am. That was me returning as the ‘ghost’ of the man I once was? “It was.” But I’m not dead...am I? “That is the gift.” But, but...too many questions. Too confusing. “Accept this then. You are in the realm of those that are ing even though you yourself are not. Your rules, what you believe to be the way of things mean nothing here but know this...they have always meant nothing. Your world is quite unique in that, though you and yours often choose not to accept it. What you see, what you hear, what you touch is not reality. Reality begins on the ing of your mortal life, when you reach this place. That is why you find this

place so difficult, so confusing; it represents what you fear beyond all else-the death of all you know.” So, these spheres that I see, are they the souls of those who are...’ing’? “They are.” Is that why they seem so faint, so distant? “It is.” I watched in awe as these newer, fainter spheres, ed me by. Had they really been living breathing human beings? “They are moving on to their new existence.” How do they get here? “They have their guides...just as you have me.” So, where are they? something else occurred to me, why don’t I see you? “Because it is not your time, I am only here now as your guide, I am not guiding you on your age. That is for another time.” So, I can only see you here when I’ve ed? “That is correct.” Why? “Because then I will appear to you quite differently from what you know of me presently.” In what way? “I cannot say.” Could you appear to me now as you will then if you wish? “I cannot. Only you can make me appear so. If you request it of me, I cannot

refuse though you may be well advised not to make such a request.” So, if I ask you to, you can appear to me now as you will when you come to guide me on my ing? “That is correct.” And why would you advise against it? “It may be more than you wish to see.” After all I’ve seen? “Yes.” A long pause came before he spoke again. “I can show you the guide of another if you wish”? A guide of one of these souls? “If you wish.” Will you? “Do you wish it”? Nervously I spoke for the first time, “I do” “So be it.” In the distance a sphere flickered. As I watched I saw that it was not the sphere that was causing the flickering. It was something around it, surrounding it, holding it-guiding it. As we drifted closer, I could just about make out its fluttering shape. Closer still until, with a mixture of fascination and horror, I began to see what It was. The sphere was being guided along gently by a figure. It was cloaked from head to foot in the most glorious billowing robes. The head was shrouded in a hood and its body was covered in a flowing material. No part of its body could be seen though It had a ‘familiarity’ to it.

“Do you understand now”? “I do,” I replied quietly as the sphere and its guide drifted away into the darkness, its jet-black cloak and hood fluttering as if in a gentle breeze as it disappeared from view. I understood, from some deep primordial place within me that this was a being of legend, of folk tale, of horror; and I understood that it was a sight not meant for living eyes to see.

Twenty.

“And the angels came,

and fear was vanquished.”

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As if waking from a dream, I opened my eyes without realising they’d been closed. We were back on the supermarket bench. Disappointed and deflated, I was back in my own world. How different it felt; unreal. I sat, looking around in silence, the cars, the cold air on my face, the people They weren’t moving. The world was once more on pause. I had feared that my day was at an end but maybe it wasn’t; so why were we back where we had started? My day was one question after another. Ann was now next to me, sitting quietly with one leg crossed over the other and her hands clasped together on one knee. “Why have you brought me back here”? I asked her, disappointed. “Don’t worry” she said “we still have a long way to go, there is much still for you to see.” “But we’re back here, and has everything stopped again”? “Look again” she said and nodded for me to look forward.

