by Stan Mason
I stood reproached in a minor way wondering how anyone could get along without money but then I realised the truth of the matter. There were no shops, no services, no mortgages, no loans, no need of payment for goods, nothing to buy. Indeed, it was a blessing to believe that I was rid of the problem because I had never been any good at saving. All the investments I bought had reduced very much in value, the bets I made daily on horses or the lottery tickets I bought each week had shown massive losses over the years, while I had lost a great deal of money in time being frivolous in one way or another often ending up in debt.
I suddenly realised that there was no sky in Heaven and not one star shone in the firmament. Although the place was filled with light from a source of which I could not ascertain it seemed as though a black curtain had been drawn across the sky blotting everything out.
‘There are a few more questions,’ I ventured, ‘if I may be permitted to ask them.’ He nodded his head so I continued. ‘What’s happened to all the stars in the sky?’
‘They’re still there,’ he responded frankly. ‘But Heaven is way up above them. The universe is below. Does that answer your question satisfactorily?’
‘Two more things,’ I went on regardlessly. ‘The bells were ringing before. I recall a Frank Capra film entitled ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’, starring James Stewart and Donna Reed where someone said that ‘when a bell rang it meant that an angel has got their wings’. Is that true?’
‘Quite the contrary,’ came the answer, ‘but you’ll find out more about that in due course. Let me add that I hope they don’t ring for you.’
‘Lastly,’ I ventured. ‘What does an Accompanying Angel have to do?’
His face turned into a serious mode as he started to answer my last question. ‘As an Accompanying Angel, you will find yourself back on Earth together in the company of many other spirits. You’ll recognise them by the mistiness of their shapes or forms and, like you, they will not only look shadowy but have no substance. In the same way, you will walk among people who live on Earth but you’re not permitted to speak to them or touch them. The main difference is that you are now a spirit and not a human-being with a body of substance. You’ll find that you’ll need to adjust to the change.’
‘What’s my role in that capacity?’ I cut in urgently, wondering about the part I had to play. ‘What do I have to do?’
‘In the first place,’ he went on evenly, ‘it’s an exercise for you to become acquainted with other spirits sent down to Earth. Secondly, you’ll mix with live people but the test is that you do not communicate with them despite the fact that you’ll find you want to do so. Thirdly, there’s a further test to prove that you are able to cope with such a situation. Your progress in Heaven depends entirely on how you deal with your presence there.’
‘Let me get this straight, I summarised briefly. ‘I go down to Earth as a ghost or spirit, mixing with other spirits as well as with people who are still alive, but my role is not to do anything.’
‘That’s correct,’ he confirmed slowly. ‘You have it in a nutshell.’
‘How do I get down there?’ I enquired uncomfortably, feeling that he was toying with me at his pleasure.
‘Do not concern yourself about it,’ he replied curtly. ‘Simply focus your mind on what you do on your return to Earth.’
‘But I can’t do anything,’ I countered slowly. ‘I can’t talk to anyone or touch them or give them advice. What if they do bad things?’
‘That’s not your concern,’ he rattled. ‘Just think of it as an exercise in novice angel training.’
Being a cautious person, there were many more questions I needed to ask him but before I could speak he suddenly vanished from the spot where he had stood. I climbed onto the rostrum to see how he might have been able to disappear so quickly but there was nothing for me to find. He had gone in an instant like a hologram being switched off leaving me to wonder how I would start my new role as an Accompanying Angel... but nothing happened. I was indeed a lost soul!
***
Without further instruction to follow, I left the building. However, the moment I went outside I found myself projected out of the vicinity of Heaven, transported like a flash down to Earth. I had just entered through the doors of a large hall filled with about a hundred people sitting on plastic chairs facing a stage on which a woman stood in front of a microphone talking to the audience. All around me were ghosts, one of them even holding a dog on a leash.
‘In the world of the paranormal,’ she lectured boldly, ‘there are spirits... ghosts if you wish to call them that... some of them good, others evil. Let me tell you that, in this hall at the moment, I can see a multitude of spirits standing by the walls watching us. You may feel uncomfortable about them being here but it’s a fact of this life and the next one that they are present. I can see a spirit man holding his dog on a leash and another who’s just graced us with his presence.’
