[Writing Prompt] Heaven is closed.
Heaven Is Closed
“Huh?”
James had been caught up in a recurrent day dream in which he was eating Taco Bell again. Time was hard to come by in this place, but based on what James arbitrarily interpreted as the waning sun he guessed he’d been lost in thought for about a 11 months.
From behind the invisible barrier of the great white gate, peaking his face in between the bars, an angel – adorned in resplendent unicorn horn armor, his face awash in the golden glow of a halo – smoked the dying stub of a cigarette. The butt hung tenuously on his lower lip, his mouth slightly ajar, wearing a look of abject disregard. “I said we’re closed man.”
“Oh.”
James was having trouble wrapping his mind around the situation. Moreover, James knew he was having trouble, but couldn’t figure out what kind of trouble he was having. Part of the problem – the bulk of it really – was that James had been waiting at the gates for so long he’d forgotten what he was waiting for.
A dart of the eyes in each direction, a quick up and down scan, and the angel spat the dead ember out of his mouth. It vaporized in a blue spark. “Welp, see ya.”
All at once James’ senses raced back to meet him and he stood up in a panic. “WhaIwaiting!” His words jumbled up like three stooges in the door-frame of his mouth and James had to stop and slap them across their non-literal faces before trying again. “I’ve been waiting…” he managed. Then he gave deep thought to the question of how long he had been waiting, glanced again at the perpetually unchanging sun for guidance, and, as ever, drew no meaningful conclusions.
After an awkward silence James realized the angel was watching expectantly and so he picked an arbitrary number. “…for, fifty.” It was another uncomfortable pause before James remembered fifty, by itself, didn’t mean much. “Years?” He added, more confused than when he’d started talking.
The angel’s demeanor exuded a sense that he was eager to kill time. “Right.” With a snap of his fingers another almost entirely burnt out cigarette appeared in the angel’s mouth, smoldering like wet leaves in a bonfire. “Why’d you do that? We’re closed. Didn’t you see the signs?”
The angel pointed down the length of the gate at the unequivocal signage absolutely littering the plaza. Half a million signs all echoing the same sentiment.
Under New Management – Permanently Closed!
James thinned his eyes and peered matter-of-factly at the signs. “Right…” Then he added hopefully “…but…!” Except James had nothing hopeful to say and so said nothing.
The two just stood there in silence for awhile, James frowning and the angel finishing his newly spawned, half finished cigarette. When the ember had burned down to the filter the angel spat it out again into the blue shielding and looked back into heaven as if he was late for some important meeting angels sometimes have.
“Alrighty. This has been something.” With a wave and no further explanation the angel started off back into heaven.
As James watched him go a thought struck him unbidden. Tears welled in his eyes and he called after the angel. “Wait! Don’t leave me!” Then quietly, to himself, a sob hidden in his chest, he whispered. “I tried to be good. I thought….” But James could not bring himself to say what he thought.
Stopped mid stride, looking down at his feet, hand resting languorously on his Balrog horn sword hilt, the angel sucked his front teeth and kicked up a plume of the pearly dust covering the ground. “Damn.”
With a nervous look back toward heaven’s interior the angel ran back over to the gate and conspiratorially leaned toward James. “If you could have anything, like any one thing right now, just make your fucking day, what would it be?”
James had imagined so many amazing things he would get in heaven. But after fifty years, or an eternity, waiting, for some reason one thing ruled his mind.
His eyes filled with brimming tears, James met the angel’s glance. “Taco Bell.” He said, embarrassingly unashamed.
The angel rolled his eyes with a sigh. “Humans.”
But even as the angel spoke, a brown paper bag appeared in his armor clad hand and, passing it through a shimmering hole in the blue barrier he shook it at James. “Quick, take it.”
James hesitated for a moment and then gently took the bag. He lifted it in amazement to his nose. When he opened the folded top out poured a familiar melange of odors, and with them the sense memory of an entire life. Searching in the bag James pulled out a tightly wrapped taco, covered in real Taco Bell paper. As he removed the bag, it momentarily lightened, only to gain weight again. James reached in once more and took out a crunch-wrap supreme. Weight returned again and inside James saw a wrapped chalupa.
Smiling for the first time in an age, James looked up to where the angel had been, but he was long gone, his form barely visible, a pinprick already in the distance, walking back into whatever had become of the place formerly known as heaven.
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