Whilst I’d been talking to her things had changed. Life had restarted and people were hustling and bustling around the car park, the paths and the store entrance. Cars were moving around and people were chatting as they walked, their arms laden down with bags containing their shopping and groceries. They walked right past us inches away and didn’t appear to notice anything out of the ordinary. Did they even see us? did they see her, as she was? “They see us both, sitting together talking, what is so unusual about that”? I realised that I saw her differently, not physically, but just differently. Was it because I knew who or what she was? Maybe it was because no one ing had seen anything different about her at all. Had ever walked past an angel without knowing it? “Your people are surrounded by my kind everyday of your lives” she nodded forward again, “Observe.” I looked and felt my jaw drop. I gasped. There were hundreds of them, everywhere; walking alongside people, standing by them as they talked, placing their arms across their backs as they walked across the roads, sitting next to them in their cars and even holding the hands of their babies as they were pushed along in their chairs or as they tottered and stumbled along the paths. My eyes welled up at the thought of these beings taking such great care of these people who didn’t even know they were there. The babies smiled up into the faces of their invisible guardians, could they see them? Their tiny fingers grasped at the hands of their protectors. Was that why babies always seemed to be trying to hold onto something, flexing their fingers as they grabbed for something, some hand maybe, that I couldn’t see? “Your young see all you see now.” Really? How do we lose such an ability? “You never lose the ability; you just choose not to use it. There is so much more in plain sight for you than you choose to see. It is the nature of man. You choose not to see the light that surrounds you each and every day. You fill up your senses with other things. It is the way of things and we understand it; we do not feel ignored, that is not our place...for you are our purpose.” The people continued with the mundane tasks of driving, shopping, meeting

each other, blissfully unaware of these beings watching over them, protecting them and caring for them; with no recognition or thanks. I felt humbled. “Did you bring me here to see this”? “In part yes...but also because you are mortal.” “Because I am mortal”? “That is correct” “But...I don’t understand.” “Because you are mortal-you have mortal needs.” “Right”? Again, I was missing something. “What is the time”? I looked at my watch; I’d forgotten that I’d even been wearing one though I was still not quite sure what she was getting at. “It’s twelve fifteen.” “It is,” she smiled, “Lunch time”. “Lunch time!” I repeated. “Of course,” she said, very ‘matter of factly’ as if it were an everyday occurrence for an angel to have lunch at the supermarket. I stood up and began patting my coat, checking for my wallet as I tried to take in the madness of it. “It’s in your inside left pocket” she said and then, with that same mischievous smile that I’d seen before “I’ll have the chicken salad on brown please and a nice cold dandelion and burdock.” I stood dumbfounded. “Oh, can you see if they have a diet one please” she ran her hands over her waist “got to watch the old waistline you know.”

I actually laughed. She certainly was a character. I turned still chuckling to myself and headed off through the waiting doors. Just as I was about to turn behind the displays into the store I glanced back to where she was sitting. She was still there, unaware that I was watching her as she looked over the shoppers. As she sat a small child, no more than three or so years old, ran across the path toward her. She was laughing as her mum struggled to keep up and push a shopping trolley at the same time. She had almost reached the bench when her feet became too confused to carry on and she tripped. Before her little body could touch the ground, Ann caught her. She held her tightly and propped her back up onto her feet. I could see her mum thanking her for her help and they walked on, this time hand in hand. Before she’d gone five feet or so the child looked back and waved. Ann smiled back and as she did so the breath left my chest in awe. An enormous pair of the whitest feathered wings rose from behind her back and stretched out above her. They were huge and glowing the brightest white. Ann herself was now also glowing, though no one else seemed to see it...except the child. She jumped with glee and, from inside the doorway, I heard her yelp with excitement. She reached out to Ann and tried to get to her but her mum wasn’t having any of it. She held firm as she dragged her little one into the store. They ed me and I could see the girl desperately trying to get her mum to understand what she had seen. Her mum, by now, was concentrating only on her shopping list and was talking to the girl as her eyes scanned the store for the correct aisles. “Yes darling” I heard her say “she was a very nice lady and if she’s still there when we’ve finished you can say hello again, ok”? The child calmed down and strolled off contentedly with her mum. As she walked off, she looked back and into my eyes. She paused only for a second or so and then gave me the widest happiest smile, as if she had recognised something in me. I smiled back and felt the warmest glow run through my body. I was still smiling as I made my way to the sandwich counter; with my own shopping list in my head.

Twenty One.

“In your darkest night,

your angel waits to light the way.”