I suddenly realised that I was back on Earth with a room full of live people and that the woman was a clairvoyant referring to me. I stared at the other spirits who tended to ignore me as they stood around gloomily. I could only assume that they were on a similar initiation programme like myself that had been devised by Heaven.
On the stage, the clairvoyant continued her act, going into a trance and repeating the name of a person who had passed away some time ago. A woman in the audience reacted without hesitation and the psychic told her a number of things about her departed husband which caused her a great deal of astonishment as some of the revelations had been a secret known only to the husband and wife.
‘He’s well,’ exclaimed the clairvoyant. ‘He’s in Heaven enjoying the peace he always wanted and he thinks about you constantly, watching over you and guiding you in the best way he can.’
I wondered about the truth of the matter. From my scant knowledge of Heaven, everyone seemed to be very busy employed in doing one thing or another, There seemed to be little time to rest in peace, let alone watch over someone else to guide them. However, I had only been in Heaven a short while so my knowledge of the activities that took place could be put in a thimble and lost.
The other spirits shuffled about with more of them entering the hall until it was absolutely filled with them. Strangely enough, we never seemed to blunder into each other, but then it was impossible for spirits to crash into each other because none of us were of any substance. As the clairvoyant continued to speak, my curiosity got the better of me. I leaned across to a man at the end of the last row and touched him lightly on the shoulder. Almost immediately, the sound of bells could be heard ringing in Heaven. They pealed through my mind and I realised the reason. Contrary to the fact that they rang whenever an angel gained its wings, they sounded when an angel committed a violation of the rules. I cringed realising that what I had done would be recorded in the annals of Heaven and held against me for eternity but it was too late to do anything about it now.
As I touched the man, he shivered as a tingle went down his spine and he turned to his wife sitting next to him.
‘Ooh!’ he uttered sharply. ‘Someone just walked over my grave.’
I drew back quickly, angry at myself for transgressing. I had felt the same sensation on occasion when I was alive. I had no idea at the time that I had been touched by an angel. On reflection, it had been a stupid act especially after I had been warned not to do it. Somehow I was continuing to operate foolishly in the next world as I had done in the past and I knew that it would affect my progress in Heaven. Then suddenly a thought struck me as I began to admonish myself. It was possible that none of this was real. I had gone to bed that night and fallen asleep. Now I was dreaming and it had started to become a savage nightmare consuming my mind and filling me with fear. I had taken a number of tablets before going to bed which tended to retard the pain of the arthritis down my right side and, quite clearly, the eff
ect was causing me to dream that I had died and gone to Heaven. It was not beyond reason to feel myself drifting like a vacant spirit with no shape or form. The drugs usually made it happen that way. All the progress through the wastelands, the appearance of the angels, and the Dome of Despair, where I had to confess my Earthly sins with the Angel of Justice, were all in my conscience. It was quite obvious that I would shortly wake up to have to face another day of pain and desolation. I tried to shake myself in order to return myself to the living world but nothing happened. I was still standing in the hall where the clairvoyant was speaking to her audience about the paranormal. Then, without warning, I found myself back in Heaven standing in front of the Centurion Angel.
‘It didn’t take you long to disobey the rules, did it?’ he reproached sharply. ‘I trusted you and you let me down.’
I hung my head in shame as he chided me. ‘I’m truly sorry,’ I apologised profusely. ‘I am... truly sorry. You have to admit that I’m a novice and need to recognise the importance of the rules in due course. Please let me return to continue my apprenticeship!’
He hesitated wondering for a moment whether to accept my apology and then gave me the benefit of the doubt. ‘I’m willing to give you one more chance,’ he told me in no uncertain terms. ‘But be certain you follow the rules this time or we shall have to review your situation.’
