The Last Angel

by Jon Jacks

  They had chosen eggs, rather than hatchlings. Even so, in the warmth of the girls' cupped hands one bleary eyed, drowsy, and still thoroughly drenched angel had already emerged from her cracked shell. The other egg was already cracking, an incredibly tiny fist at last punching through and widening the hole until the shell more or less split in half.

  The fledgling tumbled exhaustedly from the broken shell. Weakly taking in a gasp of air, she blinked her eyes in disbelief at the brightness of the world she'd woken up in. She smiled lazily, dreamily, as if about to go back to sleep. Her wings were wet, furled against her back and, for the moment, unmoving.

  ‘How embarrassing to know I started out like this.’

  Jial sounded like she was grumbling, yet even she was as enthralled as everyone else by the minute angels as they tiredly and thankfully curled up in the safety and softness of the girls' cupped hands.

  By nightfall, the wings of the fledglings would be dry, soft and feathery. By then, though, the young angels would also be invisible to everyone but their new companion. Hatchlings were visible to everyone young enough to require a guardian, but only on the very first day, allowing them to be chosen in preference to an unhatched egg.

  Chrissy had chosen Jial as a hatchling, instantly entranced by her wide, curious eyes. She had frowned at everything going on around her, as if mystified by even the most normal of events or things.

  'Now, what will you be, I wonder?'

  The girl stared in a mix of amusement and awe at the angel in her hands. It happily blinked back at her in equally wide-eyed amazement.

  'I've always wondered what Spiderman's angel would be like.'

  The other girl was tenderly using her thumbs to remove the egg's sticky liquid from her own angel, who was now calmly sitting up in her cupped hands.

  'I always thought, you know, that poor angel must've been driven crazy. I mean, following him flying around the city like that! And with him quite obviously not listening to a word she was saying too!'

  Her friends chuckled and giggled. Everyone, at some point, had tried to imagine how a fictional or historical character’s relationship with their angel worked. Attempting to guess how and why a guardian had failed to control a young Hitler, or in what way they had aided a maturing Plato, or a severely suffering slave, was an important part of their school course work. Naturally, it could only ever be speculation, for no one had ever revealed how their particular relationship worked. As a popular teacher had warned, ‘it was an abstract philosophical exercise at best; and may only end up revealing your own idea of a relationship, if you’re not careful!’

  The girl speaking, Chrissy was suddenly surprised to realise, was the same girl who only moments before had been aggressively pushing aside anyone standing in her way of scoring yet another point. Now she was carefully tending to her hatchling. The calming influence of the angels, even the still blissfully naive hatchlings, was quite remarkable. It really was hard to understand how so many angels had ultimately had so little influence over so many despots and criminals, not only throughout history but also within their own time too.

  Si gently nudged her. He drew her attention to the coach’s windows, which they were now slowly passing alongside.

  ‘You know,’ he said with an anxious frown, ‘I’m not sure there’s going to be enough: angels, I mean. There’s not going to be enough angel’s for everyone here.’

  Chrissy frowned too, but only in puzzlement. She couldn’t see what Si meant. Jial shrugged, her face creasing slightly in a ‘Me neither’ look. Emma’s head was down, staring at the ground as she miserably shuffled along with everyone else.

  The tall, almost floor to ceiling windows loomed above them. Their silvering had been removed, replaced by a smoky grey that allowed anyone outside to dimly peer through them. Those who had already entered the Angel Bus were obediently filing past the glass cabinets displaying the hatchlings and eggs for them to choose from. It was also possible to see inside some of the cases. Just as she remembered from her first time on the Angel Bus, the hatchlings were drowsily tumbling over each other, or making the very first weak flaps of their gradually drying wings. Around them, nestled in a beds of fine straw, were uncracked eggs, glistening with a jewel-like sheen under the bright heat lamps of the cabinets.

  ‘There’s plenty there,’ Chrissy said, fleetingly glancing back to see just how big the queue was. ‘More than enough for everyone here.’

