III--The Boginning of the End

It’s gonna be over soon, huh? She’s supposed to die within the next week. It hasn’t been forever; I think we had one client we tended to for eighty years. It’s been almost thirty with this one. It really could’ve been longer.

Why does it feel like it’s been longer than that? I can’t remember the last time she took off her mask. It’s putrid.

It’s not even like much has been happening. Much hasn’t really been happening for the past fifteen years, maybe even more. Time feels longer when more is happening, right? After the Noise essentially become a hermit, things really quieted down. He doesn’t talk to anyone, only when he needs to. He thinks he’s too lowly to socialize, as if his horrid misdeeds will infect anyone who stands around him for long enough.

She’s a real dilemma. He certainly has morals and is less prone to prejudice than he used to. She’s poor and skittish, both afraid of others and herself. She saw the injustice that came with her lung cancer diagnosis and being unable to afford it—actually saw that one coming a mile away. He knows his economics… somewhat. There’s some kind of foundation for good, not a pure one, but I always saw potential in it.

But he does nothing. She’s been very scared lately, scared in a way I haven’t seen in any other point in her life. Part of that is the cancer, but just doing anything different than what he’s always done horrifies her. She thinks, "where do I even start?" or, “what’s it really worth?”, as if she doesn’t remember what she’s done. I know she remembers cause she still wears filthy thing. I mean, he doesn’t have much time for it now; he’s dying. But he could take the time to feed the stray cats he did decades ago, or say hello to a stranger. At least take that yellow mask off… I can’t remember the last time she washed it.

But he’s dying. He’s in deep. He really can’t do anything now. All she and I can do is wait.

I wish something happened, admittedly. This was a tough case; I’ve been given tough cases before and I was able to succeed at least something with them. It’s stupid to make her do anything now. It’s futile to simply shame a sick man for being sick. He understands my riddles, but I wish I talked to him more clearly. Maybe it would’ve helped if one of his old pals stuck with him to help him. She treated them all cruelly, but someone should’ve sensed she needed help besides me. He’s only so subtle with his self-loathing and his misery. Someone must’ve sensed it besides me. Besides, you can only improve so much when everyone around you doesn’t believe you can.

She is a rapist.

And you just can’t leave a rapist alone, can you, Bo? Doing nothing about a problem only makes it worse.

People did do something. They ran away. They ran away because he was hurting them and they told others he was hurting people.

But we can’t run away. You are attached to me and I have to do this job.

She raped me, Boby, raped our body. We should’ve worked towards ending the contract after that, filed a complaint, do something—anything!

She raped you, not me. I can tolerate this job. I was made to do this job so you could be safe, far away from the sheer exhaustion that this career brings.

You are me! I am you! And it took you years to believe it happened even though I told you!

...I’m sorry I didn’t believe such a thing could happen. I’ve never heard fellow angels discuss this, so I never considered it.

He scares you too. You always hold back around him. I remember when you would complain about him all the time. I may have that awful freeze response, but at least I can push myself to at least call it out in our mind!

I’m not an emotional being, Bo; I’m supposed to be like that.

You’re fluid outside, but frozen on the inside. So much for being productive.

Don’t worry, it will be over soon. Just a week more, and we’ll get a break.

I hope it passes by quickly—her death and this voice call with her friends.

It’s late out. Like always, she never goes to bed at a consistent time, but the fatigue got to her tonight and she tried to rest. It didn’t work out, but at least he tried. He responded to this issue with the same old solution, that being going online and praying the blue light knocks her out. Sometimes it’s a friend that helps, other times some horrible timeline. Same old stuff. At least he’s not dragging anyone down with him.

She feels a lot of things with this current friend group. They sure are loaded. They’re loaded in the exact same way the last three or four friend groups have been. They’re loaded in the same way that the Noise is loaded, albeit without having former notoriety and wealth. They talk about things that have repugnant connotations but mean nothing to me. And thank god they mean nothing to me. Thank god I’m the one who does this job.

The people she groups with don’t make her happy. It’s partially done out of obligation, as if she’s unfit to start over, as if every citizen knows her former wealth and all of her crimes. It’s a terrible, terrible fear, one of those fears that make you lock yourself up, too scared to even remember what the actual thing looks like. Not to mention he has, or at least once had, a fondness for appealing to the masses, so it really is quite paralyzing.

