Angels Dare to Fly... Chapter One

This is so awesome! Angie thought, as she wiggled her toes in the soft cloud, then floated a few feet to the left and repeated the act. It had only been a few months since Old Pete had allowed her through the Heavenly Gate, so it was all still relatively new to her. She giggled before she could stop herself.

"Shhhhh!" admonished Danny from behind her. "You'll be in trouble if Old Pete hears you."

They were all gathered on Cloud 31, awaiting their new assignments. Old Pete was the nickname the angels had given to St. Peter. Of course, they didn't dare use it in front of him. They may be dead, but they weren't crazy. Heaven demanded respect from its angels. Those who showed disrespect soon found themselves polishing stars to a brilliant shine, which grew quite tedious after a while...a never-ending task.

"I hope Old Pete doesn't take all day with this," muttered Danny.

Angie nearly giggled again, but caught herself just in time. She flexed her wings.

"Angel Group #1 will be going to the year 1877..." Old Pete was saying.

"Gosh, I hope we get a more modern assignment," Angie whispered to Danny. They were both in Group #5, and this was her first assignment. She had only received her wings two days ago.

"Well...I dunno, Angie. It might be fun to live in a century other than the one we lived our lives in."

"You can't be serious!" She couldn't believe he'd said that. "You'd give up modern technology for outhouses, candlelight, hunting wild animals in order to eat, cooking over an open fire, washing clothes BY HAND...not to mention weaving the cloth to MAKE those garments?" She got tired just thinking about it.

"Why not? It might be interesting... certainly educational."

"I always suspected you were one can short of a six-pack, now I know for sure. Only someone gone loco would think that way. Give me electricity, telephones, refrigerators, indoor plumbing, HOT running water, supermarkets, washing machines, MICROWAVES... Hell, even..." She was interrupted by a loud rumbling noise overhead, and cringed instinctively.

"Now look what you did, girl! You done went and got the "Main Man" ticked off," Danny hissed at her.

"How was I to know he was eavesdropping?"

"Have you learned nothing here? The Man sees all and knows all."

"Umm... What do you think he's gonna do?" Another rumble sent her scooting closer to Danny.

"Maybe that was just a warning, and He won't do anything--this time."

"I sure h..." She was cut short by Old Pete announcing that Group #5 would be assigned to the year 2000.

Angie sighed in relief. "Oh, thank God! Ooops...I-I meant...."

"...With the exception of angels Danny and Angie," Old Pete was saying. "Those two are ordered to the year 1970."

"1970?" Danny asked.

"Yes, God thinks it will be a good experience for you two," Old Pete said, as he turned his attention to the next group.

"Geesh, isn't that the "hippie" era, or something?" Angie asked Danny in disgust.

"Yep! Man, this is gonna be FUN." He rummaged around in his personal cloud.

"What are you doing?"

"Aha! Here it is," he said, as he held up a pair of bell-bottoms pants.

"Where on Earth...er, in Heaven did you get those from?"

"These are authentic, hippie generation bell-bottoms, baby! They belonged to my hippie-dippie Uncle Clyde."

She looked at him somewhat skeptically. "Is that a fact? They look nearly new."

He shrugged. "Must be the air up here."

"You ever been to 1970 before?"

"Umm...No, but I used to hear my family talk about the '70s all the time. Ya know, they'd tell about the 'love-ins' at the parks, the music at Woodstock, the beads, headbands, dope, flower children and even FRINGE!"

"Fringe?"

"Yeah, it seems it was an era of fringe, too... fringe on jackets, pants, shirts, vests, even handbags and headbands."

"Hmm, it does sound like it might be entertaining."

"Hell, girl...."

"Watch it!"

"Huh?"

"Language...."

"Oh, shit!"

"AGAIN!"

RUMBLE...RUMBLE...RUMBLE! They both glanced up as lightning flashed above them.

"1940!" God shouted down at them.

"Oh, great. You just cost us another 30 years!" Angie declared, as she slapped him upside the head.

"Goddammit, girl!"

RUMBLE! "1910!" RUUUMBLEEE!

Angie quickly clamped her hand over Danny's mouth. "Shhhhhh.... don't even think it!" she commanded. "We've already lost 60 years here. At the rate you're going, we'll be pioneers in no time flat!"

He shoved her hand away, then flung the bell-bottoms back at his personal cloud, where they magically disappeared from sight.

"I don't believe this," he grumbled.

~~

All she could see in every direction were endless clouds. "Ok, how do we get to 1910?" All her necessities were packed in the invisible angel luggage they'd all been given.

"I think the exit for 1910 is 25 clouds down on the right-hand side," Danny informed her.

"You THINK? What if you're wrong? Maybe we should ask someone. If we end up in the wrong year... Well, I hate to think what He'll do to us then."

Danny looked around. There wasn't a soul to be seen. "If you see anyone you can ask, then by all means do so," he sneered.

Ok, ok, so there isn't anyone to ask, she thought. He doesn't have to be so smug about it.

"This way," Danny instructed as they reached the 25th cloud.

Angie couldn't see anything that indicated a way out, never mind an exit into the past. Danny walked right up to the edge of the cloud, beyond which was nothing at all. He looked poised to jump.

"Damn it! What the Hell do you think you're doing?" she yelled, as she grabbed his arm.

RUMBLE!!!!!!!! "1880!" thundered God from above.

"Thanks a lot, Angie. Now we're back another century."

Angie began to cry. It was just too much. Is this what it would be like throughout eternity? God constantly punishing them for slips of the tongue? Heck, she wondered what He'd do for a REALLY bad word.

Danny came over and put his arm around her. "Aww, don't cry Angie. It'll get better, you'll see. We just have to watch what we say around here. He doesn't miss a thing."