I nodded and in an instant I found myself back on Earth in the bedroom of an apartment where a man and a woman were making love. It shocked me at first to see them copulating in the nude on top of a bed and my mind went back to my youth when I enjoyed doing exactly the same thing with different women. He was a man of about forty years of age; she was a beautiful auburn-haired creature of about twenty-five with a very pretty face and a wonderfully slender figure. I could easily understand his ardent passion to make love with her.
I noticed that I wasn’t alone. There were three other spirits in the room but they hung about by the walls merely viewing the scene disconsolately.
After the couple had finished making love to each other, the man dressed and sat on the edge of the bed as the woman slid back between the sheets. He opened a bottle of wine and then poured some of it into two glasses which they drank, as they lit each other’s cigarettes and blew smoke towards the ceiling. Ten minutes passed by, which entailed a few more kisses, before he rose and put on his jacket.
‘When are you going to leave her?’ asked the woman directly. It was clear she had asked him that question at least once before. ‘You said you’d tell her about us last week. To tell you the truth, I’m getting fed up being the other woman.’
He paused to look at her, his mind working like a computer. ‘I’ll tell her tonight,’ he returned, stubbing his cigarette out in an ash-tray. ‘Tonight. Then it’ll be over.’
I watched him carefully, staring directly into his eyes although he was unable to see me. I knew instantly that he was lying blatantly to the woman. He had no intention of telling his wife that he would leave her. I felt that I should do something to warn her of his infidelity to both her and his wife but I realised that I was unable to do so and, indeed, I recognised that there was nothing for me to do. The other spirits failed to respond at all to the couple, continuing to watch them from their positions by the far wall. However, I had been cautioned by the Centurion Angel so I was not eager to break any more rules of Heaven.
The man left the apartment but I didn’t feel sorry for the woman. Certainly she was willing to give all her love to him without question but, at the same time, she was wrecking his marriage giving no thought for the man’s wife and the misery she would cause to her and any children that may have been involved. I realised that I had done exactly the same thing when I had conducted an affair with a female teacher at the school where I had worked. It was only now that I could see the true folly of such actions. For a few hours of passion with someone else, a person could destroy not only his or her life but also that of the spouse and the children of the marriage. It was sheer folly that more than likely would have to be paid for in the long run by everyone involved.
After he had gone, the woman pulled the sheets back and lay on the bed in the nude. In the past, I would not have been able to prevent myself from approaching such a beautiful woman hoping to make love with her. However, my death had removed from me all such promiscuous feelings and I simply stared at her lovely face, her large breasts, her slender body, and her private parts with no particular interest as did the other spirits in the room.
In an instant, I found myself back in the hall where the clairvoyant was still speaking. All the spirits stood around hugging the walls closely. I knew now that I was really a spirit and that the situation in which I found myself was not a dream. I was actually dead, having been sent down from Heaven to learn how to be a loyal and faithful spirit. It was a daunting feeling because I was beginning a different life in the spirit world, discovering new activities and attitudes all the time. It wasn’t long before I realised another feature of my spirit life that began to concern me... I was totally alone in everything I did. There were no other angels or spirits to accompany me in Heaven or in my visit back to Earth. In all the years of my youth, I had enjoyed the closeness of friends, especially in the teaching world, and had experienced relationships, sexual and otherwise, with many women. Eventually, I married and had the company of a loving partner until she learned of my affair with another woman bewfore she died. But now I was totally alone, friendless and forlorn, as I had been in the last five years of my life. I liked being an individual but the solitude of friendlessness gave me an uncomfortable sense of despair, disturbing me to some extent.