––––––––

“I saw what you did...just then...with that girl.” “It was not I who did anything special, it was the child.” I handed her the sandwich; ridiculous as it seemed and balanced her dandelion and burdock (diet of course) on the wooden bench slats in between us. She struggled to open the sandwich’s plastic container and smiled as she looked up to see my amusement at the scene, her eyes an intoxicating blue. “Bugger!” she exclaimed. I spat a piece of chicken onto the floor in surprise, “Did you just say bugger”? She looked at me and, after a few seconds, her face creased up into the warmest smile. “You know” her eyes widened, ing in with my surprise, “I believe I did”! She placed her hand over my arm and we laughed together. It was a lovely warm moment and it lifted my spirits high and away from some of the things she’d shown me. It even took my mind away from the billowing apparition which had haunted my mind as I wandered through the store. It had bothered me more than

anything I’d seen so far. I’d felt like an intruder for the first time. It was nightmarish though somehow comforting at the same time, as if I were being shown what most people feared for their entire lives and, though it wasn’t a pleasant sight, it had lessened that fear for me. Not just fear of death or dying, but of everything, life in general. Was I learning? Was this it? Was this the point of the day? At the time my skin prickled with fear. Was it even fear? Or maybe awe? I still felt as though I had very few answers and, though I had experienced so much already, I had the feeling that there was more to come. “Seems like you’ve made a new friend” Her voice jolted me back to the bench and away from my thoughts. She was pointing to the ground in front of me where a pigeon was picking away at the piece of chicken which I’d spat out. Without warning the bird flapped its wings and rose off. I was half expecting something a bit more special than just a quick departure, what with it being in her presence, but it had total disregard for her and just flew off. No settling on her hand or shoulder or sitting by her side in a mark of respect-nothing, absolutely nothing. I felt a bit disappointed. She spoke again, this time without raising her face from her sandwich container which she’d finally managed to open. “I think you’re confusing me with Mary Poppins.” And with that we both laughed again. We sat for the next half an hour and finished lunch in silence, watching the shoppers and the cars go by. People smiled as they ed us, some said hello, and some just walked on by. It felt very...normal. I could feel the heat of her next to me, real, solid. I felt protected. I hadn’t felt that way for a long time-since Alfie. I supposed that it’s not often a man’s or rather a father’s place to feel protected. It’s his job to do the protecting, protecting his children, his family, their home, their income and so on. And even though there may be many times in a man’s life when he may feel in need of some protection for himself, a day off if you will, he doesn’t feel happy about voicing that need. Why? Probably the expectations of society. A man who asked to be cared for was often seen as weak. It was only the elderly or the infirm whose need for protection could be acknowledged without a raised eyebrow. Society. Some parts of it had a lot to answer for. Sitting here now next to Ann I felt protected, without shame. I felt like a small boy once more whose day to day problems were being taken care of by someone

else. Someone else was taking charge. It was very comforting, and I completely surrendered to it. “Feels good doesn’t it”? she said. “What does”? “Letting go” she tightened her hand on my arm “It’s like seeing things for the first time, trusting everything to someone else-letting go.” “It feels very...” I struggled for the word...” liberating.” “It’s like meeting yourself for the first time, without the chains of everyday life” She had said it perfectly. Complete surrender, no walls, no preconceptions, no judgements...no defences. She smiled at me and held out her hand. I took it slowly in mine. “Hello” she said. I looked into her eyes and felt myself just fall into everything that she was. “Hello” I replied and smiled back. The world once more disappeared and we were alone. We sat in silence before a thought occurred to me. “You said earlier, you know with the girl, that you did nothing and she did...something. What did you mean”? “The child”? “Yes...the child.” “She did what you just did, in our ‘hello’ moment”. “Which was?” her eyes looked into me, watching, looking into my soul before she answered in a very quiet murmur. “She believed.”

And then it was time to leave.

Twenty Two.

“We feel the eyes of the Angels

When we feel the heat of the sun.”

