Being An Angel

Chapter 1

They say that life finds a way even in the toughest of situations. That God opens one door when another closes, but humans never really see any doors. They blindly stumble through life while their divine guardians sigh in frustration.

One such guardian angel is currently face-palming at his ward's complete inability to seize opportunities. He had argued, in so much as one dares to argue with the Almighty Creator, when he had been assigned this particularly stubborn human.

'Must I really guard this particular one?' he had asked.

'IT IS MY COMMAND, ZERACHIEL,' had been the booming reply.

Zerachiel knew better than to debate against that. The living embodiment of defying God's will was currently seated on a throne ruling over the land of burning blue flames and Zerachiel did not want to sit beside his fallen brother on an equally miserable throne. So he kept his thoughts to himself and muttered under his angelic breath all the way down from heaven to the realm of the planet these humans had named as 'Earth'.

He had begun regretting his very existence ever since.

Charissa Jones was not the type of woman who believed in higher powers watching over her. She was the type of stubborn, bull headed women bred into the 21st century who grabbed life by the balls and dug holes through fate to get what she wanted.

Zerachiel was getting quite sick of her.

She never picked up on his prophetic dreams; instead she woke up and wrote them down in an old college notebook for reference against Freudian theories. He had watched her try to apply logic to divine intervention, had watched her scoff at his subtle displays of power. Admittedly, he should've been more creative and not resorted to the lowly tricks of damned spirits that seemed obsessed with the humans, but he had been frustrated.

Currently Charissa was trying to logic her way to a decision on the state of her marriage. She was not supposed to be married, but again she had gone against the threads of fate and decided to marry at 26. She was supposed to marry at 29 and now she was ignoring all the thoughts he was planting in her head, trying to put her back on course as Fate demanded.

Angel or not, Zerachiel was certain any more impact of his palm against his face would result in a permanent mark.

Fate was not the kind of being that Zerachiel wanted to interact with; she tended to be dramatic and vengeful. If he was not careful there was good chance that Fate would throw Zerachiel a curve ball that would land him in hell. He did not want that.

Determined to make this human see sense, Zerachiel flaps his glistening white wings against the tiled floor of Charissa's bedroom, sighing in disbelief as the raven headed woman just dismisses the disturbance in the air with a shrug of her shoulders.

Humans have known about the existence of gods, angels, spirit and demons from the beginning of time and a large number of the current population on Earth take part in these beliefs. They have, unfortunately, done a spectacularly bad job of spreading the divine message and have somehow created a variety of religions and stories that go along with it.

One look around is enough to see just how many different faiths exist at this point in time. Many of these faiths convey the same divine message that god had passed down at the beginning of creation, but each of them now have unique little twists that seem to be enough reason for humans to kill one another.

The problem with multiple faiths is the opportunity it creates for spirits to fill into an angel's role. When a human or animal leaves its corporeal body, the essence floats around as a spirit. It floats till it finds a new host body or a higher purpose. The stubborn ones negotiate to spend more time on earth before journeying to heaven or while the ones destined for hell try to avoid the Draggers. After spending enough time in this intangible state, they take on the form of spirits and like humans hunting for jobs, these spirits hunt for human belief.

Wherever there is a large enough crowd with one common belief, the spirits race to fill the spot. In the end each belief that humanity created has resulted in a delusional spirit trying to fill an angel's shoes. They usually do not do a good job but as Zerachiel has come to discover, there are exceptions.

The human tendency to fight tooth and nail for their sense of entitlement has resulted in these spirits that dare to absorb others for power. The more power they have, the more they can win over their human worshipers who bring more of their kind into the religion like some twisted pyramid scheme.

Zerachiel idly flaps his wings as he observes these spirits fleeing his presence. Some have taken the shapes that humans imagine their gods to look like, while others are spheres of consciousness floating around.

Dust settles when Zerachiel lands on the cold marble floor of one university director, Neil Henderson. He watches the portly man shuffle to his feet; his guardian spirit flees away from his angelic presence.

Zerachiel is about to interfere with the course of two lives, he whispers into Henderson's mind, planting the seeds of thought.

Go forth and invite him.

Henderson's guardian spirit exhales sharply, releasing a breath it hadn't needed in the first place. Its next inhale is equally unnecessary as Henderson collapses to the ground.

'What have you done Ancient one?'

Zerachiel turns his golden gaze to the cowering spirit who despite his fear dares question an angel.

'What is it to you?'

'I was guarding him..'

Zerachiel raises a blond eyebrow at the stammering answer, watching the spirit stumble over more words.

'Err..I mean.. I a...' Henderson's quiet groan saves the spirit from being incinerated.

Both beings watch as Henderson struggles to his feet, dazed and winded from the exertion of getting vertical.