Page 264 of Castings & Curses

Valory

I don’t knowwhat I expected Heaven to be like, but I didn’t expect something so close to… what I’d left back on Earth.

All the books, the movies, the psychics who claimed to have near death experiences, they all described an idyllic paradise with big fluffy clouds, lots of light, and pearly white gates. Church always painted Heaven as this perfect land where everyone you love exists, your pets wait for you while angels pluck gold harps, and God welcomes you with open arms. Imagine the shock of opening your eyes, and instead of white, fluffy clouds… you’re standing in front of a large white building that reads APD. Which I learned stands for Angelic Placement Department.

A building, that in a strange twist of irony, looks a lot like the DMV back home. This building, though, is bigger on the inside, with rows and rows of people. Unlike the DMV, the APD is clean and shiny—practically sterilized with holy water. Everything sparkles and glistens like it’s been thoroughly scrubbed with a toothbrush.

I don’t know how long I actually waited in that massive room before moving to processing. Time is more fluid in Heaven, like one long stretch of day that bleeds into the next. Night never falls. The sun just sets into a warm mixture of ocher and orange, until it becomes bright again.

When they finally called me, I think I was more nervous than I’d ever been when I was alive. I had no idea what Angelic Placement meant. I could only imagine it had something to do with where I was going to spend my afterlife.

Fun fact: it had nothing to do with where I was supposed to go to bask in my personal paradise, and it had everything to do with what I’d be doing up here. That’s the thing that disappointed me the most about Heaven. While it is beautiful, and full of so much love and wonder… it isn’t all that different from Earth.

Up here, I have a house, a dog, and a job. I also attend a book club with some of the other angels in my quadrant. Everything is perfect, built to resemble the life we always wanted, but also resembling the life we had. This is probably to make the transition easier, so it feels like we never left. So it feels as if we’re still alive.

Working at the Pearly Gates Annex does not make me feel alive. In fact, it makes me feel like I’ll never escape the monotony of this life.

In my mortal life, I’d done everything I was supposed to. I had a steady job in a hotel as a front desk concierge, never took sick days, always on time and always available to come in when needed. I went to church every Sunday and helped run Sunday school, volunteered on the weekends at a local retirement home, and managed to have dinner with my family once a week. I loved my life, even though everyone around me seemed to think it was meaningless because I was alone. I was Valory Kemp, thirty-one-years-old, single, and a virgin. In the eyes of God, I was pure and perfect, but in the eyes of society, I was a freak.

But I’d been okay with being a freak—at least, I thought I was. I’d tried to find someone, but nothing ever felt right. Every time I had to have that conversation… well, I got tired of always being disappointed by people who didn’t value the gift I had to give. My heart, my body, and my soul.

So, I stopped trying and found I was no longer disappointed. I took solace in my peaceful, perfect life.

And then I died.

The doctors thought I’d grown out of my arrhythmia when I was six. Subsequently, what was a worry for my family when I was young became a distant memory. They’d prayed and prayed, and it seemed to do the trick.

Until that fateful morning, when it all just stopped. I was used to headaches, so I attributed the nausea to nothing more than eating a bad serving of eggs from the café I’d visited prior that morning. I’d never even thought it was my heart telling me it was time.

Now, it seems time is all I have. Angels don’t need to sleep, but many still do—including myself—out of habit. There are no clocks or time markers in Heaven. The only way I can measure the days—since it’s always a balmy seventy degrees and sunny—is by the beginning and end of my shift at the Annex when Matthew comes in. When I started here, I was afraid I’d never be able to get through the amount of paperwork that seems to stack up all too quickly, but I soon learned that much like my concierge job, it’s easy peasy.

After the souls come in from APD, I enter their Angel Number into the system, bring up their initial documentation they filled out with the APD, file the proper paperwork, and send them off with a printout of The Angel’s Guide to Heavenly Habitation to the HHD—Heavenly Housing Department.

Sign, punch, print, send on their way. No different than signing guests into hotel rooms.

The plethora of souls that have come through the Pearly Gates, as of late, at least, make the day go faster. The Pearly Gates Annex isn’t too far from the APD, but it’s enough of a distance that those who show up at the Annex are often tuckered out, in need of a comfortable chair to rest in and some chocolate chip cookies for a sugar boost. Though we don’t need to sleep, it doesn’t change the fact we still get tired or need a jolt of energy every now and then.

APD stops processing souls at sunset.

Sunset around here is quite beautiful, casting a warm glow over everything and turning the plants and lakes beautiful shades of red and gold, sometimes pink. Though it doesn’t get dark around here, sunset is pretty commonly understood as dinner and rest time, so when APD closes for the day, that means no wandering souls for the Annex, and when there are no wandering souls for the Annex…

I get to go home.

Flipping through the last page of my book, a sweet romance my neighbor and friend, Delilah, lent me, I barely even notice when Matthew, my boss, stops in front of the desk.

“Reading on the job again, are we, Valory?” he asks with a smile. Like most of the angels up here, he has a golden glow to him. His soft blue eyes sparkle as the lines pull up in the corners, showing his age.

Like me, Matthew died suddenly. Brain aneurysm at the ripe old age of forty-two. Why people actually consider that “old” is beyond me. I can’t help but roll my eyes at his tone and my thoughts. I’m not sure how he ended up being my boss at the Annex, considering he is most certainly one of the least organized angels I’ve ever met.

“Must be closing time, Matt. There hasn’t been anyone for a while.”

Matthew shakes his head, a small laugh escaping his throat. “When will you give up with this time stuff?” he asks, sliding his hands into his navy blue slacks, his golden-blond hair falling into his face. We do this every day. It’s another part of my routine. Matthew always comes in to relieve me of my duties, and always finds something to say about my choice in books. He’s never been disapproving, only humorous. He doesn’t understand the draw of romance, not like my neighbor, Delilah, does. Then again… he’s a man. An angel, but still at the base of all things, a man.

“When you decide to stop irking me about my literary escape,” I say as I raise an eyebrow at him.

“Fair enough.” He shrugs.

I roll my eyes, letting out a sigh and close the book.

---