Following on from last week's story, here is part two of the story written by Baz Knowles.

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DESCENDING ANGELS Part Two:

“It’s alright flying by the seat of your pants, but if you don’t wear any…’ ”.

The man ponders for a while, then “Oh! lots, you know when you finally,. you  know….is it painful, nobody said anything about it before so I was a bit worried about it.”

Jophiel turns to him “What do you mean painful, it’s not painful when you cross over like you are doing, at home, when you’re asleep. It can be if you get knocked down or run over or bumped off violently by your wife.  In your case it wouldn’t have surprised me a bit.”

The man looks craftily at Jophiel “I do have a question or two as it ‘appens. When I was doing me National service, in the  RAF you know, I always wanted to fly, well…,  will I get my wings when I qualify and…. er … women ..are the women, er, amenable…  you know?”

Chamuel looks at Raphael and says quietly “He really is an ‘orrible little man, I can’t think why he was chosen,  I know that the almighty has his reasons and we are not allowed to question them but, in his case..!

He looks down on the man,” You only get wings when you get qualified .We can’t have every Tom, Dick and Harry flying around the universe without any proper training can we? As for the other question, you will have no need of such temptations, you will be free of all your earthly desires.”

The man looks crestfallen, “What, you mean no ….. you know….?”

Raphael turns to Chamuel, “Chamuel, you must learn to be more patient, passing over can come as a bit of a shock to some people, particularly if they are not expecting it. We have to obey orders

and make sure that he is ready for the selection process - that doesn’t mean he will be chosen because ‘MANY ARE CALLED BUT FEW ARE CHOSEN’,  Hee-Hee”.

Jophiel consults his time oracle. “I am getting worried about the time element involved here. Can we get on? If you have no more questions let us help prepare you and tell you a little bit more of your circumstances.

Your Guardian Angel- they do all the work down here- has submitted this report about you and your activities. Now, looking at your CV, it says here that you were in the army, not a brylcream boy, but these newer Guardians can’t get anything right. I find the rest of it unbelievable but I suppose ‘Mick’ knows what he’s doing, he’s been doing it for a million years or so, although  they do say that he made a mess of the ‘Cain’ business -  got him and ‘Abel’ mixed up and selected the wrong one but that was in the early days.”

Raphael looks apprehensive. “Shush’. You know you are not supposed to mention that, Michael was only an Angel then, that was before he got promoted..

The man looks modestly down, “Mmm…I wouldn’t need to hide,  though I say it myself, my wife has had nothing to complain about in that department, so she says, but I  don’t like the idea of taking my clothes off in front of strangers…..”

“Oh, do be quiet and stop interrupting” mutters Chamuel. “You will then be cleansed of all earthly things, thoughts and wishes, physical afflictions and desires and then you will be ready for your first interview with the panel. They will want to know what your earthly good deeds were and how those experiences can best be used to help others left behind.

I am Chamuel, and basically, I’m responsible for love, a bit hard with you lot sometimes but we grin and bear it, Raphael, over there, is in charge of your particular case but is also overall in charge of healing and Jophiel does the wisdom bit, usually very jolly, but he got a bit of altitude sickness on the way here ……”.

Descending Angels

A short story      by       Baz Knowles.

Originally aired on BBC Radio 4 March 2009

Click here to go straight on to Part Three