Someone Else's Angel

“I’m not dead. I’m not dead. I’m not dead!” Jeremy chanted to himself, now and again brushing his hand which he faintly noticed were stained with his own blood, through his scruffy light brown hair.

He looked down at himself, noticing the stains on his shirt that matched those that were on body’s before the paramedic ripped it open to try and stop the bleeding. He winced as he looked again at his body, at the smashed mess where his rib cage used to be. How hard had he been hit?

The ambulance slowed, pulling up into A&E. Jeremy was reminded of Grey’s Anatomy as he watched the paramedics shout information at the drivers.

“Male, 25 years old, hit by a car on the street. No vital signs.”

Jeremy yelled with shock as the pretty blonde paramedic ran right through him. It felt strange as if part of him was being stretched out like an elastic band before springing back into place. He huffed out air and rubbed his stomach. People running through him, also made him feel a bit queasy.

He found out, though, that if he wanted to, he could sit down on a chair without floating right through it. That didn’t stop anyone sitting on him though so he stood, pacing back and forth watching Henry as he waited for news.

Henry had gone with his body in the ambulance, holding his limp hand and now and again, pleading for Jeremy to wake up. Jeremy wished he could.

Henry was shaking, and now again he would rub his hands down his shirt. It was a nervous gesture he had had since school. His hands would stop though when they realised that he too, was covered with the blood of his friend.

Finally, Henry sat down, placing his face into his hands which muffled a loud sob that broke through his lips. He looked so scared and Jeremy once again, tried to do something to let his friend know that he was here, that whatever kind of ghostly transition this was, that he wasn’t in pain. But once again, his hand went through Henry. He had no way of touching him.

Jeremy crouched down onto his haunches in front of where his friend was sitting, his face still in his hands.

“Please, Henry…please hear me. I’m here mate. I’m still with you. I haven’t left.” Jeremy’s voice faded to a whisper but Henry looked up.

For a moment Jeremy really believed that Henry could see him. His green eyes stared right into his own. Jeremy could see Henry’s mouth beginning to bruise from where he had hit him. A sharp knot of shame tied itself into Jeremy’s stomach. This wound, the painful bruise that would form to disfigure his friend’s face for days would be the last thing Henry would remember about him. The last things that Jeremy had done before he died was hitting his oldest friend and insulting him. He called him nothing. He had told him that no-body cared about him.

“I didn’t mean it Henry, I swear I didn’t mean it,” he whispered. Henry was still looking at him but Jeremy realised his gaze was actually going through him, for of course; he was invisible, wasn’t he? Henry was looking at an older man conversing with a nurse, a file in his hands. The nurse nodded towards Henry and the doctor sighed and made his way over.

Everything seemed to fade for Jeremy as he watched the doctor greet Henry. He then began to talk, shaking his head, making soft murmuring noises you would use to soothe a frightened puppy. He used phrases like, ‘the damage was just too great’ and ‘we tried to do everything we could but we couldn’t save him’.

Jeremy shook his head as he watched Henry slump to the floor. The doctor gripped him by the shoulders, and then patted him, leaving him there on the floor, alone in his grief.

He watched Henry cry, numb to the realisation he was actually dead. That this ghost thing wasn’t some out of body, dead for five minutes experience. He was gone, he was food for the worms. This was it…

He stared with curiosity as Henry pulled out his phone. He wondered who he was calling to tell of his death. Henry was the closest person to family Jeremy had in the whole world.

“Oh Beth...thank god!” Henry sobbed into the phone.

Jeremy’s body froze. He hadn’t thought of Beth…not since, well….not since he had actually died.
Something funny began to happen as Jeremy’s thoughts of Beth grew stronger. The hospital waiting room began to look blurry and was Jeremy fell backwards but landed on his feet somewhere entirely different.

He looked around in shock and then at Beth, who was sitting on her bed, talking to Henry. Her sheets were twisted around her slender legs and he saw damp strands of hair sticking to the sides of her face. She must have had a nightmare, that’s always how she looked when she had bad dreams. He used to have to cuddle her back into his side and speak softly to her about nothing before she would fall back asleep again.

Beth gasped as Henry spoke to her. “No!” she cried, “no Henry, please tell me you’re lying. That it’s some sick joke, please!”

Jeremy sighed. She knew. She knew he was dead.

