Save Me A Spot On Jupiter's Ring

Emptiness. That’s all I could see. I felt like I weighed a million more pounds and the only thing that kept me from moving was the thick, choking smog around me.

“You can get up you know.” I lifted my head and looked around to find the clear male voice.

“Who are you? Where are you?” All of a sudden I was lifted up off of the, well the sky that I had been floating on. The smog was now below me and I was faced to an open sky filled with stars and astronomic cluster. I turned to the force that pulled me away from the smog only to be face to face with a heavy built man with long white hair and beard. He was in a long purple-pink toga robe held together by a pin with a thunder bolt on in. “Great God you’re Zeus! The ruler of Jupiter!”

“Yes, yes hello and all that now let’s get this over with quickly. Welcome to Jupiter, the heaven for the gays and homosexuals throughout the land of Earth. We hope you enjoy your stay here, please stay clear of the storms and don’t feed the flying horses-”

“You mean Pegasus?” Zeus sighed, but continued on.

“Yes, but I’d prefer just to say flying horses. Carrying on, I will provide you someone to show you around and tell you the rules. He or she will explain everything, but do know that if you break any rules I will be forced to send you to hell. I’ve only done that twice so please do not make my job any more difficult and cause trouble, now for approval.” He ended his speech with a forced smile and brought out this rubber stamp thing to, as he said; approved me with a quick lightning bolt tattoo on my forearm. Suddenly 2 beings with the same tattoo and scary looking black wings appeared in front of me. I turned to Zeus, but he had already disappeared.

“Awesome, new guy and he’s CUTE!” I looked back at the 2 beings and noticed one was a girl with bright pink and blonde hair and the other was a guy with wild black hair. The guy was the one who had just called me cute, which immediately made me think of my Aaron and I frowned. “Oh Sugar I’m sorry! Did I say something wrong?!”

“Bradley! You can’t just go around scaring the new people and calling them cute. OR SUGAR! I’m sorry, this is Bradley and I’m Skylar, but you can just call me Sky. What’s your name?”

“No I’m fine, I’m Gabriel. It’s just, when you called me cute it brought back why I died.”

“We’ll have plenty of time for that, first we need to explain why you are here and what will happen if you step out of line. Follow me, Bradley go and ask Zander when we can get Gabriel here some new, clothing.” Bradley reluctantly flew off in a flash and I followed Skylar threw some more smog. The further we traveled the heavier I felt and the more my throat ached. We suddenly stopped and Skylar dropped down on my seemed to be a thin layer of mist. “Sit. This is Jupiter’s only ring, hardly visible and totally reliable. So, first off I guess I should tell you that you are now a Jupiter angel and the only way to get around are a pair of wings. You haven’t got yours yet, but since you are new you have temporary wings that dissolve after a day or whenever you trade in for your permanent wings. Zeus is the semi God who works under the highest God.”

“I thought almost everyone went to Heaven after death?”

“This is heaven, just a part of it where only the homosexuals live.”

“You mean we aren’t allowed with anyone else?!”

“Not exactly! I mean, we live here and are still angels, but for our own comfort, we only are with people who won’t judge us for who we are. We are allowed to go to the other planets where other beings are. Take Mars for example, straight people live there and actually quite a bit of them visit people here regularly. Anyways, let’s move on. So you’re an angel and you can leave whenever you like, but you aren’t to start any trouble with others, okay?” I nod my head and she smiles before continuing. “Alright so I should probably tell you how I died since you are curious. Well you see, I was hit by a truck a couple years back. The guy hadn’t seen me so he was going like 60 and there I died, flattened and uncared about. Of course I was given such a beautiful funeral and everyone went. Even my girlfriend who was heartbroken! I feel bad for her, which is why twice a year I go down to Earth and check up on her.”

“Wait, we can return to Earth?”

“To an extent, we can’t have an angel obsessing over it as if they were still alive. Zeus allowed me to go for my funeral and now anytime I’d like because I much prefer it up here so I’m not a problem, why? Did you need to return?” A look of concern passed her features and I knew I would have to explain soon.

“Well yeah, I sort of left some-”

“I hope I didn’t miss anything!” an over excited voice shouted as they carefully placed themselves on the ring. I turned to see Bradley had return and was still holding an elaborate smile.

“Uh no, I was actually just going to explain my story actually. I wanted to return to see how my husband is, he just had a heart transplant and I need to know if he’s doing alright. If it’s not too big of a problem do you think we could just see him? It’s really important to me, it’s how I died.”

“What do you mean that’s how you died?” I looked up to see Skylar’s head slightly tilted and wearing a very confused look upon her face.

“Well, I’m the one who gave him the heart. I couldn’t stand to see him die so I gave him all I had.”

“That’s so sweet! Of course we can return, Bradley would you like to explain the last part of our job before we go?”

