by James Wymore
I gasped when I saw the finger responsible for the melodious scale. A short, pudgy digit. At first, I couldn’t believe it went with me, so I wiggled it again. Sure enough, I had adorable childlike hands. I clapped them together
Realizing I’d dropped the instrument, I flailed around. My small wrist touched it, sending the triangle spinning. I clutched it and pulled it to my chest. I’d only just gotten here and already I almost lost my harp.
Feeling safe again, I let my eyes follow down my arms to my body. Soft, glowing skin met a diaphanous sash. My belly button, thankfully still an innie, showed between the thin pink scarf that wrapped around my chest and hips. Fortunately, it covered my bottom. I had a much bigger bottom than I expected. I wasn’t sure if I should worry about feeling fat.
I lifted the harp and twisted experimentally, expecting the loose scrap of cloth to fly away in the breeze. It stayed fast. The funny thing even moved with me, writhing like a snake to keep my body conveniently modest. I lifted one hand and touched my head. I had thin hair, still brown, in perfect coils and curls.
Looking through the hair of one lock, I saw a giant cloud beyond. Just by wanting to see it, I rotated. It looked like a giant cotton ball, pulled at the ends, and floating through the sky. As I sat up, I noticed I’d stopped falling. In fact, I was gently bobbing up and down like a helium balloon. I noticed my breathing affected if I rose or fell, like swimming.
Then I saw the Earth below.
Stretching out in every direction, mountains and forests smeared the distant ground like paint on a textured canvas. I took a deep breath and held it, floating up several feet. Simply by wanting it, my body rotated until I looked down on all of creation. I saw large birds flapping beneath. Great waterfalls became rivers and lakes. I exhaled and dropped a little closer.
I felt a tear as I accepted the truth of my situation. Everything I’d hoped for over the difficult and taxing decades of my life came true today. I was an angel in heaven. I had never imagined it would be just like those adorable children in the church mural, but I couldn’t be happier.
With that thought, I reached behind my head, trembling until my small fingers touched feathers. Tears flowed freely now. I said a prayer of thanks, pouring my whole soul into an expression of gratitude. I was even grateful for the horrid demon who’d scared me when I first died.
Completely absorbed in my thoughts, I didn’t notice when something moving fast hit me from behind. My head and back both registered damage, but I didn’t feel any pain. I began to fall toward the ground. I glanced up to see another angel racing on, wings flapping. The blue sash around his waist and bum made me think of a boy, but he was going so fast he disappeared in the cloud before I could call out or even form words.
I sunk for a while, like a melon pushed under still water, but I slowed to a stop about a hundred feet lower and then began to gently rise. I bobbed up and down, settling again at the level I’d been before.
So there are other angels . It was a silly thought. Of course there were other angels. I had no idea why the one who’d run into me was in such a hurry. It seemed absurd that two little bodies sharing the vast sky would crash accidentally. Yet I couldn’t imagine why he might have done it on purpose.
I floated in a circle, scanning the sky for more. Finding none, I decided to try out my own wings. I flexed my back muscles, producing some slight motion. I tumbled around in the air a bit, trying to grab them with my hands. When I looked at a cloud and just wanted to go in its direction, they began flapping on their own. I smiled. They were automatic, like breathing.
I plunged into the cloud, which felt like rain going sideways. I knew it was cold, but my body didn’t react to the temperature. When I stopped flying, I felt myself float up to the top of the cloud until I gently rested above it. The sensation of coming out from the damp into the light was nice. I felt the sun rapidly dry my skin. Also, I noticed my eyes weren’t bothered by the sun at all. I could stare at it directly without any tears or damage. There was a lot I’d never known when I was alive. Those eyes couldn’t take the bright light enough to notice the dark spots and various shades across the sun’s surface. It reminded me a little bit of the lava I’d seen through the window.
