“My life, no, my entire eternity is doomed to a constant state of mediocrity.”
With a rather overly emphasized fall backward onto the pull-out sofa, Angeline again fell back into her most recanted sob story: her death.
“My entire life, I was never great. But I never took it for granted, because you have to have some bad in life to really appreciate the good, and, man, anything good seemed like a miracle.”
“And then, the miraculous Angeline, who was never great, but never that bad, met her demise,” Michael said, producing his own mock fall against the recliner, “a car accident that ended her tragic life.”
“But according to her logic, something so monumental would make her whole life worth while.” Gabriella added.
Michael looked up from the sofa with a puzzled expression. “How so? Couldn’t it make her life worthless, because everything she accomplished was snuffed out in an instant?”
“According to her,” she said with a light note of amusement, “an event so bad would make every other event seem great in comparison; all the not-so-great events in her life could now be appreciated.”
“…huh?”
“Don’t ask me, it’s her logic, not mine.” Gabriella laughed.
Angeline continued, absorbed only in her past memories and not hearing the criticisms of her roommates, “I always believed when I was young, I always had faith, I always bought into that picture perfect vision of fluffy clouds and halos.”
Michael cut in, “And when you finally separate soul from body, and make that long trek to the great unknown, and you see God is just middle management. After a lifetime of ‘mortal toils’ you finally meet God, and what does he say?”
“Welcome to the afterlife, what would you like your new occupation to be?” Gabriella responded.
Angeline covered her forehead with her hands. “‘A muse.’ And I regret it till this day.”
Angeline stood up and started to the door.
“Where you going?”
“Work.”
It had been 9 years since a small local paper ran the obituary “Angeline Catherine O’Connor, Loved Daughter and Friend, whose life was cut short yesterday in a tragic car accident.” Ever since the accident she’d always had questions, and as years grew into eternity, she lost faith in a God she had personally addressed on numerous occasions.
Angeline approached the window of the boy whose name sat first on the list of her pending clients. Dakota Makenze, 17, was living alone with his dad, wishing to become an artist, but slowly succumbing to the numbing effects of a minimum-wage night job. Watching his slender figure slumped over the desk, a pencil slowly slipping through his fingers, his long bangs slowly obscuring his closed eyes, she knew he would be an important case.
She spent the night back in her room, staring at the water stained stucco ceiling and hearing the obscure noises one would think typical of a large and suffering city tenement—but not of the utopia behind the warped Saint Peter’s gates. “Why am I a muse?” she thought. “In what twisted logic is eternal salvation another life of servitude? Or how is it fair that muses can only inspire, not create anything themselves?” She got under the covers and turned to sleep. “God, why me?”
…
The next day, she finally met Dakota personally. He’d never had a muse before, and, of course, was slightly spooked by her presence.
“Who are you and why the fuck are you in my room?!” he yelled, brandishing a old wooden baseball bat.
“Listen, I’m Angeline, I’m…could you please put the bat down?”
“Why?? How did you get in here?! Don’t come any closer!”
She took a step toward him, “Come on, try it. I dare you.”
Closing his eyes, he swung the bat toward her, missing her but startling her enough to send her tumbling backwards and on to the floor.
“You’re one of the first people to actually swing,” she said as she pushed herself up from the floor.
“Gah…are you…ok? I didn’t…hit you…did I? I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said, showing concern.
“You can’t hurt me, I’m already dead, ok?”
Suddenly his face turned ghostly white. “You’re…what?”
“Wait…fuck. Ok, hold on, let me explain. My name is Angeline. I’ve been assigned as your muse. You have talent, Dakota, and I’m here to help you write that story you’ve been working on.”
“You’re…a muse? Muses are real? They’re not just some artists lame explanation for what gives them inspiration? But you’re dead….what? If you’re dead why are you here? And why don’t you…I don’t know, have wings or something. A halo? Scars from however you died?...How did you die, anyway?”
Angeline smacked her forehead. “Would you really like it better if I came here in white flowing robes with big downy wings and spoke of your glory in tongues?”
