by Stan Mason
He was playing the grand piano in his home when I materialised and he stopped in astonishment as he saw me standing in front of him in the room.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he exclaimed in amazement, his fingers freezing on the piano keys. ‘How did you get in here?’
‘It doesn’t matter who I am,’ I told him flatly which meant absolutely nothing to him. ‘Be warned. I’ve come to tell you that Mike Meadows is about to abscond with all the money in your Showtime committee’s accounts. You need to telephone the police immediately to have him arrested at Gatwick airport where he intends to fly to Tenerife tonight.’
He stared at me with his mouth wide open. ‘Who are you?’ he spluttered. ‘This place is fitted with a modern security system. How did you get in here?’ He paused as my words became absorbed in his mind. ‘The police? What are you talking about?’
‘I’ll state it plainly and clearly,’ I went on adamantly. ‘Mike Meadows, the accountant for Showtime Extravaganza, is doing a runner with all your ticket and investors’ money to Tenerife tonight. You have to contact the police and stop him immediately.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ he snapped angrily. ‘I’ve known Mike for years. He wouldn’t do a thing like that! He’s a member of our committee. Who are you anyway?’
‘Never mind about me,’ I retorted sharply. ‘Listen to what I’m telling you! He’s on his way to the airport now.’
It took me a further few minutes to convince the musician to act. Reluctantly, he picked up his mobile telephone from the top of the grand piano and dialled Mike Meadows number intending to contact the accountant directly to prove me wrong. The ringing tone continued without reply. The musician stared at me uncertainly pressing his lips together as doubt began to cross his mind. I could understand his reluctance to believe me. After all, I had appeared in his home, defying the security system, without warning, declaring that his accountant and long-serving friend was a thief.
‘Contact the police and tell them immediately!’ I urged in a commanding tone. ‘Do it now or you’ll lose all your funds for the show. You can’t afford to do that!’
The last words seemed to stimulate him into action. With doubt still pervading his mind, he did the sensible thing to ring the police and related to them all that I had told him. Afterwards, he put down the mobile telephone and stared at me intently.
‘How do you know all this?’ he demanded, still wondering how I had managed to enter his home. ‘How do you know that he’s absconding with the money?’
‘If you can get hold of the cheque-book, you’ll find that he’s written a cheque to himself for seven hundred thousand pounds. It’s in his pocket at the moment. First thing tomorrow, after his arrival in Tenerife, he’ll go to a bank and get it specialled so that the funds are cleared the same day. By the time you would have found out about the theft he would be a very-much richer man and you would have been the loser.’
‘But how do you know all this?’ he bleated in amazement. ‘I don’t know you... I’ve never seen you before... yet you seem to know everything about everything... even to the amount of money that’s being stolen.’ He paused to reflect the situation now that he had time to think. ‘I hope you’ve been telling me the truth!’
‘As soon as he’s arrested, you’ll be delighted that you listened to me,’ I told him.
He turned towards the cabinet to pour himself a drink and I decided it was time to disappear. I returned to spirit form and vanished as he turned with a glass of sherry in his hand. When he realised that I was gone, the glass slipped from his fingers to shatter on the floor. He blinked twice as if to reassure himself that he was not asleep, rubbing his hand over his face. Leaving the shattered glass on the floor, he went back to the grand piano and started to play the heavy rhythms of Bach in an attempt to settle his mind. Although he knew that he hadn’t imagined it, my appearance and disappearance was a feature which would haunt him for the rest of his life.
I flitted to the airport to watch the police arrest Mike Meadows and take him back to the police station where they examined the cheques he had written to himself. I sighed with relief that he had been stopped in his tracks.
However, bad news is always related the fastest and the story that he had stolen all the money in the Showtime Extravaganza account soon reached the eyes of Jethro Huntley. It was plastered for all to see on the front page of the local newspaper the following day. When he read the story, Huntley went into a deep depression. He presumed that not only had he lost the whole of his investment but his wife would almost certainly leave him when she found out about the loan he had taken against the security of the house. With no job, laden with debt which he couldn’t repay, and the loss of his wife, as well as the possibility of foreclosure on his home, he considered that life wasn’t worth living any more. Fate had brought him to his knees. In his feeble mind, the only way out of the mess was to do away with himself by taking his own life. His mind wandered about the method of his demise. At first, he thought about slashing his wrists but he was too weak to undertake that course of action. Then he dwelt on whether to throw himself from the local bridge on to the railway line in front of an oncoming train, or rushing across the main road in front of a bus or a speeding passing vehicle. In the end, he decided on the easiest way to kill himself was the coward’s way out... he would take an overdose of tablets.
I went to Alan Turner’s house, not wishing to materialise but simply to whisper into the musician’s ear. He was playing the piano at the time.
‘Telephone Jethro Huntley,’ I uttered forcibly. ‘Tell him that his money is safe. Tell him that Meadows didn’t have time to cash the cheque. Telephone Huntley now! Don’t delay!’