As I lay on the cloud, basking in bright glory, I lifted my harp and began touching the strings. I still loved my own cute little hands and feet, but I felt more enamored by the depth of vibration this tiny little instrument produced. One note from any one string filled my whole soul. I felt like a hollow drum, magnifying the sound. I leaned back, letting the harp rest on my round belly. I lifted it and tried again. It was still nice, but didn’t course through my very being. I set the base back on my tummy and strummed several strings at once. Bliss oscillated through my entire self.
I took a deep breath, lifting a bit higher on the cloud, and held it until the last of the wave disappeared. My back against the cool cloud and face in the sun’s heat, accompanied by the music, left me content. Decades of hard life melted away.
Time had no meaning in this place. I watched the sun set, as the cloud I lounged on turned orange and pink. I felt the wet mist bubbling beneath me, like a gentle massage, as the full moon rose into a dark sky filled with more stars than I’d ever seen before. It felt like being closer to them made more of them visible, but it might have been my new eyes. I basked in the release. I didn’t have anybody to take care of. I didn’t have anything to get done. No taxes, no deadlines, no alarm clock.
I stayed there until the sun rose. It crossed the sky and set again. My muscles never grew sore from disuse. I never got hungry or tired. When the moon rose, a sliver on the right side blurred. The cloud beneath me dissolved. I rolled over to see a few lights on the ground far away, but nothing like the cityscapes when I’d been alive. I found another cloud and watched the stars spin. I didn’t care about names or constellations. I just watched them go around. I decided to stay there for the whole moon cycle, occasionally finding a new cloud to rest on. When the urge to do something struck me, I plucked a few strings on my harp until the vibrations lulled me back into satisfying oblivion.
I contemplated writing a poem for the new moon one night, when a trio of angels flew past me. I might have missed them except one held a torch and another was banging on a miniature drum. I fluttered my wings and sat up.
The leader called, “Halt!” His masculine voice didn’t match the child-like face. A green loincloth fluttered as he tipped the fiery stick toward me. “Who are you?”
I smiled, unsure of the protocol here. I expected angels would be happy and nice all the time, but he looked suspicious and impatient.
I shrugged. “I’m Jennifer.”
The drummer, floating slightly to the side, kept pounding on the little cylinder until a female cherub with an orange dress running from shoulder to knee grabbed his stick and held it until he reluctantly agreed to stop.
“Whose side are you on, Jennifer?” The fire-wielder demanded.
I bit my lower lip. There were sides here? “I don’t know. I’m new in heaven. I haven’t talked to anybody before.”
“Let’s go,” the girl said. “She’s still green.”
“Green?” I asked. I looked at my pink scroll and the leader’s green loincloth. I didn’t see how I could be the one described as green.
“We’re gathering angels to defend the cathedral.” He tipped his torch back over his shoulder like a baseball player with a bat and tipped his chin toward me. “You want our protection, or do you want to take your chances out here alone?”
“Protection? From who?”
“The usurpers,” the girl said. She had a how stupid can you be? look that I didn’t much care for.
“But how can they hurt me?” I’d tried. My angel body seemed impervious to breaking, bruising, or pain.
Bam! The drum sounded as the last one said, “They can hurt you in ways you don’t imagine.”
“Why would they want to?” I didn’t care if they thought I was stupid. None of this m
ade any sense. This isn’t how angels acted. I wouldn’t let them manipulate me out of the freedom I’d so newly acquired.
“Forget it.” He turned and continued flying the direction he’d been going, shoving the torch forward like a beacon. The others followed.
The conversation disrupted my plan to see a full cycle of the moon. Thoughts of angels called usurpers and a cathedral made me restless. I didn’t have any fear, but I couldn’t stop thinking about those words. I wanted to see the cathedral. Was it up in the clouds with us? Eventually, I decided I could watch the moon cycle anytime.
