DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Gabriel

Hi, my name is Gabriel, and I am in love with life.  I love my sister, Gabriella, my Australian Shepard, Garry, and The Family Guy reruns on the WGN.  I also love volunteering- in high school I was an encouraged rep of William McKinley’s High School’s Life Be in It program.  We do things like help at food pantries, visit local animal shelters, and spend quality time at nursing homes with the residents.  My favorite thing to do as a seventeen-year-old was to go to the nursing home that was a few blocks away from the university I wanted to attend.  When I first got there, there were residents hanging out in front of the building, smoking- as they weren’t allowed to smoke inside. 

The one thing that I didn’t appreciate until I got to be older (as an arch angel and a teenager) was what goes on inside of places like these.  The second I stepped out of the van door; I was spotted.  One of the residents’ eyes got big and he dropped his cigarette, a sign that he saw my wings and/or halo.  Usually those that see my wings see them when it is dark out, and those that can see my halo can see it when they are on their deathbed.  Both were applicable to the atmosphere of a nursing home.  When we visited a hospice unit a few weeks earlier, I read out loud to a cancer patient whose eyes teared at the blinding light of my halo.  It usually gets stronger when I feel sympathy, anger or sadness towards a situation, and the little girl was going to die in a matter of months, so I could imagine why she could see it as bright as it was. 

“They are blue,” the middle-aged man I later learned was named Ralph at the door said.

I looked around in disbelief.  I had to hide the truth. 

“What…what are blue?”  I asked, shoving my hands in my pockets.

“Your wings.  The last angel that came here had red ones.”

A breeze ruffled through the bushes.

“My roommate who goes to church every Sunday said that if they are purple, something is going to happen- in which an angel’s help is needed.”

“So, I guess that makes me chopped liver,” I said, smiling.

“Who knows,” he said.  “Maybe James Kolly.”

“Who is James Kolly?” I asked, trying to show concern.

“He is the director of the nursing home,” the man said.  “For Halloween he was a devil.  You know, with horns and a tail.  Someone made a joke about him really being the devil, and they got put on shut down for a week.  I guess the mentally ill don’t have a say in what should be considered a joke and what not to joke about.”

A woman dressed in red with a name tag walked through the front door and up to the group of volunteers that I had strayed away from.

“Some of the delusional residents swear the costume was a good fit.”

Josephina, my girlfriend and fellow undercover angel, and I, turned towards each other, a second after the thunder struck through the sky.  Thunder when there is no rain means that something towards the great mysteries in heaven has been solved- an element of what we are trying to figure out to achieve Utopia. 

“Interesting,” I said, sticking my hand out to his.  “And what is your name?”

“John,” he said, “And yours?”

“Gabriel.” 

John shook my hand.

“Well, Gabriel, how about some Sunday afternoon Bingo?” he said.

“Sounds good to me,” I said, following the volunteer group inside.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.