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Darkness, pitch black darkness; but there was also something else. A very low, almost imperceptible, noise. Was it really there? It was hard to tell. No-it was more of a feeling, a brushing as if a feather were ing my skin. I could feel it but could see nothing. Was it real? And the smell; the smell of heat, like the smell that pounds your nostrils as you step off an airplane into a hot country for the first time. A thickening of the air, even though the opposite had happened as the heat robbed the air of its density. I felt that I was barefoot and smiled to myself. I had, by now, ceased to be surprised at where I was, how I was, even what I was. I was just here and it was now. The warm softness under my feet gave me a clue of at least what I was standing on. Warm soft sand. My toes curled as I tried to squeeze the soft grains through them. It was dry and very fine, slipping easily through my dry toes. I was on a beach somewhere. There was no smell or sound from water, no cries from sea birds wheeling overhead, no damp sea breeze coming in off an ocean or lake. The warm, quiet wind that was gently brushing past me was dry. Maybe a desert?

“Well done,” came a man’s voice, “very perceptive.” He seemed impressed. I recognised the voice. I had heard it before. “Gabe”? “It is I.” He took my hand in his (so I had a body). For a moment I felt disappointed, disappointed that Ann’s hand had gone. Her touch had been so...comforting, warm, tender; it had wrapped me up completely, and I missed it. As if he knew how I was feeling, the palm pressing against my own changed. Those feelings returned. My skin was melting into hers once more. She had returned to me. “Ann”? “No...it is still I”, his voice, “If her hand gives you such comfort then that is what I shall become to you.” “No, it’s ok” I said. “no really, it’s ok, I just...felt” what did I feel? I couldn’t explain it, “really-it’s ok.” “So be it.” His hand returned. “Walk with me.” Darkness, thick darkness-all around. “Where”? “Here” And with that light and heat blasted my face. It was so intense that, at first, all I could see was light. My eyes hadn’t been ready for the blaze of hot white sunshine that hit them and could see nothing but the total absence of the black we had been in moments earlier. The scene slowly came into focus through squinting eyes. Bright blue cloudless sky, the bluest I’d ever seen and, stretching off in all directions for as far as my eyes could see was sand. White sand, so fine

it was like walking on flour, and clean; the purest white. There were no rocks, no stones, nothing at all to break the sea of white-it was just breath-taking. I turned to Gabe. He was still holding my hand. He was tall now, mid-thirties, brown haired with a short beard and shoulder length wavy hair. He looked like one of those surfer types I’d always envied (though I had had the hair once when I’d lived by the sea), we were dressed alike in black linen tros and long-sleeved black linen shirts. No shoes, but my feet weren’t burning; they were just warm, very comfortable. He looked to me and smiled. I let out a laugh and put my hand up to cover my mouth. “Do I amuse you”? he asked with a puzzled look and perfect white teeth, of course he had perfect white teeth. “No” I couldn’t help but smile “It’s just me here, dressed like this, with you, holding hands- if my friends saw this, they’d just love it! They’d have a bloody field day” He smiled back. “Well then” he took his hand from mine “That just won’t do then” he smiled again “better”? “Yes but...I didn’t mean to...I mean I hope I haven’t...” He smiled again. A warm, patient smile that told me I was just a child who didn’t quite understand. “I am not offended” he nodded, looking forward into the desert ahead, “shall we”? It reminded of a scene from ‘A Christmas Carol’ where the spirit of Christmas yet to come appeared to Scrooge and, though he wasn’t looking forward to accompanying the spirit on his journey; he knew he had no choice if he were to become a better man. “Lead on” I put my arm forward in an ‘after you’ gesture, “lead on.” Gabe smiled and looked into my eyes as he spoke “How apt” and, still smiling “he would have liked that.”

And so, with Dickens in tow, we set off.

Twenty Three.

“Though angels may try to teach us,

the decision to learn is ours alone.”