"I'm sorry, Danny, but you scared me. I thought you'd lost your mind and was gonna jump off that cloud."

"So what if I did? It's not like I'd get killed, I'm already dead," he said, trying to lighten the mood somewhat.

She had to smile at that.

"Actually," he continued, "we did have to jump into 1910. Not anymore, though. Now we have to find 1880."

"And where the h... er... Where would that be?"

"I don't know, exactly. But the years seem to be going down, if we continue in this direction." He held out his hand. "Shall we?"

She took his hand and they floated on the clouds in a northerly direction.

"I think we missed it, Danny. This is the 1878 exit."

"Huh? How the hel...heck did we do that?"

"I dunno, but we better backtrack a bit."

They found 1879 and 1881, but no 1880.

"Do you think it could be on the other side?" Angie asked.

"You think? I thought they were all on one side."

"I haven't a clue. I've never done this before. Wanna go look?"

"Might as well, it's certainly not over here."

It was difficult to decide if what they found was what they wanted. The second number had been obliterated, so they couldn't tell which century the year was for. The other three numbers, 1 80, were right.

"What do you think, Angie?"

"Gee, Danny, this is a real bitc... umm...that is, a real problem. For all we know, this could be anything from 1080 to 1980. What do ya think we should do?"

"My first inclination would be to go back and consult Old Pete, but we're already late getting to 1880. If we go back, we might get docked another 30 years."

"Oh, no! So should we take our chances then? Hope it's the right year?"

"I'm game, if you are," he answered, cocking an eyebrow.

"Let's do it!" She smiled. "We can't be too far off. We're surrounded by 1800s."

Hand-in-hand, they leapt to the left into a vast expanse of endless blue. It was a strange sensation. She was flying! She looked over at Danny and grinned. He flashed her a smile.

Suddenly, she landed with a thud. "Ouch!"

Laughing, Danny helped her to her feet. "You need practice on how to land."

"Very funny. I've only had my wings for a couple of days, you know. In fact, this is the first time I've ever flown. Give me some slack, will ya?" she answered, indignantly.

"I apologize. Once we get settled in here... wherever here is... I'll teach you how to land."

She looked around and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out something was definitely wrong with this picture. The land was like nothing she'd ever seen before.

"Ah... Danny?"

"I'm with ya, baby. This is... really weird. I think we screwed up somewhere..."

"This almost looks like another planet... like in those Star Trek movies or something."

"How the heck could we have gotten to another planet? We jumped off in the 1000 period of Earth years. That is... We did, didn't we?"

"You're asking ME?? I'm the newcomer, remember? You've been a celestial longer than I have. YOU tell ME if we jumped into an Earth year or not." She was beginning to panic.

"Let's calm down here. Getting all riled up will not help us much. C'mere and sit on this rock. Let me think...."

She eyed the rock dubiously, trying to decide if it was, indeed, a rock and not some alien creature. Finally convinced, she sat. "Maybe we could just go back, and find the right exit," she suggested, hopefully.

"Uh... we could, if I knew how in tarnation to do that!" he practically shouted.

"What?! You mean to tell me you convinced me to leap off into the wild blue yonder with you and all along you KNEW you had no idea on how to get us back? I trusted you!"

He had the decency to look ashamed. "Listen, Angie... I don't know where you got the impression I've been a celestial, as you call it, longer than you have. Truth be told, I've only been in Heaven since May."

She flinched. "May what?"

"May 10th."

She groaned. "That's just great, only 5 days longer than me."

They sat there in silence for what seemed like forever. Finally, Angie spoke. "So this is your first assignment too?"

"Yeah. Look, I'm really sorry about all this. I THOUGHT God knew what he was doing, sending us off together like this. I mean, you'd think He'd have informed at least one of us on the necessary procedure for getting here and back, wouldn't you?"

She sighed. "Yeah, you would think so."

Danny got up. "C'mon, let's go." He held out his hand.

"Go WHERE?" she asked, as he helped her to her feet.

"Somewhere... anywhere... I dunno. Just go, until we find some people or...whatever."

"That's what has me worried, Danny... the 'whatever' part."

They walked for miles, seeing neither people nor animals. When they tired from walking they hover-floated over the terrain. Finally, they stopped by a crystal clear stream, and settled on the ground beneath a very odd looking tree.

Angie laid back and closed her eyes. "I didn't realize angels get tired."

He chuckled.

"I mean, I never got tired in Heaven, did you?"

"Now that you mention it, no, I didn't. Perhaps angels only get tired when they're away from Heaven?"

She opened her eyes and glanced at him. "You think?

"Well, I'm no expert--far from it, but it's possible that when we go on an assignment and take a physical form, same as a living person has, that we also take on their limitations."

"Whoa.... that's heavy stuff. But ya know, it does make sense, sort of. Do you really think we now have a physical form again? I mean, you look the same to me."

"I'm not sure. You look the same to me too. I suppose we just have to wait until--or IF--we meet up with some people to find out if they can see us or not, don't ya think?"

"Yeah, that'd be the only way to know, for sure."

"Do you think we'll find anything, or anyone, on this world--or whatever it is?"

"I hope so! Otherwise, it'd be as if we were Adam and Eve placed in.... You don't suppose He....? No, He wouldn't do that... would He?"

Danny laughed at the look of horror on her face. "No, I don't think He'd do that. I mean, He already created Adam and Eve a long time ago, and they have a solid place in religious history, not to mention the Bible. How would it look if suddenly there was a new Adam and Eve named Danny and Angie? That kind of thing might cause people to lose the faith, don't ya think?" His eyes twinkled with amusement. She laughed along with him.

"I wonder if the group in 1877 is having as much trouble as we are."

"I'll give you odds they're not," Danny said, seriously.

"You're probably right, and here I was complaining about losing modern technology by going back a century or so. If I had only known...."