Nonetheless, before I could dwell too heavily on the matter I found myself standing at a T-junction watching the traffic pass by. There were numerous spirits floating about at various points of the road nearby staring vacantly at the scene. I wondered what their role was on Earth for none of them seemed to be interested in doing anything at all. I stood at a point on the main road as traffic passed by at a tremendous rate for it was the key route through the countryside with no traffic lights or speed limit. My attention became drawn to a young boy who was cycling down a minor road towards me. He was travelling at speed on his bicycle, whistling away to his heart’s content, indicating his happiness to be in the world. From the left, on the main road, a large lorry carrying thick wooden beams was racing along the highway with a clear road in front of him. In that instant, it hardly needed the use of a psychic to predict exactly what was going to happen. However I was to be stunned at the extent of the debacle that was about be occur. I stared at the other spirits to see whether they would intervene but they remained on the sidelines watching the incident. It was in my mind to prevent the accident from happening by walking across the road and stopping the young boy in his tracks before he reached the main road but it was not in the rules of Heaven to allow me to do so. Subsequently, and inevitably, the boy approached the main road and pulled at the brakes on the bicycle but they failed to work properly. Subsequently, the momentum caused him to continue his journey. He slewed sharply across the main road at an angle on his bicycle, which caused the front wheel to buckle, throwing him into the middle of the road right in the path of the speeding lorry. The driver slammed on the brakes and pulled hard at the wheel in the few seconds available to him before reaching the boy but it was too little too late to avoid him. Consequently, the lorry ran over both the boy and the bicycle, swerving violently towards the edge of the embankment, It raced over the top at speed, overturning and rolling down into the valley. Within seconds, the vehicle caught fire and then exploded as the petrol tank burst into flame. It was a debacle I did not wish to witness but I had been forced to do so in a most cruel way. I walked over to the body of the young boy who lay like a broken doll in the middle of the road. I then turned to the lorry to note, to my dismay, that the driver had been burned to a cinder. The other spirits appeared to ignore the accident bu
t I rued the fact that I had been unable to save either of their lives. The rules of Heaven prohibited me from doing so and I was greatly saddened at the outcome.
As I surveyed the scene, a police car arrived and the officers approached some car drivers who had pulled up to ask what had happened. However, I was not allowed to listen to their replies because, without warning, I found myself sitting in the passenger seat of a Cessna aeroplane. I had no idea how I got there but it was clearly another test I was forced to undertake. There were two other spirits sitting in the back of the aircraft who were obviously not going to be involved in any incident in which the plane was involved. It was a test that rested entirely on my shoulders.
The pilot was a middle-aged man who was singing ‘On With The Motley’ from the opera Pagliacchi in Italian above the drone of the aircraft engine as he flew happily through the air. ‘Regitar pre presovar, terrilbyour, en et cou editor, e quell de pacho... et pourray dwopper, sportsaffit, la ses supar selor.’
Suddenly, he was interrupted by a voice which came over the intercom. ‘Cessna Pee-Enn-184. You’ll be starting your approach to Broadmead airport shortly. Are you ready to receive your landing instructions?’
‘Go ahead GTX. Waiting eagerly to hear your instructions,’ he replied amiably. Before proceeding any further however, his face took on the pain of anguish and his hand moved swiftly to his chest. It was quite obvious that he was suffering from a sudden heart-attack and an urge passed through me to move him out of the pilot’s seat and take over the controls, even though I hadn’t the faintest idea how to fly a plane. However, I managed to resist the impulse and watched him continue to suffer until he lost consciousness. When that happened, the aircraft tilted downwards at an angle of forty-five degrees and it was quite clear that if I didn’t take control immediately it would continue its rapid descent and plunge directly into the ground. As a result, the man would die on impact and the aircraft would be smashed to smithereens. For me, and the two other spirits in the aircraft, it was quite different. We were simply without substance and ostensibly invincible. In the situation that I was in, it did not please me to be so, nor was I happy to recognise the inevitability of the crash and the knowledge that the man was about to die. There was something sinister in this particular test which horrified me. Firstly, it seemed most cruel of Heaven to place me in this position, watching a man die in an aeroplane disaster, testing me as to whether I would break the rules of Heaven and take over the controls to save him. Secondly, it was the fact that I was never allowed to change the course of history for those people who were about to die even though it was possibly in my power to do so. It seemed that when a person’s number was up, there was no recourse but for them to leave their body on Earth and allow them to travel in spirit form to Heaven. It was obviously not up to me, as a mere Seraph spirit to interfere or change events. It was the only reason I could think of at that particular moment although I was truly unable to fathom the logic.