I knew that he had heard me by the puzzled expression which crossed his face and he stopped playing to sit thinking for a moment. Then, as my words sank into his mind, he picked up his mobile telephone and rang Huntley. I sped to the investor’s house to observe him sitting alone in his lounge with a large phial of tablets on the coffee-table in front of him next to a half-filled bottle of whisky. He was truly depressed, picking up the tablets and gloomily staring at the label on the front of the phial. He had only one thought in mind... to pluck up the courage to swallow them so that it would be over. All the pain, the anguish, the guilt, the despair... it would be ended very shortly. He tipped a mound of tablets into his hand and was about to take the first mouthful when the telephone rang. He paused in his actions even though he failed to hear it ringing at first.
‘Answer the ‘phone!’ I urged knowing full well that he couldn’t hear me. However this was the watershed... the moment of truth when he would either kill himself or find out that he would be rich after all. ‘Answer the ‘phone!’ I repeated as loud as I could.
He hesitated for a moment and his weakness worked in his favour as the ringing came to his attention. At first he decided not to answer the call but the intermittent noise was so persistent that it became annoying, interrupting his thoughts and his intentions . In due course, he replaced the handful of tablets back into the phial and picked up the receiver.
‘Who is it?’ he demanded angrily, as though someone had deliberately interfered with his suicide.
‘It’s Alan,’ came the reply. I don’t know what you’ve heard from anyone or what you read in the papers but everything’s fine. Your money’s perfectly safe. Mike Meadows tried to do a runner but he didn’t have time to cash the cheque and now he’s been arrested so you’ve nothing to worry about. Everything’s fine and dandy.’
There was a sudden change in Huntley’s attitude. He perked up at the news as life became bearable again. After the telephone call had ended, he closed his eyes in horror when he realised how close he had been to killing himself. Life was so inconsistent. One moment he was standing at death’s door, the next he was revelling in the fact that he would be a rich man shortly. Now that everything had returned to nor
mality, he would be able to repay the loan as well as practically all the mortgage that was owed on his home. Life had suddenly become extremely exciting again. For the time being, he wouldn’t mention the details of the loan to his wife... not yet at lest. But as soon as the show had been performed and he received a cheque for a hundred thousand pounds he would boast about how he had doubled his money with great verve and ostentation.
Now that it was all over, I wondered about the significance of my part in the fiasco. Somehow I believed that whatever I did had made no difference to the end result whatsoever. Almost certainly, some power from a higher-ranking angel would have made certain that the incident worked out as they had planned it to do. If I had failed in the quest, that angel would most likely have ensured that the aircraft in which Mike Meadows was flying to Tenerife crashed so that he couldn’t cash the cheque of Showtime Extravaganza, or he would have suffered a brain haemorrhage that killed him to prevent the situation from becoming a total disaster. I considered that my part was almost certainly ancillary to the final result. There was no way that Heaven was going to disallow Huntley’s son from being born to create a new religion which was intended to set the basis for world peace. After all, how could the hierarchy in Heaven commit such an important issue to a mere Seraph like myself. The whole idea was inconceivable!
As I left Huntley who was replacing the phial of tablets back into the medicine cabinet in his bathroom, I decided to that while I was still on Earth I would visit the school where I used to teach just to see how it had developed. It was fifty-five years since I had left... twenty years in retirement and thirty five years in Heaven. The building hadn’t changed at all but additional sections had been added to it as the number of pupils attending the school had increased considerably. I entered one of the classrooms to realise that the students were about to embark on the final examination of the year.
‘You have three hours,’ announced the adjudicator calmly looking at the clock on the wall. ‘Turn over your question papers... now!’ The pupils hurriedly obeyed the command, some reading the questions all the way through, others beginning to write after they had read the first one.
I reflected the number of times I had uttered those very same words to start the pupils on the examination trail. It was my intention to move up and down between the desks reading the answers provided by the pupils. However, before I could do that, I found myself transported back into a room in Heaven facing an angel, who was a stranger to me, wearing huge white wings tucked in behind him.
‘I’m the Angel of Determination,’ he declared earnestly as I stared at him bleakly, pausing to readjust to my location.
‘I’m sorry I visited my old school... ’ I began, but he waved his hand to stop me.
‘It’s of no consequence,’ he uttered slowly.
‘The Angel of Determinations,’ I repeated. ‘Does this mean you determine what’s going to happen to me next?’ My enquiry was asked meekly as I tried to remain humble having dared to ask the question.
‘I am,’ he commended jubilantly with a smile on his face, ‘and I have to say that you did very well on your quest. . ‘Very well indeed! You resisted the temptation to materialise often and you used your power admirably.’
I continued to stare at his face. He was an elderly angel with a broad white moustache and a long beard. I wondered how long he had been in Heaven... probably for thousands of years. ‘Actually, I did very little,’ I responded modestly.
‘I disagree,’ he countered amiably. ‘You carried out your task within the frame of reference given to you correctly and intelligently.’
‘Does this mean I can be promoted to become a Cherub?’ I asked with tongue in cheek.
He laughed out loudly which in my opinion was a good sign. ‘I don’t think so,’ he replied candidly. ‘You’ve only been here a short while and although you’ve shown a great deal of capability you shouldn’t become too ambitious.’
