DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

6/14/20

Dunkin Donuts XV

Summer school was starting today.  I could fee the heat penetrate the pavement on my way to Dunkin Donuts.  I was planning on purchasing a small iced coffee with some hazelnut syrup.  My favorite. 

Could I feel the heat on the ground because I was an angel in training?  I liked to think so. 

My phone was in my left pocket.  My new favorite song “Broken,” by Lund, was playing for the sixty-seventh time in the past two days.  I had been counting. 

So, what does the role of an angel in training entail?  I have been in contact with many an angel, so that I could get a sense of the field.  The other day, in my dreams, I attended a hearing in which I testified to tell the truth of aliens visiting earth.  I have had experience with many a people, and angels, that are associated with heaven.  What I really wanted to see, lately, though, was someone from hell.  Someone from that opposite dimension, what lay beyond the borders, under Earth, as heaven, metaphorically, of course, sat above Earth.  Little did I know that my wish would soon be fulfilled. 

I sat in my favorite chair in the Dunkin Donuts.  My phone read 7:01AM.  I slouched my green messenger bag, one that I have had since I was fifteen years old, over the corner of the orange chair that I then sat in.  I took out my sketch book, opened it to the thirteenth page, and, beyond my apprehension and consciousness, waited for something to happen.  And that was when he walked in. 

He looked a good half-foot taller than me.  He had black hair that would have been curly had it not been shaved so close the head.  I could see the slight waviness in the obvious need for a haircut.  He opened the door as his eyes glanced from inside the backpack, that he held in both his hands, to me.  He took a ten-dollar bill out of the pocket, smiled at me, and stood in front of the counter.  The clerk and he talked, and in a couple of moments, he walked up to me, placed one of the two iced coffees in front of me.  He slid back the chair, sat in it, and locked eyes with me.

“You can never get enough caffeine in the morning,” he said, resting his elbow on the corner, placing his face in his hand.

I placed the straw in the cup and took a sip.  “But I am allergic to caffeine,” I said.  “I always get decaf.”

“Oh, my mistake,” he said.  “There sometimes are glitches when stuff gets sent to the second level of hell.”

“WHAT?”  I asked, almost yelling.

“Do you want another coffee?”  he asked.  “Maybe we can talk about it.”

“No, I’m okay, but I would still like to talk,” I said. 

“Ok, then,” he said, taking in a deep breath.  “Where do you want to start?”

I closed my sketchbook just as he took notice of it.

“What’s your name?”  I asked.

“Michael,” he said.  “But that’s not important.  Names don’t matter, it’s where I am from that counts.”

“…. Where are you from, then?”  I asked, “Besides…the second part of hell.”

“There are three levels of hell, and one of heaven.  But we are looking to change that.  The angels are looking for someone to start up the second level of heaven.  And the three levels of hell are just as they sound:  the deeper, the worse.”

“How is that possible?”  I asked.  “That seems so untraditional.”

“The first level is traditional, as you say.  It’s where you go if you did something that didn’t get into heaven.”

The beeping of a car filled the store as the door swung open.  A couple entered, so Michael lowered his voice a bit.

“The second level of hell is where one goes when they screwed other people beyond that of the first level.  It’s where you go when you could have prevented a tragedy, but instead decide to do something selfish.”

He took my sketchbook and opened it to the back page.  He took a pencil out of his bag and got to work on my angel/demon textbook.

“And the….”

He lowered his voice even more.

“…third level of hell… is the place no one talks about.  It is where true evil resides.  It’s something incomprehensible, that is too difficult to fathom.”

“So, you are from the…second level of hell?  Why did you go there?”

His eyes turned blood shot.  He ran his hand over his head.

“I knew that someone convicted of a terrible crime didn’t do it and left before I could help.  It’s stuff like that….”

He looked over his shoulder towards the store window as a crashing noise penetrated the air.  I could see two cars collide outside.  Then he turned back to me. 

“Anyways, I am trying to get promoted up to the first level, so I volunteered to introduce myself.”

I wanted to ask him what he was doing here.  I wanted to ask him what he was drawing in my book.  But most importantly I wanted to ask him….

“Why am I so important?  Why do I keep on getting visited by these beings, in a Dunkin Donuts?  What do you want from me?”

“All in due time,” he said.  “But to be honest, the thing that attracted me to your energy as I walked in was that…you don’t question things in the celestial field.  It’s like you belong with us.”

He slid the book back to me. 

“Got to go,” he said.  “It was nice meeting you.”  He picked up his bag, slid the chair in, and smiled at me, his left dimple showing.  As soon as he walked out the door, I looked in my sketchbook, where he drew his name.  The letters were divided in the three levels, horizontally, like something off the side of a garage door.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.