––––––––

We walked in silence for a time. How long I had no clue. I had given up with trying to gauge time anymore. I, we, just ‘were’. That was enough. As we slowly walked, the soft white sand slipping over our bare feet, Gabe spoke. “I have brought you to this place,” he opened his arms wide as he looked around “to this desert, to talk without distraction. There is nothing here to take your attention from me, from my words. For this is important”. Again, we walked in silence before he spoke again. “Your place on this world, along with all others, is not as some would have you believe because of a random sequence of chance events coinciding in your birth. That does you a great disservice. As it does to all others. There are some on your world whom it would serve very well for the beings they govern to place little value on their existence, on their importance. For that makes beings easy to manage, it makes for compliance; but it also makes for subjugation. It is not for me to become involved in such things, my purpose is to increase your understanding of who and what you are, and with that your importance. Be aware though that all beings on your world carry equal importance. None are of more value than any other, from the smallest to the largest. Throughout your history there have been many men of science and medicine who have tried to

unravel and explain the many questions of how your species came into being; which physical and fundamental laws apply to your world and your collective existence.” He spoke quietly as we walked, his eyes looking down at the white sand beneath us all the while. “They have gained such understanding of many things in a short time; quite impressive really. But I’m afraid there are aspects of your existence which they may never fully understand, not through want of trying, or even a lack of ability or determination of course. There is an abundance of that. No, these things which they strive to understand will never reveal themselves to men of science. The essence of what ‘life’ is cannot be found in your science, medicine or laboratories. It is that which makes you and yours important. And it is not meant to be understood.” He stopped. I stopped. He bent to the ground and pushed his fingers into the soft sand. When he raised his hand again, he opened his palm to reveal a small white pebble, no larger than a pearl. “What is this thing I hold in my hand?” I touched it. “It’s a stone, a rock, a pebble.” As I looked at it two small fingers of white material crept out from its sides. The whiteness slowly turned to light brown. The ends of each finger began to swell and, in front of my eyes, two small green leaves unfolded into the bright sunlight. Tiny branches had sprouted slowly out of the stone unfurling new green leaves at their tips. I felt my jaw drop. I looked at him in wonder, he nodded back to the pebble. The leaves were changing. They grew larger into four separate leaves and began changing colour. Blues, reds, yellows, a kaleidoscope of colours. The pebble also began to change. It grew darker, longer and thinner. Before my eyes the pebble with its leaves changed into the most beautiful butterfly. It sat perfectly still in the palm of Gabe’s hand. He looked at me and smiled. “Things such as these are not meant to be understood.” With that the butterfly flexed its coloured wings and lifted gently into the sky, disappearing into the blue.

**

“Your men of science are reaching a point that all species eventually reach. They are beginning to unpick the building blocks of what a physical body is. In of your existence this has been achieved in quite a short time. It has been a joy to watch, for the most part. But soon enough they will reach a point beyond which they can go no further. This is where myself and my kind reside. The mechanics of what makes up a body, any body, is not difficult to describe once its constituent parts are known. Bones, muscles, organs, cells...they can all be studied; some may even try to replicate them and may have some success with that. They could be assembled if sufficient knowledge and skill were attained. A body could be constructed, assembled from its constituent parts, however rudimentary, however basic. There is nothing to stop the chemicals of life from being recreated and put together in an effort to create a living organism. But it will not have life. Life tells the body to be what it is. It tells an arm to be an arm, a leg to be a leg, an eye to be any eye. It gives power to the brain to think, to reason...to love; or to hate. Life is the energy of awareness. It cannot be recreated. Flesh and bone may be assembled into some form which may then be animated by your men of science in some hidden places. But it will not have life. Being alive and having life are very different things. A stone is a stone, but give it life and a purpose...and it may fly away. This is where science and medicine end. Life itself cannot be found in books or in any amount of study. What makes a thing alive and know that it has life will always elude your sciences.” We walked on quietly. Gabe’s hands now in his tro pockets. I felt peaceful, calm. I had no need to ask any questions of what he had said. That certain spark which gave life had eluded science since the beginning of anatomical study. What made cells alive? How did they know to be what they were, to stay where they were to create, maintain and repair a body? Cells had no brain and, although they carried unimaginable information within their fragile walls, the mystery of

how they ‘knew’ what to do and when had never been understood. The process of something having life and why something dead could not once again become alive was not understood. Questions which had occupied the greatest scientific minds for hundreds of years. And yet now, I felt no need to ask them. I felt that I had understanding. Life comes to us...and never leaves. We may even have it before we are aware of it and from what I’d seen on my journey through this whole remarkable experience, it remains with us. Long after we are...us. Question. Answered before asked. “Always. Your life has been yours and only yours forever.”