  Si shook his head, his mouth curling into a dismissive pursing.

  ‘Watch, Chrissy. Watch the kids filing through, not the hatchlings: no matter how cute they are.’

  Chrissy watched. Even though she was on a much lower level to those filing through the bus, and she was seeing them through multiple layers of distorting glass, she could make out the eagerness with which each person studied, pointed at and excitedly chose their angels, picking them out from amongst the uncountable hatchlings and eggs in the translucent cabinets. She was about to shake her head in puzzlement once more, even started saying ‘I can’t see what the problem is’ – then halted mid-word.

  The chosen hatchings weren’t being carefully withdrawn from the cabinets and presented to their new companions, as she would have expected.

  ‘I…I don’t understand,’ she admitted worriedly. ‘A choice of an angel can’t be refused.’

  The white-coated assistants on the bus, rather than fulfilling their important role of ensuring the correct link up of chooser-companion and chosen-guardian, were instead apologetically shaking their heads. Offering instead some spoken explanation Chrissy obviously couldn’t hear, the assistants merely calmly led the disappointed boy or girl off towards the front of the queue. Here they would both disappear behind the solid, opaque panels of the bus’s rear.

  ‘I reckon the handlers are the ones without any choice.’

  Si craned his neck back to peer as intently as he could at the nearest row of hatchlings, which were a good arm’s length above his head.

  ‘I don’t think the hatchlings are really there. They’re holograms, or some other kind of moving projection anyway.’

  Chrissy grimaced doubtfully, yet she couldn’t see what other reason there could be for the handlers to refuse a companion’s first (and supposedly only) choice of guardian.

  ‘So why are they still keeping us queuing like this?’ she demanded irately, forgetting that she needn’t be in the queue at all. ‘And if you’re right, Si, why are they trying to fool everyone into thinking there are still plenty of hatchlings left?’

  Jial shrugged apologetically once more as Chrissy unfairly glared at her. Emma, as if she had been following the conversation after all, began to amble to one side of the patiently filing children. She appeared ready to leave the queue, a sickly, almost pleased grin on her otherwise downcast face.

  An angel silently swooped forward. Her beatific smile was somehow at odds with the way she opened her arms and wings wide to gently corral Emma and edge her back into the queue.

  Fortunately, Emma was too beaten, too miserable, to protest further. Farther up the queue, both Chrissy and Si noticed that someone more forthright had had the same idea, only for the angel’s kindly persuasion to be suddenly backed up by the abrupt appearance of sternly scowling police officers.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ Jial insisted petulantly before Chrissy had a chance to glower at her once more. ‘I’ve no idea what’s going on either!’

  ‘We have to get out of the queue, I think,’ Chrissy said determinedly, taking in the line of nervously shuffling police officers who had positioned themselves beyond the angels keeping the queue in order.

  ‘You think?’ Si said, having come to the same conclusion.

  'Easier said than done.' Jial grimaced, edgily glancing over towards the lines of angels and police.

  Jial turned back to face Chrissy, giving Chrissy the impression that she was torn between whom she should be helping.

  'You do know I should be stopping you, right?' Jial a
dded, proving Chrissy had guessed correctly.

  'But you're not because, obviously, I chose the right angel,' Chrissy answered, wondering if the happily giggling girls standing by her had also – perhaps intuitively, perhaps magically – made the right choice.

  One of the girls was holding her hatchling in just the palm of her hand, letting him play with her relatively huge fingers, while the other was still tenderly cupping her more freshly hatched, weaker angel.

  'I know what to do,' Chrissy whispered, turning back to Si and Emma.

  *

  Chapter 13

  Even Emma seemed entranced by the egg she was holding in her cupped hands as, along with the two girls, they all walked away from the queue.

  Si was even promising his unhatched angel that, this time, he wouldn’t constantly question whatever was asked of him.

  ‘Don’t overplay it, Marlon Brando!’ Chrissy hissed.

