The Bleeding Love

by Beth Durkee

  "You are dead, Samuel. You are not heavenly. You only see me because I have revealed myself to you. Don't you wonder why I do not stop touching you? Here. Watch what happens when I do."

  Amos let go of his elbow. Samuel stood alone in the room, small metal doors lining the walls. The paramedics were gone now and he knew that behind each of those metal doors lay a body. Creepy! knot began to form in his stomach as he looked around the empty room.

  "Amos!" he cried out into empty air. "Come back! Don't leave me here alone!" Amos blinked into the room again, hand returned to Samuel's elbow.

  "Fraidy-cat," the angel accused his charge. "I disappear for two seconds and you have a coronary. It's not like I went anywhere. You just could not see me. I was here the whole time."

  Samuel got the point. "So," he clarified. "I can only see you when you are touching me?"

  "Right," Amos nodded.

  "And that means I would have to touch the other angels to be able to see them.... Right?"

  "Not exactly,” Amos explained. “The angel is the one who needs to make the contact. In other words, I need to touch you for you to see me. If it were the other way around, people would freak out! Imagine walking down a street full of people... and their guardian angels."

  Samuel imagined. He saw himself walking down Main Street, people everywhere, angels popping in and out every time he passed a person. The idea did not appeal to him.

  Amos offered, "You want to try it out? Here. You put your hand on my shoulder and I will take my hand off your elbow." He reached over to take Samuel's hand and move it up to his shoulder.

  "NO!" Samuel yelled, jerking his hand away from the angel's shoulder. He did not want to be left alone in that creepy room again. He conceded, "I believe you."

  Amos smirked, "Alright. Take it easy. There is no need to get your panties all in a bunch."

  Samuel took a deep breath, and then blew it out. "What do we do now?" he asked.

  "We wait," the angel replied. "Would you like to play cards?" He pulled a deck of cards out from his robes.

  "Wait for what?" Samuel wanted to know.

  Amos allowed his arm, still holding the deck of cards, to drop to his side while he took time to explain, "You are dead. Right?" Samuel nodded. Amos continued, "Your body needs to be identified, then released to your next of kin and disposed of. You have to stick around until that is done so that you can hear the final words of anyone who wants to say something to you. After that is finished, if there is no particular reason you want to stay here, I will take you to the beginning of your journey. That's the way it works."

  Before Samuel could ask what Amos meant by "the beginning" of his "journey," the angel grew very quiet. His eyes grew glassy as he bowed his head and touched the middle finger of his right hand to the juncture of his ear and jawbone. Then, suddenly, his right hand dropped from his ear as his whole body began to glow with a dazzling white light. Amos' head bowed low as he sank to his knees, his fingers slipping off Samuel's arm. Then he blinked out of sight.

  Post V

  Long minutes passed as Samuel waited for Amos to return. Although it appeared that he was totally alone, Samuel knew better this time. He knew his angel would not leave him, so he was not afraid. Looking around the room at walls lined with steel doors, Samuel wondered how many other souls were nearby. He wondered how they had died. Then he shrugged to himself.

  "What does it matter?" he thought. "No matter how many other people are here, it's not like they can keep me company if I cannot see them."

  Deciding that he might as well pass the time by having a look around, Samuel turned toward the door. He took three steps before he remembered: Spirits do not need to use doors. Putting his hand to his forehead and shaking his head at himself, he changed direction mid-stride to walk directly at the wall.

  On the other side of the morgue wall, he stood in a hallway. He turned his head to the left. The hall stretched forward until it formed an “L” at its end, about fifty feet away. No doors on either side, there was only the entrance to that other hall. Samuel looked to his right. It was exactly the same except for a large, orange, double-door at the hall's end. Samuel headed to see what was behind those orange doors. He hoped they led outside. The morgue was very stuffy and it would be nice to get some fresh air.

  In front of the doors, Amos re-appeared. His face relaxed and peaceful, his whole body held a residual, faint shimmer.

  Samuel stopped to ask, "What happened? Where did you go?"

