FREE FLYING HEARTS -- A collection of short stories from Tonig73

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Warning  --  My sincerest apologies to any Karens out there !  I love ya'll, you know I do ! 

Also, mentions of Heaven and Hell, of God and the Devil and the like.  These are not my personal opinions.  

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"You want us to do  ...... what now ?"  Gabrielle was not amused.  Usually, she never stopped smiling.  Cheese, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  With a cherry on the top.  God was having her fun today.

"I want you and Angela and Christina to go to this .... "Heavenly Bodies".  She almost gagged at the name, for Heaven's sake.  "They need straightening out, some guy down there making everybody's life miserable."  She had a great idea.  Only one person for the job.  "Take Larry, he's always complaining he never get's to go anywhere.  He's as sweet as all get out, maybe he'll rub off onto some of those awful mortals."  She shivered at the thought. 

Larry, they had to take Larry.  Gabrielle was not happy.  At all.

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The "Office Angels"staff training agency had rented a small office in a not so salubrious part of Paris as their "front".  All this for one visit, one phone call.  But they had to look and sound legit, and Karen, as God fancied calling herself this week, was being stingy.  Usually, angels on assignment could surround themselves with at least a little comfort, a little luxury even, but for some reason, Karen wasn't feeling it this time.  

"You've got some sucking up to do, Larry."  Gabrielle was fuming already, and they'd been here for all of 10 minutes.  She looked around the small cramped and dingy office, sighing deeply, glowering at Larry, who didn't even notice.  He was too busy planning where the coffee machine would go.  Larry'd had the nerve to make his opinion known to God before they left, telling her that he didn't think "Karen" was a becoming enough name for a deity of her standing.  She had loved the name Karen, hence the down at heel office space, on the top floor of a traditional Parisian building with no elevator.  He was trying to compliment her, but sometimes, in his innocence, it completely backfired.  He didn't care what others thought about him, and he would just carry on being his sweet, oblivious self.  And weren't angels supposed to be just that ?  he told himself, non judgmental, beyond reproach, helpful to others, sweetness and light ?  Well, then .....

The feelers had been put out, the thoughts and idea's planted.  "Heavenly Bodies" would be in touch soon.  Larry was busying himself making their meagre space feel more homey.  After their  --  difference of opinion  --  Karen, yes she still kept it, had felt bad, so she gave Larry a bottomless expense account.  He had bought new lighting, some palm like plants to put in the corners of the room and on the desks, and a fancy-schmancy coffee machine, which he'd perfected the use of in about two seconds flat.  Since the first time he'd come back into the living world as an angel on an assignment, he had become addicted to coffee, so whenever he was here, he made the absolute most of it.  He hated decaf, so the caffeine turned him into a cross between Tigger and the Easter Bunny, bouncing around all over the place, his usually fast paced existence, now super charged.  Chatty Cathy on steroids.  Gabby rationed his caffeine intake to one cup every two hours, time enough for the first one to wear off before the onslaught of the effects of the next dose.  

Even though she got annoyed at him sometimes, as they all did, Gabrielle absolutely knew that Larry was as good an angel as he was for a reason.  He really did have such a pure heart and soul.  He saw the best in people, even when they couldn't see it in themselves, and it was his mission to bring out that "best", even if it was hidden in the depths of the darkest heart and the most wounded soul.  And, even if it appeared that his "mission" had neither one of these, he was the angel that was sent to find it, and he had never gone back to Karen empty handed.  She set him a challenge, and he rose to it, always with that silly, sweet, bunny toothed smile plastered across his face.