He sat down on the floor, unable to do anything as she cried into the phone before dropping and curling into a fetal position. She continued to cry, large heart-breaking sobs that ripped through Jeremy’s chest cavity like a knife. He bunched his fists, unable to cope with the sounds of her despair and in the back of his mind he wondered about the strength of her grief. He had broken her heart. He had always believed she hated him. But those sounds were not the sounds of hatred.

She loved him. She still loved him and now he was never able to act upon that again. He would never be able to try and sweep her off her feet and apologise for his behaviour.

He looked down at Beth, who was hiccupping now through her tears, her eyes were closed and her breathing was beginning to slow down. She was falling asleep. He wanted nothing more to touch her, to hold her…

A sudden fury rose up in Jeremy. What was the point? What was the point in him still being here? Wasn’t he dead? Why did he have to wait around and watch the people he cared about grieve for him? Was it really necessary to see their suffering?

Jeremy turned and ran out the door, or more accurately, through the door. He ran and ran until he found himself on a beach. He used to come here with Beth to swim. He realised he must have done some ghostly teleportation thing again because he couldn’t have run here so fast.

Jeremy yelled into the dark sky that was slowly turning into morning. He yelled and screamed until his voice went hoarse. He didn’t care that he had started to cry because who could see him anyway? He picked up stones and shells lodged in the sand and lobbed them into the water. He hadn’t deserved to die!

“Well, actually you did.”

Jeremy spun around and looked at the woman standing behind him. Her arms were crossed and she stared at him with a penetrating gaze. She could see him!

“Who are you?” he asked, “how can you see me?”

The woman smiled but there was no warmth behind it and Jeremy shivered. She was beautiful. Tall and slender with long wavy red-hair. Hair like fire. Jeremy gulped, maybe she was from, you know, down there…

“Relax, I’m with the big guy,” she said and chuckled. “The name is Gabriel.”

Jeremy spluttered, “Gabriel? As in God’s messenger who tells us that Jesus is coming and all that crap? Shouldn’t you be a man?”

Gabriel frowned and Jeremy wished he had kept his mouth shut.

“You know, I’m really sick of people thinking that just because I play an important role in all those stories that I should be a man. You know they all lied when they wrote them down, they didn’t want to say it was a woman who told them about the birth of Christ. They couldn’t let people know they had actually listened to a woman…well hey Jeremy, guess what, I’m a female and you’re going to shut the fuck up and listen to me, okay?”

Jeremy took a step back. She was the most unangelic angel he had ever come across before. Not that he had come across many angels. Where angels even allowed to curse, and where were her big
ass feathery wings?

Gabriel’s frown got deeper, “I can curse if I goddamn want to Jeremy Rivers and you want wings, I’ll give you freaking wings.”

Jeremy’s eyes widened as out of nowhere, huge downy soft white wings sprouted from Gabriel’s back. She smiled at his expression and this time her eyes were a little bit softer.

“Jeremy Rivers. You did not live your life the way you should have. You messed up. You were selfish and you were rude. You shoved people’s kindness back into their faces and you turned your back on them. We tried to give you all the right people when you lost your family. Henry and then Beth…but you turned them away too, didn’t you?”

Jeremy gulped back a lump in his throat and looked away, “that didn’t mean I had to die,” he said quietly.

Gabriel walked closer to him, “maybe not,” she spoke quietly, “but you have to make up for all the wrongs you did in your life. You can’t rest in peace just yet. You have a more important job to do.”
Jeremy looked at Gabriel, “I do? I’m not much good with responsibility.”

“I know,” Gabriel smiled. “But this one, you have to do and you have to do it right. Beth should have been your happy ever after and you should have been hers. But you took that away from her, and you cracked her heart and you broke her soul, once of the purest souls that has walked this earth in a long time. You need to make it up to her. Your job is to watch over her and help her find her new happy ever after.”

Jeremy frowned, “So I’m..what…a guardian angel? I need to help my ex get laid?”

Gabriel rolled her eyes, “Men. No, Jeremy you are just a spirit watching over her. She cannot see you or hear you but you can manipulate things to help her find someone to be good to her. And no, you are helping her find love, which is a completely different thing to lust. Love is a lot more long-lasting. This is your job and you cannot fail, if you do, you are doomed to walk this earth forever, unseen and unheard by all.”

Gabriel turned and began to walk away. Her body started to fade but Jeremy called out, “Wait, where are you going?”

She smiled “I’ll be around if you need me.”

The angel winked and then she was gone, leaving Jeremy alone on the beach. He threw another small pebble into the ocean, “You’d think she would give me some cool wings or something but no, I’m stuck being a useless ghost charged with playing Cupid. This sucks.”