Was it a knock that had woken her? The landscape was different. There was still grayness above. The clock still hung from a black string into a never ending vast of emptiness above Lucy. But the pile of bird feathers Lucy had slept on had an end to them in the horizon now. Lucy would’ve been able to notice this end. If she’d looked to the left or to the right, she would’ve known or could’ve handled what was coming better than she did.

The clock stuck one for the second time since Lucy had fallen. Lucy’s head popped up in sequence with the tick of the clock’s twelve o’clock hand. She could have dreams wherever she’d landed. The dream was of Lucy sleeping in her bed in her room at home. For twelve hours, Lucy slept on top of a pile of bird feathers under a mysterious white clock dreaming about sleeping on top of her bed at home. Laying down dreaming of home. Laying down longing to be home. She buried her face in her hands the second she had woken in this place still. She crossed her legs and hunched her shoulders over almost as if her head could’ve reached her calves leveling between both bent knees. She began to sob outlandishly. Her tears were out of control. She couldn’t help but heave her shoulders with each loud sob. Lucy bobbed up and down as she gave a convulsive sob trying to catch each breath in-between the tears.

He hadn’t seen anything like it in his first year and a half of being a guardian angel. He was a rookie because he was recently deceased and died young. Everyone he had relationships with on Earth was still young when he died for the most part other than parents, grandparents, other relatives, and good friends close to the family. Lucy wasn’t any of those to him though. His death was around the time Lucile graduated at the top of her class in high school a year and a half ago. It’s a deceased person’s job to guardian angel over the relationships started on Earth. That’s why bad souls aren’t accepted into the jobs up above. By the time they die, whether young or old, and in whatever way, there’s nothing of relationships left on Earth when started by a bad soul. He knew Lucile as Lucy before he drowned in Barton Springs Pool, a major attraction for swimmers in which flows into the lake she thought she’d fallen into.

“You were always the quiet one.”

His voice never sounded so cold.

As she searched, her movements were frantic.

He hadn’t meant to scare her. He just didn’t know what else to say or how else to say whatever he planned to say to a young girl having an emotional meltdown in the middle of his heavenly workday. And it was really Lucy! His job didn’t train for these situations. He was told to go on this mission alone to test everything he’s learned since he’s been dead, but no one told him it was regarding the soul of Lucile Parker.

Her movements were so frantic she’d stood up boldly without knowing it.

Swinging her arms about, she said, “I want to turn back the clock before…”

Then she recognized his face.

“Before what?” He said.

He’d leaned in closer to Lucy with both eyebrows raised inquisitively not knowing whether it was appropriate to smile at her in this place.

“If only I’d just gone over when you called.” Lucy said.

She looked more terrified than shocked now.

“I’m not here to punish you Lucy,” he said.

He gave her a comforting smile and shook his head slowly back and forth for a few moments as if Lucy’s fear to be punished for eternity was baffling to him. It’s been a while since he’s lived on Earth, and it was baffling to guardian angels and anyone else who worked up above. Only because no one bothered with such thoughts about what happens to those denied access up above. It seemed a waste of time. That was an eviler type of angels’ work.

She was beginning to realize how far down in her memory she’d buried her teenage years. Had she been a bad soul? Was she even really dead? Was it really all over? She was no longer putting thought towards the fear of eternal punishment in Hell because of his warming smile. However, she deeply regretted what she was trying to do for the past nine months of her life now. Not only was it all over so young, but also that’s how she spent her last months on Earth, stuck in both her angers and fears all at the same time destroying who she could’ve been.

“Why didn’t he come and talk to me himself?” said Lucy.

“Why didn’t who come and talk to you Lucy? Who were you expecting to see if you jumped off that bridge? The family dog you guys had to put down last winter? Look Lucy, I’m sorry the situation is rough right now, but aren’t you happy you’re finally able to see me again?”

“God himself. Why didn’t he come talk to me?”

“Why didn’t you answer the ringing phone? You could’ve been back home by now…”

“What do you mean I could’ve been home by now? I saw no ringing phone!”

“You didn’t even get up…not until you saw me and it was impulsively.”

“I thought there was broken glass before!”

“Ah! But you saw no glass and still believed it was there? But the ringing phone you had no faith in?”

            “…”