Dakota smirked, “Actually, you really, really look nice in those jeans.”
Angeline paused. “This proves it,” she thought, “my entire eternity is doomed to helping frustrated teens get over their hormones and create something more than sperm.”
“Ok, so why don’t you stop staring and go get some paper.”
“…Now?”
“Yes…now,” she shrugged. “You have half an hour before you have to leave for work, we can get something done in that time.”
After 30 minutes, a story had begun to take form. The characters that for months had been floating around in Dakota’s troubled mind now began to take substance through metaphor, and his epic of good vs. evil poured into print under the title of “Second Eden.” As he began to, with his new inspiration, start the second chapter, suddenly his dad banged against the door.
“Quick, get out of here, I don’t want him seeing you.”
“That’s ok, he can’t…you’re the only one who—”
“Please, just go, ok?”
As he turned to say goodbye, his new companion was nowhere to be seen. His dad burst in.
“Why the hell aren’t you at work yet? You’re an hour late?” His breath reeked of alcohol.
“But…I’m not, I still have five minutes. I ride my bike now, it doesn’t take as long.”
His eyes narrowed and he glanced at the papers which consumed Dakota’s desk.
“You’ve been wasting your time on that writing crap, haven’t you?”
“Dad…”
“Haven’t you?!” he yelled, grabbing his papers and attempting to read them through his bloodshot eyes.
“Please, stop!” he said, trying to reclaim his unfinished brainchild.
“Eden? Biblical crap, huh? Bah,” he said as he ripped the papers in half and threw them on the floor. “Go to work, be a man, not a pansy artist.”
Dakota quickly shoved the ripped papers in his backpack and rushed downstairs and out the door. From outside his window, Angeline saw the whole thing, and held back tears. Staying close behind, but out of sight, she followed him to work. As he locked up his bike, he held back his tears.
“Dakota…I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t want you to see that. That’s the reason I can’t write. If everything I ever do he immediately destroys, how can you ever help me? If I had left early, he wouldn’t have caught me. If I had just kept everything inside, just like every other time, then nothing would have happened, then—”
“Then you would have continued being miserable and you’d never finish your story.”
He looked her straight into the eye, but said nothing.
“I’m sorry, ok?” she said as she turned and left, disappearing behind the next passing car.
…
“God,” she said as she closed the barely functional door to her run down apartment and sat beside her roommate. “He really doesn’t care about what happens to us, to them, to anyone, does He?”
Gabrielle frowned. “Bad day…again?”
Angeline pointed to the open page of the file, to the case #293847, Dakota Makenze, and glossy eyes that had brought her to tears. “I…I don’t think I can do it.”
“You were assigned to him for a reason, and you know it. As weird as it sounds now, you must still have faith.”
“Faith? In what? A God that took my life? A boy who can’t accomplish anything because he’s too goddamned afraid to stand up to his father?”
“You used to love to write. That’s why you became a muse. When you died, you couldn’t make your stories anymore, but you can still help others realize what they’re trying to say. He needs help. He needs your help.”
“But today went so horribly. I don’t think….I just don’t know that to do…”
The road to God is neither one of faith or glory; it’s one of broken asphalt lightless streetlamps. When she arrived at the small run down building at the end of the road, she calmly stated her name and her business, and just like the rest of humanity, she then sat and waited.
“Come in,” a voice finally said, and she slowly walked into the office and toward the large desk and the infinitely long “In” pile beside the rather impoverished “Out” pile.
“I’m sorry, I’m too busy being ‘middle management’ right now.”
Angeline turned several shades redder and bowed her head. “I’m sorry…I was…angry.”
“You still are,” He paused, “but, God forgives all, right?”
She kept her head down and stared at the glazed eyes in the photo.
“Gabrielle was right, I assigned you to Dakota for a reason, and I’m not going to reassign you. He’s your case.”
“But!”
“Angeline,” he shrugged, “as much as you hate it, you have to do this. I’m giving you a month, go.”