Yet she chuckles weakly as she sits in this call, her laughter always triggering a tight, wheezy cough. Apparently one of her friends said something humorous on call. I need not recite it in here; I don’t need to hear it again.

After he makes a futile attempt to clear his throat, he places his palm under his chin and initiates a rant, “why is everyone so two-faced?” His voice is gravely from decades of smoking. “The same jackasses online will have no problem with fursuiters fuckin’ and scream bloody murder at some dog dick dildo! And then they call for rehabilitative justice! Of course, their rehabilitative justice is backed by some puritanical agenda too. Fickle, they’re just fucking fickle.”

One of the people in the call, a woman, replies, “they’re always kids too. Kids and adults with nothing better to do.” She’s one to talk. He’s one to talk.

He furrows his brow. I could be doing something else right now, he thinks. I’m fucking dying; what even is there to do?

The Noise gets smug. “Hey man, I’m a grown dyke with nothing better to do; what about me?!”

The others laugh. The woman speaks again, “at least you don’t do that Nazi shit. You got your politics and you stick to them unlike them puritans. Besides, it’s better to acknowledge you’re a massive bum than to argue you’re not.”

That response comforts the Noise, and then hurts her a little. Still tiptoeing around that topic, are you, Thea?

“That, and I’m also fucking dying,” he then bursts into laughter that quickly devolves into a coughing fit. “Probably any day now, too,” she gags during her fit.

Everyone goes quiet. The Noise’s body aches more than usual.

A teenager, lathered in meekness, finally speaks up. “I-I uh, if you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine, but… we are worried about you.”

The aching gets worse. Is this finally it? No, that’s wishful thinking. There’s no need to wish.

The topic makes the Noise uncomfortable as it does with everyone else. He sighs, “I mean… there’s nothing I can do about it. I might as well rot in the same way I always have just so I have something familiar to look at when I keel over.”

“It’s not fair. Somebody could’ve saved you, they really could have,” the teenager replies.

Yet I didn’t.

The Noise starts to tear up, making the fluid in her lungs all the more suffocating.

In a good world she would’ve been saved. There would’ve been a good place for her to go and I would’ve known how to do it. I guess she doesn’t necessarily “deserve” it, but does anyone deserve a fate like this, to find solace in the same things that enabled this decay? Besides, if he wasn’t dying in the first place, everything around him is tempting him to repeat the cycle.

In a good world, she wouldn’t had done what she done.

That’s a perfect world, not a good one, Bo.

He would’ve known better, I mean. And we would’ve have been here for so long.

I’ve told him to know better, yet it never worked.

The Noise’s anguish bores into her head, making her head ache violently. “I’m not doing this right now,” he chokes.

“Thea, please! Don’t do this aga—”

She leaves the call and shuts her computer off, staring at her reflection on the blank screen. Her desk littered with tobacco.

I have to save her.

Why won’t you save me?

Not yet, Bo. The job isn’t up yet.

I manifest in the room, slithering in the air like smoke. I can’t think of anything to say. Can’t even put up a chipper persona. Perhaps he needs something grounded right now.

“What the hell is there even to talk about?” The Noise groans, not changing his position.

“I… It’s no good to leave a dying man alone.”

He swivels his chair to face away from me. She tries to build anger up in her body but it fails. “I suppose there’s nothing else to do.”

“Better to talk in a room than through a wire.”

The Noise strains himself as he tries to get up from his chair, as if he was getting crushed by a boulder, but he manages to get up. He keeps his head turned away from me. “You’re the only good person I get to talk to. I might as well make the most of it.” She gestures for me to follow her into the living room of her apartment.

Exiting one filthy room to enter another. Despite the whole place being crammed with so many details that say so much about her, there’s nothing to say. With every step she further crumples every littered cigarette she’s left on the floor and stepped on before. Nothing is really new here. His amps are caked with dust, so are her collection of figurines and used sketchbooks. To some people, her smell of her home reeks of their childhood. To her, it reeks of her entire life. At least he isn’t a hoarder.