**

The light around us began to change. It was getting dark. We could have walked for hours for all I’d known. Was the day was coming to an end? The darkness came rapidly and as it did another question came to me. I caught the quietly fading answer just as the darkness became total. “Where does life come from? See for yourself”

Twenty Four.

“Even in your deepest darkest times,

your angel sees you.”

––––––––

Light rain was falling all around. The heat of the desert had gone, replaced by cool air and the smell of freshly cut grass. The hill that we were sitting on overlooked the lights of a distant city. It shimmered through the rain drops. Ann sat by my side. Although the rain was upon us, we remained dry. I had learned by now that this was par for the course and gave it no more thought. The city could have been any large city in any country of the world but it had a familiar feel to it. I began to make out different patterns as my eyes adjusted to the dark and the rain. There were bridges, lots of bridges. The banks of the river beneath them snaked through the middle of the city. It was my city. I was born here. Home. “Why am I here?” I asked Ann. “I bring you to places where you feel calm and where your mind is at peace. In these places listening and understanding seems...easier.” She was right of course. I was at peace here. I’d been away from this city for longer than I had lived here and yet it was still home. It brought me something that nowhere else I’d ever lived had. It was a feeling I was sure only an exile would understand. Ann understood.

“Thankyou”, she said. “Our time together is drawing to a close.” Without thinking I took her hand. “Have no fear”, she sensed my panic, my worry...my fear. I was distraught at the thought of her leaving, of losing her. Of this day ending. “You need not fear. that I will remain with you until you no longer need me. For I am you, and you are me.” I felt such sadness. Our time was not yet over, though I felt that the time when I would feel alone again was creeping ever closer. There was however a strength in me that I hadn’t had before this day. A strength from knowing there was something else to life outside of our everyday experience. Something more than what we see and do all through our ordinary lives. I felt a certain confidence in knowing that this life wasn’t all there is. That there was more. I had seen, or rather been shown, the light. I still had no religious beliefs so had no profound awakening in that respect. I wasn’t about to rush into the nearest church and throw myself to the floor in religious ecstasy. Nothing I had experienced had made me feel any more like believing in a deity than I had before. This existence, this life, felt so much bigger than any religion that I’d seen. It did feel to me that there was something, but It didn’t feel like the work of an all-powerful being. It felt more inclusive. It felt that everything was connected. Everything. “Maybe now you see why our time together is drawing short? Your need for me is growing less.” I smiled. She was right. I was stronger. “You are correct in that everything is connected.” Of course, she’d picked that up. “So, is this why we’re here?” I asked. “No” she replied “this is why it’s raining.”

**

“You know now that the essence of what you are, the you, does not die when your mortal body expires?”

I nodded. “Nevertheless, the mortal body does eventually cease to function as it once did and, when that day comes, the physical material of what makes up the human body begins to disintegrate. And, as it does so and mortal death comes, it res the great pool of materials and chemicals from where it once came. The pool from which all things on this world of yours is made. What it will become from there no-one yet knows. Maybe a rock, maybe a tree, maybe even a blade of grass blowing gently in the wind. The point is, this world of yours is finite...as far as the material world is concerned. What you have now is all you have ever had and all you ever will. It is a closed system. And so, all is reborn-recycled if you like. It has to be.” I knew this of course. Regardless of burial or cremation I knew that eventually we would decay or be scattered in some sacred place of our choosing only to become part of the building blocks for more life in due course, more growth. I had read in the past that, depending on where you lived and at what period in history, there was a chance however miniscule that part of what you were made of or had ingested or consumed in your lifetime had been a part of someone else whom had lived in the same area in the distant past. Their disintegrated body or ashes may have seeped into the earth from where vegetation grew, only to be consumed by ourselves or the animals on which we depend for food; or may have found its way into rivers, streams, lakes from which our drinking water is drawn. It was perfectly possible therefore that, depending on where a person lived, they could-at a cellular level-be part Isaac Newton, William Shakespeare or even Joan of Arc. It was a strange notion to grasp or believe, but it was perfectly possible. “Very astute”, she said. “And the rest of you?” “You mean my consciousness, the me?” “Yes?” I’d seen the spheres of the soulmates and the spheres, the souls, of those who had ed without such a bond. “I them?” there was no need to explain. “You do...in time, but you also something else. Let me try to help you.