  Jial tagged along like she wished she were a million miles away. Her face was every bit as downcast and miserable as any normal twelve-year-old girl who thought she had been unfairly treated.

  ‘What happens to angels when they get fired, do you think?’ she muttered unhappily. 'You do know you're only getting away with this because they think I'd have more sense than to let you do it?'

  She gave a petulant nod towards the lines of angels and police, many of whom had closely watched them split off from the queue as if they were with the two girls. Chrissy was the only one amongst the group who wasn't adoringly cooing into her cupped hands but, of course, far from worrying the watching police, this had only reassured them. They were obviously fully aware that she was still being watched over and guided by Jial. The angels even appreciatively smiled at the care everyone was taking over the new hatchlings, warming to the expressions of happiness and awe on the faces of each boy and girl.

  Not even the angels could tell that the two girls weren't just happy, but also a little bemused that Chrissy and her friends had decided to walk across the green with them. They all more or less knew everyone by sight, having at some time caught glimpses of each other at school, or hanging around the green, cafes or movie theatres: yet they could hardly be called friends. Then again, the girls thought, a happy, unusual occasion like this always brought people closer together, didn't it? It was one of those times when everyone was filled with a sense that the world was both wonderful and a joyous place to be.

  'By, see you later,' the girls trilled merrily as the two groups finally spilt up on the edge of the green.

  'Perhaps, you know, we should hang out together once our angels have grown a little?' one asked hopefully, her eyes lingering on Si a little too long for Chrissy to feel comfortable about it.

  Emma was the next to say she was heading on home, miserably shaking her head when Si suggested heading back along the edge of the green. He wanted to see what was happening to those who stepped off the Angel Bus without either a hatchling or an egg.

  'I'm sure I didn't see anyone walking away across the green looking disappointed: so what's happening to them all?' he asked.

  Emma shrugged her shoulders like she couldn't care, like she couldn't care about anything anymore.

  'Maybe they crossed the road behind the bus?' she said dismissively. 'Or maybe, just like us, the ones you saw crossing the green were just cupping their hands and pretending they'd got themselves a whole new angel.'

  She screwed her face in distaste as she sarcastically and angrily said 'a whole new angel'.

  'Why would they pretend to have an egg?' Si irately replied. 'We only did it so we could get away from the queue – and keep on doing it until you're out of sight of the cops Emma!'

  Tiring of their silly game, Emma had begun to let her empty hands drop away from her face. Si's anger was so obvious, however, that she immediately cupped them again.

  'Okay Emma,' Chrissy said quietly and kindly, trying to calm everything down. 'I'll call you later, okay? Or you call me – whenever you want, right?'

  Emma gave a sullen nod.

  'You do know she doesn't see the point in calling, right?' Jial said, reading Emma's forlorn, hopeless expression and slumped pose in exactly the same way that Chrissy had

  Chrissy ignored Jial, even though she was tempted to reward her with a light kick to the ankles for not only stating the obvious but also distracting her as she tried to help Emma.

  Emma headed off up one of the streets leading from the green, keeping her hands cupped as Si had more or less ordered her to. Every now and again she would miserably look back, wondering when she'd at last be able to put a stop to this mad pretence that she was happy, content, and had a brand new angel she could joyously raise.

  Si sighed with relief that Emma had left them.

  'Good; she wasn't taking this seriously. She could have endangered us, you know?'

  Endangered? Chrissy was a little shocked. Why would they be endangered?

  Did Si really think that the angels and police had suddenly become a danger to them? An enemy, someone who couldn't be trusted?

  Did your mind start playing tricks with you like this once your angel had left you?

  He'd called the police 'cops'. She'd never heard anyone call them that. Unless, of course, you counted the unreal world of books and movies.

  She glanced Jial's way, hoping for a few reassuring or even comically dismissive words from her.

  Jial didn't say anything.

  But her anxious expression, the way she was gently biting her lip?

  That said that maybe Si wasn't overreacting at all.