Angeline decided to take the long way home. She kicked an old can that someone had abandoned on the street as she slowly made it toward the familiar fire escape.
“I didn’t know the dead could still be abandoned by God.”
…
The next morning, she made the long trek back to Dakota’s room. The stormy clouds kept the morning light from shining through his dusty window.
“My dad’s not home…we might be able to get something accomplished.”
“I’m really sorry about the other day…I still want to help you though.”
He sat up in bed and looked at her. “I know you do; maybe that’s why I like you so much.”
Over the next few days, Eden became more of a paradise, and Dakota’s story started to reach a close, despite the ill wishes of his father.
After 3 more days they were finally on the last chapter of the story. Battles had been won and lost, wars had been fought, love had been found, it seemed all was nearly over. However, Dakota’s own life was not working out as picturesque.
“If you don’t open up that door right now…” his dad bellowed.
Frantically Dakota shoved the pages of scribbles under his bed. “Leave, now!”
“I won’t. You need to stand up to him, you won’t be able to finish unless you stand up to him.”
“I…I can’t.”
Suddenly the door burst open. Dakota shot her a glance, but then realized she couldn’t be seen by anyone else. She mouthed the words “I’ll be here, it’s ok. Now’s your chance”
“You were writing again, wasting your time on nothing?”
“Just because you failed at your dreams doesn’t mean I will too, Bill,” he said, straightening his back to his father.
“I feed you, I clothe you, and this is the thanks I get?”
“I pay for our rent, our water, and you waste all my money on your fucking booze. Where’s the thanks?”
“Why you ungrateful little…” The man swung his fist hard toward Dakota, knocking him against his bed.
“I don’t need to take this.” He threw his beer bottle against the wall, and stormed downstairs before the shards of glass even snowed against the floor.
“Dakota!” Angeline screamed as she noticed his bloodied nose and lip.
“It’s been worse, at least this time he left to go get drunk somewhere. But face it, there’s no chance for me, mkay? Just go spend your time on some other poor hopeless kid, one who doesn’t work nights.”
“You know you don’t want that. I know you don’t want that.”
He fished the papers out from under the bed. “Just take these, ok? Maybe someone else can finish them.”
“But your ending, you almost had it finished.”
Dakota walked down the hall toward the sole working bathroom, not caring to hear any more of the ‘wisdom’ shared by his muse.
The next few days, Angeline again sunk into her melancholy state, never leaving home.
“No matter what I do,” she confessed to her two roommates, “my life is doomed to mediocrity. Dakota could have created something beautiful, something special, but no, he gave up, and we’re both stuck in our miserable little lives.”
Michael threw Dakota’s story on the table. “It’s right there. You knew the ending. Finish it. You’re doing no good just sitting on your ass and feeling sorry for the whole goddamned universe.”
Looking to Gabriella for a tone of support, Angeline was disappointed when she found none.
“What? I agree with him, I’m tired of it.”
Angeline picked up the story and thought of the boy she felt she had betrayed. Her fingers began to twitch with excitement, and before she knew it she was writing “The End” to what she felt was the greatest musing she had ever taken part in.
Gabriella smiled. “Feel better now?”
…
The next morning, Dakota awoke to find the manuscript of his first completed novel, and an envelope from a university. By his desk sat his returned salvation, Angeline.
“I couldn’t leave you like that,” she paused and motioned toward the letter. “I haven’t read the letter yet, open it.”
Dakota sat up in bed and slowly tore through the seal.
“They read my story…they want to give me a scholarship so I can major in English and write for their literary magazine…Why did you do this for me?”
She smiled, “you did just as much for me; you helped me write again.”
They said their goodbyes and Angeline returned home, feeling for the first time in a while like her job was actually worth doing. After sitting down on the sofa, she noticed a letter addressed to her sitting on the table. She opened it.
“Looks like I was right, wasn’t I?
Signed,
Middle Management.”
As Angeline started to laugh, Michael gave her a puzzled expression. She handed him the note. “God works in mysterious ways."