“What’s the last part?” I asked thinking that almost everything was already explained and pretty clear to me. I looked at Bradley and he jumped up excitedly which only meant this was his favorite part, he really was such a cute little kid.

“What we are because the newbies never know what to call us. Some call us angels, others thought it be cool to make up these little nicknames like Zeusites, Jupiterians, and my favorite Juppies! It makes us sound so cute and weird!” Bradley says while sticking his tongue out the side of his mouth and squinting. This kid was seriously a riot, I mean I was in my 30’s and these teenagers were showing me the ropes. They were just kids! I giggled and nodded my head to agree that I indeed liked the nicknames. “So off to Earth to see Gabriel’s husband!”

Skylar and Bradley took hold of my hands and pulled me towards the empty space. We seemed to be moving at the speed of light seeing as it hadn’t taken long to already be landing softly in some grass. Both angels shook themselves and wings to rid the particles that were sticking to them so I did the same, noticing I was in different clothes. I stared wide eyed at the thin purple shirt that hugged my torso and the tight material of black jeans that curved around my legs and hips. I admired myself, or what I could see, some more and realized that I looked more like my college self then my business man self. I turned to the angels and gave them a questioning look.

“Everyone turns back to a younger version of themselves after death. If you don’t like we could always have something arranged. How old are you anyways, the ages of body type normally are 16 to 25, I assume you are in your 22 year old body,” Skylar said while looking me over.

“Well I’m in my late 30’s and yeah, I feel and look like I’m in college again!”

“Omigawd, you died when you were only in your 30’s?! I’m so sorry man!” Bradley exclaimed throwing one of his hands over his mouth fighting a sob.

“How old are you both?”

“Well I died when I was in my 70’s, while Skylar here died when she was 17. She actually just ended up keeping her body and I took the form of my young 17 year old self because those were my favorite years. By the way yes, I’m going to tell you my story right now so don’t give me that look.” He smirked and I wiped off the ‘look’ I was apparently giving. “I was old and it was just my time. Lucky I passed in my sleep beside my husband of 55 years. We married so young and it actually lasted for all those years, so it hit him pretty hard to see me not breathing in the morning. He is 4 years older than me so of course he felt like he was supposed to go first, but of course I blame my smoking for the early leave.”

“Do you know that if you had 5 more years, you could’ve celebrated your 60th anniversary with the diamond? The diamond signifies engagement, 10 years, and 60 years of marriage,” I said with a small smile grazing my lips. I looked up at 2 very confused angels and immediately stopped smiling realizing I was thinking of Aaron again. “Uh, c-can we go now? I really want to see how my Aaron is doing.”

They nodded and let me take the lead to locate Verona, Italy where Aaron and I decided we’d live for a while. Once I had turned 40 we were going to move out to Japan, it was always Aaron’s dream to have fresh sushi and actually use those 7 years of Japanese he spent time to learn. He was always a bit silly and hyper active. I tried to rid the thoughts before I could let tears slip past my eyes. Could angels cry? Once I arrive outside the familiar peach house I turned to Skylar and Bradley and asked how we went about this. At this they took the lead and pulled me through the door, literally through the door. I roamed around the house swirling with a heavenly smell, my mother was here and I knew it. I walked into the kitchen to see my beautiful Aaron eating a small plate of my mom’s fettuccini and chicken pasta with little chucks of broccoli everywhere. It was my favorite meal, so I knew exactly why they’d be eating it.

“You can sit with him, but I’d advise you not to touch him,” Skylar said with a pained expression on her face. I nodded then pulled out the seat beside Aaron’s wheelchair ever so carefully to not startle him. I was surprised to see that I could physically touch things, which is why Skylar probably said to not touch him. I wouldn’t want to give his new heart an attack. I giggled slightly and Aaron suddenly looked straight at me, well through me.

“Gabe?” I was startled and didn’t dare move in case I’d make noise, I didn’t even think Aaron could hear me. Suddenly I was pulled back by Bradley just as Aaron’s hand grasped empty air.

“He can hear you?! Skylar how is that possible?! Gabriel you can’t say a single thing or else something might happen.”

“But-”

“No shush, he might hear you!”

“Bradley please, just let me say goodbye to him and have 10 minutes then I’ll go and I won’t come back. Just let me tell him that I love him one last time!” I whispered to Bradley risking a glance at Aaron who was shaking his head as if to say he was crazy for thinking I’d actually be there, but I was here! For the first time I looked around and realized that my mother must have just dropped off some food for Aaron then left. Aaron was in the house alone and it was perfect, I can tell him to move on. That I love him and he’ll be okay.