I turned to head in the direction I’d seen the others flying, but realized I had no idea where I was or which direction they’d gone. I looked at the ground for clues. The landmarks had changed beneath me. I was over an ocean now with islands in the distance, but nothing could have interested me less. After a lifetime of wanting to escape the Earth, why would I care what was down there now?
The wind shifted. I blew with it, following the clouds, which seemed to stay in big patterns. The surface continued to rotate slowly in the same direction, but the air current now pulled me diagonally toward one of the smaller, distant islands. If we couldn’t use the ground to find our way, how did the others even know where they were going?
I tried to fly up, getting a few hundred feet before my wings could not fight the pull. I tipped over and dived down. I managed to race hundreds of feet toward the ground before the momentum died and I floated back up, despite my best flapping. I saw a black plume rising from the approaching shore. A tall mountain belched fire and smoke that reached clear up to my air. This time I bobbled back to rest facing down. I didn’t feel any different, no matter which way I faced.
I felt worry creeping into my mind. Why had I let those three get to me? I was supposed to be free of worries. What difference did it make to me if some angels called themselves usurpers? I wanted to see the cathedral, but it wasn’t like I didn’t have all the time in the world to find it whenever I happened across it. At the moment, I decided I didn’t much care to be surrounded by volcanic ash. It wouldn’t hurt, but I didn’t know if it would affect my lungs.
I turned and began to fly. Even though my wings could outpace the wind, I chose an angled course. I wanted a closer look at this force of nature.
“There!” I heard somebody yell. I turned to see who, but only saw clouds.
“Get in position,” a woman’s voice called from above and behind me.
Below me, a group of angels surrounded something heavy, flapping their wings frantically to keep it aloft. As I pondered how they could fly so low, another angel hit me from behind. I dropped.
Stunned by the impact, I turned to see what hit me, but I couldn’t see anything as I fell. I crashed into something hard and sharp. For an instant, the faces of angels with wicked sneers peered at me from over the edges of the box I had fallen in. Then, the lid snapped on and the whole thing dropped.
“Ha ha!” yelled one as I plummeted further down. “I didn’t think that would really work.”
“How long will she…” The voice drifted off.
Whistling air grew louder as the container accelerated. I pushed and punched at the lid and walls with my hands and my feet. There wasn’t much room, but I tried pounding on it with the harp. I felt anger and sadness welling up. I could not accept what had happened. I had no fear, but anxiety over what might happen when the box landed clouded my thoughts and feelings.
Boom!
I felt the wind rush from my lungs. The box hit the ground, bounced once, and came to rest at an angle. I breathed rapidly, listening for anything unexpected. My heart raced for a full minute, the only thing I could hear besides a faint rumbling.
Light came in from above my head. I checked the box to see if the fall had cracked the seam of my cage, but I saw nothing. The light moved behind when I turned, so I glanced back the other way. I tipped my head, then laughed a little as I pushed back and hit it against the wooden side wall. My halo. The light came from a halo above my head. Outside, it wasn’t bright enough to notice. Despite the cramped quarters, I felt a bit of gratitude for it now. I scraped one arm around so I could reach above my head. Nothing tangible.
I twisted, kicking against the walls and cracks. I never managed to split the wood. I felt no slivers or splinters. Either the box was very strong, or I was very weak. I screamed at the top of my lungs for help, begging for anyone to let me out. When I exhausted my rage, I started to cry.
These were angels. They were supposed to be good. Why would they do something like this to me? How could they even think of anything so horrible? Why would they want to?
Wasn’t this heaven? Suddenly, my stomach lurched and I pounded my head back against the hard surface.
I had a long time in that box to think about every word the demon said. Judging from the moon phases, it had only been a couple of weeks since our interview. He never said I was going to Hell. He even said Hell wasn’t a Christian invention. He also didn’t say I was going to heaven. I said that. All he said was that infinity wasn’t a Christian invention and that I needed to learn something. What did that even mean?