  A smile touched the angel's lips as he responded, "I went nowhere. We just lost contact for a few minutes. Let's walk back to the morgue. Sharon is about to arrive."

  "Sharon!" thought Samuel. "Thank goodness! She'll arrange my funeral and I can finally move on to heaven!"

  Amos cleared his throat.

  "What?" snapped Samuel.

  "Weeellll..." he answered, dragging out the word. "Let's just go back in here..." he walked through the wall into the morgue. Samuel followed.

  "Now what?!" the man demanded.

  "Thanks," said Amos. "This is really an honor and I want my colleagues to hear it."

  Samuel said nothing. He was tired of beating around the bush and just wanted Amos to get to the point. He folded his arms as he looked directly at the angel.

  "When we lost contact a few minutes ago? That was because the Boss, Himself, was speaking to me. He has special instructions for your crossing," Amos smiled proudly. Nodding, he held his right hand high in the air and out to the side.

  Samuel was just about to make a mental comment on the strangeness of angel behavior when another angel blinked in and out of the room. In that brief moment, Samuel was impressed by an unusually tall figure with skin as dark as coal, clothed in flowing white robes like Amos wore.

  "What was that?!" he exclaimed in surprise as, at the same time, he wondered, "Was he giving Amos a high-five??"

  "Yes, he was!" Amos laughed. "That was Julian. He was congratulating me on the honor we just received." He explained, "It is not often that any of us receives instructions directly from the Boss. We usually get our orders from our arch-angel."

  Samuel stroked his chin as he contemplated what his angel had just said. It seemed that the big boss of the angels had some kind of special interest in him. He wondered what the interest could be, and if it was a good thing or a bad thing to be singled out by the big boss. He was still forming a series of questions about it when the morgue door opened. A man in a white lab coat entered the room. He was followed by Sharon.

  Post VI

  “This may be a little shocking, ma'am,” said the middle-aged man in the lab coat, “but it should only take a moment.”

  Sharon's only response was a nod. Samuel imagined that she was too shaken to speak without crying. He wanted to reach out to comfort her, but he knew she would not feel him. Still, he walked over to her and gently stroked her dark, shoulder-length hair. Maybe, just maybe, she would somehow feel him even though she could not see his spirit.

  “Oooh!” Sharon exclaimed, visibly shaking off a shudder. “I just got the coldest chill!”

  She felt him! Samuel felt elated. To him, this was proof-positive that they were soul mates. Did she realize the chill was from the touch of his spirit? He wondered. He stopped stroking her hair to place an arm over her shoulder. Sharon trembled under his touch. She wrapped her arms around herself to fend off the chill.

  “It is probably just the cold air from the refrigeration unit being opened,” the mortuary assistant surmised. “We keep the corpses pretty cold to preserve them.” He looked over his shoulder with a smile as he pulled a long shelf out of the wall. On the shelf was Samuel's dead body. Pulling back a sheet from Samuel's face, he looked askance at Sharon.

  Sharon looked down as her fingers nervously twisted the jade and diamond necklace Samuel had given her last Christmas. Her face turned pale, then a light shade of green, when she saw the gash from the steering wheel on his forehead.

  “Poor thing!” Sa
muel thought. “She must feel horrified.”

  “Yes,” Sharon confirmed as she turned her head and closed her eyes. “That is my husband. That is Samuel.” She paused briefly before she asked, “Can we go into the other room? I feel the creepiest cold chill in here.”

  “Oh, sure. Of course!” The mortuary assistant quickly covered Samuel's face and pushed the table back into the refrigeration unit, securing the door closed. “A lot of people get that kind of chill when viewing a deceased loved-one.” He gestured toward the exit, “After you.”

  Samuel's heart sank. The look of concern on his face changed to one of sorrow. “She is not comforted by my presence. She gets the creeps from my touch,” he lamented.

  Amos turned his head to scratch his ear for a moment. He suggested, “Umm... Stop touching her?”