There appeared part of a scroll in his hand and I recognised it was the paper on which I had written my questions.
‘I understand the situation,’ I told him sagely.
‘Do you wish to have answers to any or all of these?’ he advanced, holding up the parchment in front of him.
I knew immediately that it was a catch question. If I answered affirmatively it would go very much against me. It was necessary for me to use guile. ‘No... not really,’ I replied casually, although he knew that I wasn’t telling the truth as he could read my thoughts.
‘I’m glad to hear it, Jeremiah,’ he said with a smile lighting up his face. ‘You’re beginning to adapt to the rules. I like that.’
I wanted strongly to ask him a particular question but I knew that he would never respond to my satisfaction so I adapted the wisdom within me to continue to use guile. ‘I could do with some leisure,’ I ventured slowly, watching his expression carefully.
‘There’s no such thing as leisure in Heaven,’ he replied frankly. ‘It doesn’t exist.’
‘Not at all,’ I uttered in surprise as he shook his head. ‘Doesn’t anyone have any recreation here?’
He ignored my last question and his face became resolute. ‘Now that you finished your quest, there’s something that you ought to know. Firstly, there are some who come to Heaven after their demise and they remain as ordinary spirits undertaking the fundamental work set out for them here. There are others who happen to bring an element of their consciousness with them. You are one of the latter. It goes very much against the grain to entertain spirits such as yourself because they continue to ask questions and often remain far too ambitious. You spent six months at the Pit of Desolation in an attempt to cure you and I think, to some extent, it worked. Secondly, we rarely use Seraphim to undertake serious work either as Accompanying Angels or as Correcting Angels. However, in your case, you were the exception to the rule and you did extremely well in your task.’
‘I accept what you’re telling me,’ I cut in quickly, ‘but what do you have in line for me to do next?’
‘Patience, Jeremiah,’ he chided gently. ‘I’m coming to that. You’re a little too forward for a spirit in Heaven... you have too much consciousness. It’s necessary for you to tone down your personality.’ He paused for a moment to see whether his words had any effect as I remained obedient before him without showing any expression on my face. ‘What I’d like you to do is to study The Great Chain of Being,’ he went on eventually.
‘The Great Chain of Being?’ I echoed with a frown on my face. ‘What’s that?’
‘I want you to become enlightened with the subject,’ he went on. ‘Devote yourself to it as other spirits do here.’
‘Why do you want me to do that?’ I asked point-blank, biting my tongue as I realised I had asked another question.
‘Always questions, Jeremiah!’ he reproached. ‘When will you ever learn? Let’s say that there’s a purpose to everything you do in Heaven. It’s like an enormous jig-saw puzzle of which you’ve been given just one single piece. It will all be revealed to you eventually, I’m sure.’
I didn’t like the sound of the ending of his last sentence. He said that all be revealed to me eventually, I’m sure? What did he mean by those two last words? Wasn’t he certain? After all, he had probably been here for thousands of years yet he stated that he was still unsure. Was Heaven made up of a series of mysteries each of which unfolded one by one to to reveal yet even more of them? Would I never find out the truth as to what went on here? I pondered over the issue for a while becoming quite unnerved as considerable doubt crossed my mind.
Before I could dwell any further on the matter, I was suddenly transported to a small room where there were a number of spirits sitting down reading documents. On the desk before me rested a scroll with the title ‘The Great Chain of Being’. I glanced at it uncertain as to what I would find. It ran on to say that the Great Chain stretch
ed directly from Heaven to the humblest item of creation, each link of which represented a level of being such as plants above inanimates, animals above plants, men above animals, and the angelic hierarchies above man. It declared that no link was missing in its context. It continued by stating that if any intermediate species could bridge the gap between two differing species, then each line was to be found in nature... although it failed to clarify any details. Apparently, the universe itself was as rich in diversity as it conceivably could be. However, it did admit that on occasion the division between species tended not to be rigid or clean-cut. For example, some marine forms might be considered to be either animals or plants, so gradual were the transitions from one plane of existence to the next higher or lower level. It continued to relate that, in effect, some species had ceased to exist while new species had successively appeared. Consequently, the Great Chain was an on-going process in that it had not been completed at the beginning of its inception. It recognised order, richness and degrees of development in all the developed worlds in the universe which brought justice in activities due to its simplicity.
I had no idea what I was supposed to learn about the subject although it obviously meant a great deal to someone in Heaven. I particularly noticed that there was no mention of God or a Supreme Being in the text... only the hierarchy of angels. I was stunned that no one in Heaven would confirm or deny the existence of God or a Supreme Power which caused me to feel that having been an atheist all my life might yet be justified. And, really, if the Great Chain of Being was truly being observed in relation to life on Earth and on other planets, how come there was no evidence of earlier beings such as Stone Age man, or Bronze Age man, in the spirit world of Heaven. Every spirit appeared to maintain the form in which they had appeared on Earth, albeit somewhat slightly younger than when they had given up their life, but there were no signs of the spirits of prehistoric man roaming around in Heaven. Was there a particular reason for this? I knew that I would ever be told the answer but they were nowhere to be seen.