Reach out your hand.” I did as she asked. I felt the wetness of the falling rain. It pooled in my upturned palm. Everywhere else was dry. Although the rain fell all around and over us only my palm felt it. It touched nowhere else. It was as though she’d allowed only a small circle of the rain to touch me. I looked to her in wonder. She was smiling softly. “Do you see?” she asked. I didn’t answer. “When you , your body s the material of this world” she explained “the you however, is not a material thing. It never was. It cannot do the same...it lives on.” “Did we not see that?” “We did, but that is not all. There is more. The raindrops you feel now? Imagine that each one of those raindrops contained a soul, a consciousness, the knowledge and energy of one of your kind who has ed. And then consider all you see.” The rain was torrential around us. Still, we remained dry, save for my hand. “All these souls...touching those they land on. Leaving their mark. Then consider the raindrops contained in all of your world’s oceans, seas, rivers and lakes. A raindrop may be such a small thing and yet it is, and always will be, part of something so much larger. Something which encomes your entire world. Something powerful and unstoppable yet essential for all life to thrive for without it there is no life. One small raindrop may appear insignificant yet when all raindrops together?...one small surviving consciousness may seem as small and insignificant as a single raindrop on the palm of your hand yet when it s with all those that have gone before it the oceans of energy created dwarves those which surround your world with water, and go way past the its boundaries. This sea of energy is what you, and all who have both gone before you and will come after you and become a part of when your mortal life is complete.” “A field of collective consciousness.”

“Precisely.” She said quietly.

Twenty Five.

“Angels show the path,

The decision to take it is yours.”

––––––––

“Humanity is enveloped by this energy. It always has been.” Said Gabriel. We were sitting on the concrete edge of a marina, our legs dangling off the edge over the sea below. I knew instantly where I was. The usual noise and bustle from behind had gone. Mallory Square was deserted. Totally deserted, except for us. The sun was slowly going down over the island in the distance. If this was a tour of my favourite places then I was all for it. This was my lottery win retirement home. “It is part of every one of you. You can feel it. It can be positive or negative depending on the person, it can heal and repair. It es around and through you. It holds all knowledge. It enables so many of your body’s functions and processes from helping your internal chemistry to operate at the speed it does to providing the canvas for your thoughts and dreams to manifest onto. It is indispensable to man. It is influenced by each and every one of you and only belongs to mankind. It can bring into your life that which you ask of it. There is no mystery to it. Only misunderstanding. If you believe that life is positive, constructive and happy then that is what you will experience. If you are negative and cynical about your life then that is how it will manifest to you. Wish someone well from your heart and they will feel its benefits. Wish someone ill and you may well experience the same. It makes no judgements however. The

key is to believe. It exists whether you do or do not believe-though it may elude you if you do not. This is the collective energy, the collective soul of mankind.” I looked out towards the setting sun. We were definitely here. I felt the hardness of the concrete as I gripped it beneath my hands. Of course we were here. Talking had become very easy, very matter of fact. “I read a book a long time ago called ‘The Secret’. I think it may have been about the same thing you’re talking about. Basically, you wish for something and it comes to you, think about someone and you see them. That sort of thing.” “It is similar and, though it can provide you with ‘things’, that is a wasteful use of such a wondrous thing. This energy can be used for so much more than gain. Believe in it, it exists. Use it for betterment, for hope, for good and to help those who need help. This is the collective energy of man. It explains the inexplicable that man often struggles with.” “So how do I ‘access’ this energy” I asked. “Belief” replied Gabe. “Quite simple. Belief. You will already have experienced it during your life time. Have you ever been thinking of someone and, within days, they have appeared in your life? Have you ever been thinking of a piece of music then turn on a radio and that piece of music is playing?” I nodded. I imagine that had happened to everyone. It always amazed me and I always put it down to coincidence. “There is no such thing as coincidence” he said “It is the field at work. From a human point of view has a person ever walked into a room where you were and the atmosphere changes, sometimes for the better...sometimes for the worse?” I nodded. There were some people who brightened up the day with just their presence whilst others seemed to drain the very joy out of even the brightest sunshine day. “That is the energy at work. Those who can lift others believe in the good, in the positive, in the happiness in and around them and their energy reflects that. Others however can bring negativity, cynicism and unhappiness. This is the energy. You cannot hide from it. this. It will manifest that which you believe in.”

