Free On Unfaithful Wings by Bruce Blake

Gabe slipped into my pocket shrank significantly over the next few hours, swallowed up by a nice hotel, eating well, and more presentable clothing. I considered purchasing company to keep a weighty blanket of loneliness from smothering me, but I didn’t think it would work. Nor did I think angels would appreciate their money being used for such purpose.
    I lay on the bed watching time crawl by and probably looked at the words on the parchment a hundred times debating what to do.
    Alfred Topping
    817 Alpha Street
    October 17, 10:47pm
    To: 10485 Pullman Rd.
    Who Alfred Topping was and exactly what would happen at 10:47pm at 817 Alpha Street occupied much of my thoughts and I actually appreciated it distracting me. Without it to focus on, I’d have spent more time thinking about Trevor and Gabe’s words that kept me from seeking him out: “You are dead to Trevor, Icarus. Your only way back to him is through the salvation of others.”
    The minutes dragged by. I flicked the TV on, turned it off, read he scroll,paced the room, picked up the phone to dial Rae’s number and set it back in the cradle after listening to the dial tone for a minute, read the scroll again. Paced. Paced some more. Finally, the time approached. Soon I’d find out if this was unbelievably real or if I’d gone off the deep end sans water wings.
    Excitement quickened my pace as I headed toward 817 Alpha Street--a bit of a walk from my hotel. The new Levi’s purchased with Gabe’s windfall were infinitely more comfortable than suit pants soaked by rain, dipped in mud, bled on and washed in a machine instead of dry-cleaned. I zipped up the equally new jacket--charcoal gray to be stylish and to blend--and checked the time.
    Fifteen minutes.
    According to the scroll, Alfred Topping would die at exactly 10:47 p.m. A name, a time, two addresses; it didn’t seem like enough information. How would I recognize him? What should I do when I got there? How would he die? When I died, no one came to harvest my soul, so I didn’t have any example, nothing to use as a guide. Exactly how did one harvest a soul? I felt nervous and unprepared, like most people starting a new job and, believe me, I’d started at least my share of new jobs over the years, a direct result of losing a lot of them. It felt like Gabe had left me standing in a crowd with my pants around my ankles. Not a bad situation if someone like her accompanied me with her pants around her ankles, too. No such luck.
    “She’s an angel, moron.”
    I should have felt bad thinking such thoughts about an angel--the Archangel Gabriel, no less--but I didn’t. Still a chance she’d prove a figment of my imagination, a touch of insanity. The closer I got to 817 Alpha Street, the more convinced I became that this would be the evidence to prove the whole thing a hoax or hallucination. Maybe the entire episode was a mirage, a way for my blood-deprived brain to deal with death, like Tim Robbins in Jacob’s Ladder , one of my favorite fucked-up movies.
    Ten minutes.
    I stood outside the prescribed address, gaping up at the buzzing neon sign proclaiming it a twenty-four hour gym. Unoriginally enough: Rocky’s 24 Hour Fitness Center. The letters R and n were burnt out, so the sign actually read ‘ocky’s 24 Hour Fit ess Center’, but I got the gist. I rested my hand on the door handle of the glass and aluminum door, felt its chipped red paint in my grip, but stopped before opening it. The electric taste of nerves flooded my mouth with saliva and I thought I might lose my dinner.
    What if it’s all real?
    A deep breath shuddered hesitantly into my lungs but did little to settle me. Nothing to do but treat it like bad-tasting medicine--get it over with. I went through the door into the closet-sized entryway which smelled unsurprisingly of sweat and old shoes. Signs tacked to a corkboard announced times for pilates classes and schedules for boot camps and other fitness activities in which I’d never partaken.