  Samuel allowed his arm to slide off Sharon's shoulders as she left the room, but he stepped through the wall to watch her walk away for as long as he could. Before she disappeared from sight, he heard her ask, “How long does it take to get a certificate of death? I need it for the insurance.”

  Amos had been very quiet as Samuel watched and listened to his wife. When she was gone from sight, he put his hand on Samuel's shoulder. “C'mon,” he encouraged. “What did you expect from her? You are, after all, dead. Let's go back and play some cards. We have some time to pass before we get out of here.”

  Amos again pulled out his deck of cards, and then disappeared from sight as he took his hand off Samuel to pass back through the wall. Looking one last time in the direction Sharon had disappeared, Samuel also turned to the wall. He dragged his feet after the angel.

  Post VII

  Back in the body storage room, Amos reappeared by the familiar hand-to-elbow method. Cards still in hand, he raised his eyebrows and tilted his head in silent askance.

  Samuel groaned. “Why don't we just go to sleep early?" he asked.

  "Spirits do not sleep," Amos responded. "It will be a very long night without something to do."

  "Alright," Samuel conceded, dragging out the word. He was not looking forward to a night of playing two-handed card games, but at least it was better than the alternative. He moved to the center of the room and sat down in the middle of the floor. Amos sat with him, fluffing out his robes with his free hand. As he did, the robes fell over another angel's knee. At the moment of contact, the second angel appeared out of thin air. It was Julian, the angel of death who had given Amos a "high five" after speaking with “the Boss.”

  Samuel caught his breath at the sight of the second Angel of Death. Short black hair, ebony skin, a trim mustache touching his upper lip, each arm the size of another man's leg and, even sitting, Julian looked much like David's Goliath must have looked. Even sitting, he was enormous! One thing was for sure. Samuel would not want to meet him in a dark alley.

  Amos gave Samuel a sideways glance. "Be careful," he cautioned the man. "Julian is a gentle giant, but his charge is a card shark." He turned to his coworker with a broad smile, "What do you say, Julian? Shall we teach these guys a game they don't know?"

  The rest of the night was spent playing ancient Egyptian card games with two angels of death and an invisible card shark who seemed rather put out that angels do not gamble. Samuel could not remember having so much fun in a very long time. In the morning, the party disbanded when hearses came to take the two bodies to their respective funeral homes. This time, Samuel suggested riding imaginary skateboards behind the vehicle dragging him with Amos to their destination. As they skateboarded to the funeral home, it occurred to Samuel that his angel was almost as old as time itself, but playing with him made Samuel feel like a child.

  Hearing Samuel's thoughts, Amos called out over the wind, "Well, of course! Haven't you heard that the Kingdom belongs to such as little children2?!"

  "No. Where does that come from?" He shouted back.

  "The Boss says that," yelled the angel with a smile. He jumped and flipped 180 degrees on his imaginary skateboard. Conversation over.

  At the funeral home where they were taken, Samuel was pleased to discover that the invisible tether to his body was longer. He was now able to walk through the entire building and even step a few feet to the outside if he wanted. Amos and he spent most of the morning walking around to see what was there. When they visited the on-site chapel, Amos disappeared for a few minutes. Samuel waited outside.

  Around lunchtime, Sharon showed up to make final arrangements. Happy to see her, Samuel decided to avoid touching her this time. He wanted her to stay with him for as long as possible. At first, he was concerned that she might be unable to handle the stress of choosing her husband's casket after such an early death, but she looked like she was handling it well. In fact, she looked really good.

  Sharon went through several different burial options with the funeral director, but finally decided upon cremation. Samuel was pleased with the choice. He felt no desire for his body to decompose underground in an airtight box for who knows how long. As it happened, though, cremation turned out to be the only part of his final arrangements that pleased him.

  “We have several different caskets that you can rent for the service,” offered the director.

  “Oh, yes . . . the service,” said Sharon, fiddling with the diamond and ruby watch that graced her wrist. “Samuel's family lives quite a distance from here. I talked to his mom this morning and they cannot afford to come to a service. I am going to do a small memorial for him after cremation and send her some ashes so she can do a memorial of her own.”