“Bradley, you did get to contact Evan and tell him that he’d be fine without you. Of course it wasn’t as physically and he couldn’t see or hear you, but maybe just this one time we could let it slip,” Skylar begged on my behalf. Bradley looked torn, but finally nodded once and told me I had 20 minutes before we left, for good. I smiled then hugged both angels excited that I got this last chance with my little Diamond. “I’ll see you in 20 minutes, but I should warn you, Bradley gets impatient because it’s been quite a while since he’s felt a real 20 minutes. Jupiter is only 10 hours long per day so 20 earth minutes in a day feels very different then a Jupiter 20 minutes, so hurry.”

After nodding and waving one last goodbye they went outside to wait for me. I took a deep breath and walked over to Aaron, who was again sitting staring at the food in front of him. “You know my precious little Diamond, you really should eat or else you’re going to become too skinny. I do much rather prefer you as you are.” Aaron jumped up startled and frantically looking for me knowing this time it wasn’t his imagination.

“What the fuck?! Gabriel Smith you better not be fucking haunting me now!” he shouted out when he couldn’t find me. I giggled then stroked his cheek causing him to slowly face me still startled. I kissed him softly and savored the moment since this would be the last. I pulled away and examined Aaron who still had his eye’s closed, but a small smile grazing his beautiful lips. He finally opened his eyes and looked at me with a glassy look. “Wow, okay maybe I don’t mind you haunting me so much anymore.”

“Ah, my little Diamond is exactly as I left him, but I have some good and bad news. Would you like to go to the living room and maybe talk for a bit?” He nodded then wheeled himself out to the living room. I looked around and could see a lot of things were now in boxes that were piled neatly near the piano, which was covered. “Moving out?”

“Uh, yeah. I couldn’t stand to live here with everything around to remind me of you, of us. Gabe, why’d you do it? You took your life away for me and now here I am living it, when all I want is you!”

“My precious little Diamond, always so exaggerate. I’m pretty sure I explained this in my letter to you, I did this for you. You had so much to still do with your life; I couldn’t bear to see you go when I had what you needed. I know you will do much more with that heart of ours then silly old me.”

“Old? Gabe, you’re like 20 now and you left me here all old and shit!” he whined. I chuckled and took hold of his hands prepared to say my finally words to him. I needed to get them over with before my time was up, I know Bradley was already risking a lot so I couldn’t ask for more time.

“Listen Aaron, I know you don’t think I’m happy, but I am and I really want you to be happy too. I can’t stay long, matter of fact I was given 20 minutes by the angels I’m with. Apparently you’re not supposed to hear or see me, but of course, as I said before, you’re just like a diamond and of course you’re special enough to do the impossible. I want to say goodbye, for now I mean. Don’t cry, I know this is hard but it has to be done and I want you to move on until you’re time comes up. Love again and be happy, for us. I won’t be able to do this whole afterlife thing if I know you’re not happy. I can’t come again so you need to promise me that you will be happy and eat the food my mom makes, she’s going to get pissed.” We both chuckled and Aaron nodded to me. “Aaron, I know you’re sick of hearing me calling you diamond, but one last time. Please, can I just hold my preciously baby to me like the most prized and glamorous diamond to ever be created, because that is what you are to me.”

“Gabe, I love that you’ve called me that all these years, it makes me feel special, so special. So of course, please hold me this one last time and tell me you love me.” Aaron slowly crawled into my lap and I held him close. I whispered sweet things to him and told him about my life now. “Seriously, a Zeusite? You’re living on Jupiter as an angel who calls himself a Zeusite? Really Gabe, how do you expect me to not think you’re weird if you tell me things like this?”

“Oh, just say you love me, because I already know that’s the only reason you stuck around so long.” Aaron lifted his head and looked at me very seriously before telling me the last words that I’d hear from him for a very long time.

“Gabriel, I love you, that is why I’ve stuck around. You are my everything and still are, I can go on, but please don’t forget me. Please be waiting for me when my time comes, whenever it does decide to come. Can you promise me that Gabe?” I nodded and he softly kissed me while wrapped into a tight embrace by me. I suddenly heard a cough and I broke from the kiss with a heavy sigh. I looked to my left and saw a grinning Skylar and a sad looking Bradley.

“Sorry Gabriel, but we need to go. It’s time to say goodbye to Aaron, please make it quick.” I know the words pained him because he had to follow the orders at one point, but it didn’t stop the pain that quickly spread across my face. Aaron stroked my face and I looked into his eyes lovingly.

“Baby, I need to go know, but I promise. I will be there when you arrive, live life to its fullest and don’t forget about me. The hardest part of this is leaving you, but I need to, the angels are here.” He nodded and I could see he was holding back tears as he slowly climbed back into his wheelchair. I kissed him once last time then stood up and walked over to the angels ready to leave. They took hold of my hands and we flew straight through the ceiling. Goodbye Aaron, my sweet little Diamond, I’ll save a spot on Jupiter’s rings for you and I when the day comes where we meet once again.