I broke into random fits and attacked the prison. I cried. I prayed. I slept. I played the harp, and it brought me some joy despite the claustrophobia.
I spent a lot of time thinking, discovering I could remember every detail of my life from my forgotten childhood to the bitter, cancerous end. I played the whole thing back twice in real time, watching every dream as I slept and feeling every tear as it etched the wrinkles on my face and turned my heart to stone.
Sure, I had regrets. Anybody would. However, I couldn’t see any way to a different end. No alternate path presented itself to my mind. I would do again the things I’d done. I wouldn’t undo marrying my awful husband, because I couldn’t bear a life without my daughter. And I would help raise my granddaughter whether I knew her bad choices or not. The hardness and pain of my life filled me once more. The beautiful reprieve had been only a blip of happiness between two awful existences.
During the immeasurable time in the box, I became a harp virtuoso. I could play every piece of music I’d ever heard in my life and compose music to express every possible feeling. Singing and kicking the box like a drum, I added depth to the songs. Sometimes the nearby volcano would rumble or erupt, and I used those sounds to make my music even better.
I suspected Earth covered the box now, so it would never be found or opened. How could it? The angels couldn’t fly down here. When they flew above me, they couldn’t see this small object from so high up, if it still sat on the surface. There was no reason for them to look for me, not ever.
I gave up on God. I’d prayed so long and hard and got no help of any kind. There were only a few possibilities. One, He might not know I was here or be able to hear my prayer. If so, then He wasn’t all-knowing and therefore not God. Two, He knew but could not save me. In that case, He wasn’t all powerful. Three, He didn’t care enough to save me. Again, that would mean he wasn’t all-loving, and therefore not God. Four, there is no God. However, if there wasn’t a God, why was my soul still alive after my body died? The only way I could continue after death would be if God existed.
So there was only one conclusion—I was in Hell. Xandern never said this was Hell, but did that make it any less so?
Alone in a confined space, I think I figured out the same thing I would have come to learn up in the clouds. A wide open sky or a small room, it made no difference. This was Hell.
The monster had said I was here to learn something. He also said the word infinity wasn’t around when Christ walked the Earth. Now my only hope centered on figuring out whatever it was from inside this dark cell.
I remembered every book I’d ever read. I analyzed them ad nauseum , comparing every line from every one to everything else. How could I learn something now that I’d never heard before?
Eventually, I stopped thinking about it and decided to play more music. I thought of ev
ery possible combination of sounds the small instrument could make braided together with all the song themes I’d ever heard. It would probably take a year or so to play that one song, which was fine by me.
Two weeks into my composition, the box moved.
I stopped playing the moment the box shifted. A scraping noise, then a lurch. My world turned and moved again. Then the whole thing shook.
“Hello?” I couldn’t help but hope, my heart racing.
“It stopped.”
“I told you not to move it. Now it’s broken.”
I kicked the side. “Help me! Please! Let me out!”
“It’s a trick, don’t open it. It’s probably cursed.” The box shook again.
“No trick, I promise! I’m stuck in here and I can’t get out. Please help me!”
“What if it will give us gifts?” the closer voice said.
“I will. I’ll give you my harp!”
“It could be a lie. Or a test. Let’s put it back and run away.”
“No!” I couldn’t bear to be alone again. I’d rather die, or whatever happens after death to make the tedium go away. I’d tried every way I could think of. “I promise, I am not tricking you. I’ll give you anything you want if you let me out.”
“A magic sword?”
I almost said I would, but my heart wouldn’t let me. If he found I couldn’t give him a sword, he’d just put me back in the prison. “I can’t give you that, I don’t have one.”
“You said anything.”
“I know, but I meant anything I have to give.” I looked at my harp. Except for the pink scarf, which I knew couldn’t be removed from my body, I had nothing else to give.
“Like what?”
I took a deep breath. “All I have is a harp.”
The two voices conferred. “We can’t use a harp.”
“I could play it for you.”
