Message in a Bottle

Back at the castle in which she resided, Ephinea lied on her bed, waiting for night to fall. She looked over at the small, clear glass bottle on her desk, Collewyn's message rolled and corked inside.

As legend had it, the bottling of messages originated a great number of centuries ago with an angel, Seba, who had just arrived in heaven and wanted to communicate with his living lover, Junaia. Since he hadn't yet earned wings and couldn't easily leave the ocean, he found a discarded glass bottle and a scrap of paper on an island shore and wrote to Junaia. Seba then took the bottle back out into the middle of the ocean and released it. It cannot be said for certain whether Seba's note ever reached Junaia, but over the years, other angels began to adopt this practice, and later, humans that found the bottles did too.

In those days, angels in transition were free to roam the shores as they pleased, searching for glass bottles and seashells and what-have-you, because the islands belonged to them. Now that humans inhabited every square inch of land available, angels, especially those without wings, had to stay in the ocean. At the time of Creation, the Creator had invented a list of regulations, which specified a great distinction between the living and the dead. An angel was not to be detected by a human, or he would lose his wings for a decided period of time. However, if the angel did not have wings at that time, consequences were far greater, sometimes resulting in permanent exile to a land of unspeakable horrors.

With that risk so elevated due to the overpopulation of the human race, angels with limited experience rarely ventured to the surface of the water, which meant that they could no longer search for tools to write to their loved ones. Noticing this detriment, the Creator produced special paper, ink, and bottles that were designed for underwater use. Transitioning angels would write their messages, and some of the oldest and most highly-regarded angels were employed to deliver the new bottles to their respective addressees. One disadvantage was that, as the ink dried when the bottle touched the air, it smeared and blurred, so one had to write on the tiny paper in large, clear print if one expected it to be decipherable by the human eye. A second was that the only human who possessed the ability to read the message was the person it was addressed to.

As a messenger angel, Ephinea had to be very careful about delivering Collewyn's note to her daughter. She had to make her move when the sky was dark, so she wouldn't be noticed, and put the bottle somewhere Harvest would assuredly be the first to find it, so it wasn't mistaken for trash and lost forever. She may have been experienced, but her task was a dangerous and challenging one every time she delivered a message. If Ephinea broke a single rule, she would soil her spotless reputation, and worst of all, have her wings ripped out.

* * *

"Where, exactly, is heaven?" Elle asked Lynas as they passed slowly through a huge, underwater city. Elle couldn't take her eyes off the crystal and coral edifices or the angels floating inside and around them. The city's business reminded her of her own residence in San Francisco, only the place itself was far more stunning.

"Heaven spans across the entire Pacific Ocean, more or less," Lynas answered. "Did you know that more than two-thirds of Earth's oceans are unexplored by humans? The deeper you go, the larger cities you'll discover."

"You mean there are cities even larger than this?"

"There are a few," Lynas explained. "This city lies in the very center of the Pacific, just west of Hawaii. It's only a couple thousand miles below sea level, but, possibly because it is the center of heaven, it is home to a great many of our newcomers and transitioning angels."

Elle looked more closely and, confirming Lynas' claim, noticed that most of the beings here were without wings. She asked, "Will I be living here?"

"If you'd like to," Lynas answered. "You would be among your own kind. Otherwise, you are welcome to move in anywhere you please. The only restrictions are that your home must be deep enough in the ocean that it is well-hidden from human habitats, and that it is not on the grounds of a penitentiary."

"Penitentiary?" Elle repeated. "There are jails here? What kind of crimes are committed in death?"

"Not many of those committed in life," Lynas said. "But the policies are rather stricter in heaven than on Earth. There, you followed man's laws; ours were of no importance to you, regardless of whether or not you believed in the Creator. We are bound by a code entirely foreign to you, but for now you should be fine as long as you obey one fundamental rule." He stopped her and looked her dead in the eye, his pleasant smile vanished. "Aside from the note you've written to your daughter, you shall have no further contact with the living until they have died and passed into our world."

Elle made no movement, but her eyes showed her acceptance. Then Lynas' smile was back, and he added, "Time flies in this place, and that's coming from a man who's spent fourteen centuries here. You'll see your daughter again, sooner than you think."

* * *

By the time evening had come and gone, Ephinea was soaring high above the Pacific coastline of the United States. The sparkling sea water splashed against the sand, reflecting the dark violet, star-splattered sky. City lights started to come into view, and Ephinea began her descent on the residence of Collewyn's son Maxim.

The peaceful silence faded gradually into the sounds of a bustling city. It's nearly midnight, Ephinea thought, frowning. Does anyone ever sleep? Suddenly, a deafening roar shook her eardrums. She lost her balance momentarily, throwing her hands up to her ears.

It occurred to her then that she was carrying an important message, one that she was under no circumstances to let escape her sight, and that the message had, at some point when the jet engine was roaring close over Ephinea's head, slipped out of her hand and began to plummet to the earth.

With uncanny haste, Ephinea dove straight downward, her wings tucked back for optimum velocity and her eyes fixated on the bottle's otherworldly glow just ten or fifteen meters ahead of her. She was distracted suddenly by her close proximity to the earth. When she saw that she was falling straight into a graveyard, she came to an abrupt halt and hovered frightenedly in the air, able to do nothing but watch the bottle land.

Ephinea knew that was absurd for her—her, of all people!—to be afraid of graveyards. As a veteran of the afterlife, thus of mortal life and death, what did she have to fear? She could distinguish fact from myth probably better than most. Her greatest concern about entering the cemetery should have been getting caught by the undertaker.

Still, she felt that something was lurking there, something dead just like her, but something very, very evil.

Ephinea watched worriedly as Collewyn's message hit the soft soil and its aura flickered out like a dead bulb. Ephinea blinked quickly and could no longer tell where it had dropped. She could have searched for it, but she would have been lucky to have returned to the sea by sunrise.

And either way, there were now consequences to be paid.

Reluctantly, Ephinea turned around, her head hung low, and beelined for the throne on which the Creator sat.