  “I see,” said the funeral director. “In that case,” he offered, “we have a chapel here if you would like to use that for you service. The rental rates are very affordable. We also have a nice selection of urns from which to choose.”

  “Hmm, yes,” was Sharon's reply. “I am going to have the service elsewhere. As for the urn, I talked to his mom about that, too. She said that when she shopped for urns for her husband, several years ago, they were pretty expensive. She had her son-in-law build an urn out of wood and she suggested that I do the same. I don't have a son-in-law yet, of course, but my ex-husband has agreed to build something for me to use.”

  As Amos watched him, the expression on Samuel's face went from lips parted and wide-open eyes to a tight-lipped scowl. He turned to the angel. “My life insurance should easily cover paying for every conceivable funeral expense, including bringing my mother to it, buying an urn, and supporting Sharon for the rest of her life!” He was irate. “Her ex-husband has no business doing anything with my ashes. He has no business having anything to do with my wife! And what about my daughter? She won't even come to a funeral for the man whose life insurance will pay for her college education?”

  “Calm down,” soothed Amos. “There is nothing you can do about anything now except watch and listen.”

  Samuel snorted, “Humph! I have seen enough. Come play cards with me when you have, also.” He stomped through the wall. Amos followed. Later that afternoon, two mortuary assistants cremated Samuel's corpse.

  “Poor guy,” said one. “Nobody here to say good-bye. Looks like he was in a pretty bad accident, too. What do you suppose his story is?”

  The other assistant answered, “Yeah, it was that big one that hit the news yesterday – the one with the cement truck. The driver was in tears right on the evening news! She did not blow through the end of a yellow light and this guy rammed his car up her tail.”

  “What a genius,” the first assistant shook his head. “What about the family to say goodbye? Nobody?”

  “His wife was in earlier today. Rich priss is only concerned with how much money will be left from his insurance policy. I guess the guy has a kid, too. I don't know what is going on there. All I know is that when I go, I want my whole family to say their final farewells.”

  “Me, too!” the first assistant emphatically agreed.

  Amos stood with his arm over his charge's shoulders as they watched the scene through a small viewing
window. He knew this was hard for his charge and that his family was not there made it especially difficult. As the fire finished its job, Amos rubbed the shoulder upon which his hand rested.

  “C'mon,” he prompted. “This next part is by special order of the Boss. It is highly unusual and a great privilege. Are you ready to go?”

  Samuel nodded silently.

  Post VIII

  One hand already on his charge's shoulder, Amos held out the other. By design of the Old One, he needed Samuel to touch his other hand so that he could execute the transport. This was Amos' least favorite part of his job, but he tried not to show it. The unpleasant feeling of energy draining from his spirit-body was simply the way things worked. It was pure physics and there was no reason for Samuel to feel more nervous about coming events than necessary, so Amos smiled as he held out his hand.

  “Could you at least tell me before we go: Will my memorial service be nice? Will there be a lot of people there? Will my daughter come? Will I get my 21-gun salute?” The questions poured out. Amos could tell Samuel felt disappointed that he had not been able to see his loved-ones before leaving.

  In as gentle a tone possible, Amos answered, “I don't know, Samuel. I have lived from the beginning of time until now. I remember history that is not even in history books. I personally witnessed the parting of the Red Sea and know first-hand secrets of building the great pyramids, but I do not know the future. I am just an Angel. Like you, I am bound by time. Only the three Great Ones are not.”

  “Great Ones?” asked Samuel, curious that he had never heard of any “Great Ones” before now.

  The angel lifted his chin and let it down in a single nod. He bent to bring his mouth close to Samuel's ear. “The Boss, The Old One and The Shepherd,” he whispered.

  Amos again stood straight; He prompted more loudly, “C'mon. Enough questions. You are about to meet one of them for yourself. He has instructed me to bring you to him before I take you to the start of your journey. This is a very rare honor, so take my hand and let's go.”