Historical April 1989 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
The Angel of Death touched his sweet lips to the body and silently moved on to another household. Robert had been in bed, sleeping, and never knew when his life ended.
His wife, Carmen, thought that she heard a noise in the bedroom, and opened her eyes ever so slightly, but she saw nothing.
The Angel of Death is, after all, invisible to mortals.
In another part of town, more upscale, the Angel of Death entered a high-rise next to the river.
He used neither door nor window to come in to the apartment, and his entrance left the Brinks security system undisturbed.
The Angel floated through two walls and stopped at the foot of the bed.
There were two youngsters in the bed, silently sleeping. Their chests raised and lowered at a fairly quick pace.
It had been a busy day, full of baseballs and skateboards.
The child on the left wore a red t-shirt with “St. Louis Cardinals” written in white letters on it.
The Angel stopped for what seemed forever but was really only a few seconds, and looked at both children. Then he turned to his right and went through a wall into the parents’ bedroom.
Without hesitating, he lowered his body next to the mother and gently touched her lips with his.
Her body shuddered as she took a deep halting breath, and her heart stopped. Silently, the Angel left. Millions of dreams away, in a room where clouds formed the floor, walls, and ceiling, the Angel of Death’s Advisory Board sat around a table drinking DietCoke and smoking cigars.
The Advisory Board was a small group, made up of three individuals.
On the left sat an older man with a bright red mustache and a bald head.
He wore a black pin-striped suit, with a shirt opened at the collar and a big gold chain around his neck.
The other two people at the table were women, one young and one much older.
The younger woman, sitting on the left, wore a long white gown with a black satan belt.
The woman on the right, by far the oldest of the three at the table, wore a pink jogging outfit, with new Adidas shoes. Almost in unison, as if it had been choreographed, each member of the Angel’s Advisory Board inhaled deeply on their cigar and, without pausing, took a big gulp of their Diet Coke.
The man and the younger woman were both waiting for the ,older woman in the jogging suit to speak.
The Angel of Death was in another city by now.
He looked down on a street choking with too many cars and buses.
It was the early morning rush hour, and the sound of hundreds of horns and sets of brakes was exceeded only by the thousands of grimaces and frowns on the drivers’ faces.
The Angel reached into his body, pulled out a 3 x 5 card, and read what was written: “AY5 345, red ’77 Pinto, WM:’ Using his contextual vision and ability to transfer time into space, within a second the Angel had found the car in question and entered the front seat.
Without a sound, the Angel now sat next to Jim Briggs, who was already angry because he would be late for an important meeting at work. Jim was wasting time worrying, for the Angel leaned over and caressed Jim’s lips with his own.
In a moment Jim’s car was on the side of the road and his body was slumped over the wheel, without life.
The traffic jam would be even worse now.
The lady in the pink jogging suit placed her can of Diet Coke on the table, exhaled a puff of blue-grey cigar smoke, and asked, “Well, what are we going to do?” There was a brief second of awkwardness as the other two began to talk at once, but the bald-headed man deferred to the younger lady in the long white gown. “It’s simple:’ she said, “we just begin to go alphabetically.
We use age, of course, but then we go by last names.
All of the A’s will die then the B’s and so on:’ “Impossible!” bellowed the bald-headed man.
His face was flushed with anger, and the veins in his neck turning a bright red. “For thousands of years we’ve taken the living by what they think is happenstance, and now you want us to use ALPHABETICAL ORDER? Are you crazy?” he shouted, squeezing his can of soda with both hands. “Now, now:’ spoke the older lady in the jogging suit, obviously playing the role of leader.
The younger woman and the man both took long puffs from their cigars.
The older woman continued, speaking in a soft and soothing voice, “We’ve been instructed to establish some kind of order to this transition business. It’s been nice, I’ll grant you, that up until now we’ve been able to decide who joins us, and at what time, all on our own.
Oh, I know, there’s a lot that even we can’t control, wars and natural disasters and the like, but you must admit, we’ve had a good deal of discretion for quite a bit of time:’ She paused and looked directly at her two table-mates.
Without a word they both nodded and took a long gulp of Diet Coke, as if on cue.
She blew a giant smoke ring and all three watched it waft upwards for a moment, expanding and growing fainter as it floated farther from the table. Then she continued, “As I see it, we still have discretion, but we have to provide some kind of a plan—a framework—to direct us. Age will always be the number 1 loading, but beyond that, He just wants to know how we’re making our choices!’ “What about social security numbers?” the man asked. “We could borrow the random-number selector from the Famine Department and pick our new arrivals that way:’ “Well then, how about lottery tickets?” wondered the younger woman, her eyes wide with excitement. “Enough’,’ said the chairwoman, her impatience showing as she began flicking cigar ashes on to the cloudy floor.
The younger woman and the man paused and the chairwoman continued, “Actually, I have a plan. You see, for several thousand years now, I’ve suspected that it would come to this sooner or later. Over time as the population has increased up here, He’s appointed more and more people to regulatory roles and to bureaucratic positions and that always creates fiefdoms and tensions. Remember that the Dark Ages were caused by that union-management squabble about who controlled telepathy!
So this comes as no surprise to me:’ It was dusk when the Angel entered the park.
The day had been one which would make any spring proud, and there were still a few hearty joggers and a biker or two trying to squeeze in some exercise before night came and the park was off-limits to people who made a living with their words.
The Angel floated to a corner where the jogging path made a hairpin turn and then he stopped, resting several feet above the ground.
A solitary jogger passed him, then two younger men running together, a lady walking a dog, and a teenager on a bicycle.
The Angel waited silently for his appointment.
The chairwoman crossed her legs, resting one of her new Adidas on her knee, and continued, “I propose that we decentralize, that’s the buzz-word now. I recommend that we just let the Angel choose who he wants, when he wants.
We simply review his performance each week, as we do now, but we make no assignments or set goals for each quarter as has been the case:’ “But this wouldn’t have any effect on how people were chosen for the transition:’ the younger woman responded, “and I thought that this was the purpose of the directive!’ She rubbed her hands back and forth on her white dress. “Won’t He be upset if that isn’t done?” “No, all He wants is a plan:’ the chairwoman said, “and our plan is to let the Angel choose his targets.
In a way, it’ll make our job much easier.
No more checking birthdates, medical records, and tallying to make sure that we don’t upset the balance downstairs. It’ll all be up to the Angel:’ There was a long silence and then, in unison, all three members of the Advisory Board placed their hands together in the center of the table so that they touched.
When their hands met, a small blue spark ran across all of their fingers. “And now:’ the chairwoman said, “on to the next agenda item:’ The Angel felt a small surge pass through him when they made the decision.
He had been listening to all of this, of course, and wasn’t surprised at the outcome.
The chairwoman had briefed him in the morning, and he was hoping that they would go along with her idea.
Since the beginning of time he had been taking orders; now the decisions would be up to him and him alone.
He allowed himself a smile, although his lips did not move.
The Angel’s concentration was broken by a loud noise.
He looked down and saw a car speeding through the park, its radio blaring.
He started to turn away—its occupants weren’t on his schedule—and then he remembered what had just taken place.
The Angel’s smile grew even larger and he began to approach the car.
He saw that it contained a driver and one passenger.
Without hesitating, the Angel reached into his body and pulled out a coin and flipped it, whispering “heads:’ The coin landed with tails facing up, and the Angel began to move closer to the lady in the passenger’s seat.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, April 1989.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1989_04.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