“It’s not an easy concept to get to grips with.” I said “You’re saying that if I wish something into my life; it will happen?” “Only with belief.” He replied. “Recall, if you can, a time in your life maybe as a child when you have wished for something, maybe a gift, and it has arrived. Now try to recall the feeling that the arrival of that gift gave you. The certainty, however unlikely, that something which you had wished for was now in your possession. Apply that feeling of certainty to what you wish for in your life without doubt-with belief-and it will manifest; in whichever manner that the field deems fit.” “Really?” “Test it whenever you wish. Think of a person that you may know and believe that soon you will see them, without doubt. You may be surprised.” “Anyone?” “Anyone living” he saw where I was going “the others will still come to you but not in physical form. Your dreams are the canvas onto which the others are painted for you to see for in dreams disbelief is suspended. In the daylight world disbelief “So, if I believed then I could see those who had ed even when awake?” “Some do.” “Ghosts?” He smiled. “Our time here is done.”

Twenty Six.

“Angels are always nearby,

waiting for you to find them.”

––––––––

I had sat on this bench countless times. Sometimes just to watch the world go by. Benches were perfect for that. Today was a first. Today I sat with Ann. “Is this the end of our time together?” I asked nervously. “It is.” “Ann?” “To expand creation” she said quietly as if she knew I was going to ask before I knew it myself. So that was it. The answer to my greatest question. To expand creation. Beautiful. We sat together without a word said between us. I’d been afraid of this moment coming yet I didn’t feel the sadness that I thought I would.

“Do you want red or blue?” she said eventually. “Sorry?” “Red or blue?” she repeated. “Red or blue what?” “Cars” she said, watching the road in front “If I’m red then I’m winning...easily.” I laughed. I’d forgotten how I used to play this with the kids, counting cars. It broke the atmosphere. “Is there anything you don’t know about me?” I said, feeling happier than I thought I would given that this was the last time I would see her. “What do you think?” she replied. It had been a stupid question. “Will I see you again?” I asked quietly. “You know you will” she answered. I thought back to where this day had taken us, to the places, the experiences and the change it had brought in me. “This day, this visit, this experience or journey or whatever today has been,” I asked “do others have them? Do you visit others? Help them?” “If I am needed. Though I am not alone in that. There are others and they have their own charges if you ? Do they visit their charges? They do. More than you know.” I felt relieved though found it difficult to know why. We sat again in silence. The red and blue cars ed us by. I hadn’t been counting. After what seemed like the longest time, she took my hand in hers. She was soft and warm to the touch. “It is time for you to go.” I stood up from the bench. Such mixed feelings but I knew she was right. It was time.

“I have something for you” she said and reached into her coat pocket “It’s a good ten-minute walk home”. She held out her hand to me. My ancient ipod. “Of course,” I said with a laugh “I’m not even surprised” I unwound the cable and pushed the buds into my ears. “Full blast if you don’t mind” she said “Won’t I go deaf?” “Not today” she smiled. I took a long look at her as if trying to save the image of her in my memory. “There’s no need” she said “Just believe.” She pointed to my ipod “It’s ready.” I smiled at her and began to walk away towards home. After a few steps I turned, the bench was empty. I looked at my ipod to see what she had meant. Of course. She had picked the perfect song for me. ‘Iris’. She knew me.

“And I’d give up forever to touch you,

cause I know that you feel me somehow,

you’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be,

and I don’t want to go home right now.”

***