  *

  Chapter 14

  They kept to the edge of the green, Si still pretending to coo happily over his egg.

  Chrissy watched out for any moves the angels or police made that could imply they were becoming suspicious. Jial continued to reluctantly shuffle alongside them, mumbling that she really really shouldn’t be allowing this. Then again, she’d added miserably, as there didn’t seem to be anything happening that counted as normal, well, she wasn’t really sure what she should be doing, was she?

  From the green’s corner, they could see both sides of the Angel Bus: the kerb side, where the queue was still patiently worming its way towards the bus’s front door, and the side facing on to the road, where everyone disembarked through a small, rear exit door.

  Chrissy thought back to the excitement and wonder she’d felt all those years ago when she’d stepped down through that door. She had cupped the fledgling Jial as tenderly as if she were holding her own life in her hands (which, in many ways, she was). Thankfully, the angels and the police were on hand to safely guide her off the road and back towards the green and her waiting parents. Like every other young child around her, she had been in a blissful daze, and would probably have unthinkingly wandered off.

  The scene she was watching now was hardly different from her memory of that day. The police were once again waiting just outside the exit door, striding forward as soon as someone stepped down from the bus. Taking their charge gently by an elbow or arm, they would guide them away from the door so they wouldn’t block the way of the next person to disembark. The children were older now, of course, and there was no need for their parents to be waiting for them. Even so, they still appeared every bit as disorientated and bewildered as Chrissy had as a three-year-old.

  This time, of course, it was a different type of bewilderment to that experienced by Chrissy. This time, they weren’t confused and disorientated because they’d just received a fledgling angel, but because they’d just been denied the angel they’d been expecting would be theirs.

  They came off the bus looking perplexed, cheated, angry even. The police weren’t treating them with the tenderness and kindness that Chrissy fondly recalled either. If anyone stepping off the bus appeared to be irately shrugging off a police officer’s grip to their elbow or arm, the grip became firmer, the officer’s ‘guidance’ harder and more aggressive.

  No one was being safely guided towards t
he green. Everyone was being directed, if necessary even brutally pulled, a short distance across the road towards a large armoured van, which they were forced to board through open rear doors.

  A boy protested, pushing back away from the doors and whirling around violently enough to shrug off the policeman’s grip on his arm.

  The officer instantly reached for something on the rear of his belt, swiftly drawing it up to point it directly into the boy’s face.

  The boy pulled back in horror; then quickly, submissively, he boarded the van.

  The officer stepped away, his back now to Chrissy and Si as he slipped whatever he’d used to scare the boy back into its belt pouch.

  Chrissy recognised it immediately from the movies she’d seen, the descriptions in books.

  It was a gun.

  *

  Chrissy was so startled, she glanced Si’s way. She needed some form of confirmation that she really had just seen a police officer wielding a gun.

  His eyes were wide with surprise, perhaps even horror – yes, he’d seen the gun too.

  She hadn’t imagined it after all.

  ‘What’s a police officer doing with a gun?’ Si breathed anxiously.

  A police officer with a gun implied a town or city where order had broken down. Where people were prepared to commit lawless acts. It was a fictional device, code for the breakdown in society featured in movies and books, but having no place in real life.

  Chrissy looked Jial’s way for an explanation.

  ‘They’re nervous; worried there might be a panic once everyone realises there aren’t enough angels to go around just yet. And the panic will be worse, of course, because they no longer have their angels to calm them and offer guidance.’

  Another armoured van turned into the road they’d just crossed, slowing traversing down the edge of the green. Noticing this, the police closed the doors of the van presently being filled with those exiting the bus. A police woman rapped hard on the back of the van and, its motor already ticking over, it immediately set off, leaving a space for the newly arrived van to pull into.

  Even before the new van had drawn to a halt, its rear doors flew open, a short flight of steps clattering into place below them like a broken xylophone. A policeman leapt out from inside, spinning around as he landed on the ground to help the other officers firmly guide a bewildered girl aboard.