She plops onto her lumpy couch out of exhaustion. After taking a moment to breathe, one of her arms crawls towards a half empty water bottle she left on the side table a couple days ago and drinks it.

“You’re omniscient. Tell me when I’m gonna die,” she requests bluntly after drinking.

“I don’t know precisely when, but it will be within this week.”

“Seriously? I’m in pretty deep right now. It feels like any day now could be my last.” He coughs a little and lays in uncomfortable silence.

“It is quite a bit of time. Do you have any ideas on how to kill it?”

He weakly smiles. “That’s a trick question. Go ahead and answer it.”

That’s… not what I was going for. I guess I’ll play along a little.

“I think some chit-chat will suffice for tonight.”

“I’ll take that.” He pauses to think for a moment. “I’m trying to think of how I’d like to die.”

I’d like you to die any moment now.

Hush.

“Well,” I begin. “I know you’ll be bedbound when it happens whether you’ll like it or not.”

He laughs, but not happily. “I better have some good porn on when the time comes.”

“Tending for tenderness, I see,” I say cheekily.

“It’s what you taught me the most.”

I hate him. He’s hurting you too, admit it!

Not now.

When will it be now?

Definitely not now!

He looks away wistfully, smiling gently. “I can’t believe it, honestly. You’ve been the only consistent thing in my life, despite being so cryptic. You got a good soul, dare I say innocent.”

Please, no no… not again…

It won’t happen. Just get out of here, Bo.

She continues, “not many people can find themselves trustin’ a former millionaire cheapskate even after they’ve entered a deep, deep hole of despair.”

He’s hiding, hiding under that mask, as if that hides anything. It’s bothersome.

I furrow my brow and take a moment to build up confidence for a response. “W-what about Noisette?”

She gets a terrible sharp feeling in her chest, and it pangs inside mine as well. I can’t tell if she fears my question or the cancer. Despite it, she’s smiling so blissfully, as if the sun was kissing her so tenderly and the birds were singing for her.

“She’s alright. She worked on herself to end the relationship. At least she’s okay.”

No. She can’t be. I can’t say that. I can’t. He’s gonna do it again.

No, he won’t. I won’t let it happen.

Leaving me was a bitch move, but I at least they’ve been with me all this time, he thinks.

And you’ve kept me imprisoned! I’m stuck here. I’m stuck here because of you. Spending another day with you would be another eternity of hell. Please… I need this to end.

Just a wait little more, Bo.

“You’re frustrated with her, aren’t you?” I blurt out. “What about the others?”

Despite the weight of my words, he keeps smiling. “S-so what? Some of them are probably dead now. I moved away from them, I did my half. T-they were complicated issues—,” she pauses to cough, “no one’s a saint!”

She won’t hurt me. She can’t hurt me. Stay strong.

“Are you sure that half was a half?”

“I’m fucking dying; is there really time to ruminate on something I can’t fix?”

“B-but, I just want to make sure—”

“They were asking for it.”

I freeze. I can’t do anything.

I’m gonna do it.

He leans towards me and softly places a cold hand onto my tiny hip. Her smile grows, unveiling a devious, toothy grin paraded by rotting teeth. She caresses my stomach with her thumb. “Besides, you’re the only one who can keep a secret.”

No more, please! NOT AGAIN! IT WON’T HAPPEN AGAIN!

I take control as the rage boils within our body, folding my body inward as the stress bombards through every nerve. No. This ends now.

I snap upright and fling my bared hands at his neck, letting my fingers phase through his flesh. I concentrate my fingers to press against the veins in her neck, using all the force in my body to squeeze the veins until they became too narrow to circulate. The Noise wheezes helplessly as he attempts to raise his limbs in defense up to no avail. The only thing she can muster herself to do is cough up some bloody phlegm that crawls down her chin before collapsing from suffocation. I let her fall back onto the couch, her body now lifeless.

She’s dead. It’s over.

I heave to help my body settle down, still filled with distress. It’s over now. It’s okay, it’s over now. It’s—

She’s still smiling.

Tears fill my eyes. My throat strains itself in despair, begging me to let it wail, but I simply can’t make myself do it. I’m trapped.

I’m trapped and I’m the only one who knows his secret now.

Another client done with, and apparently he was a tough one. Everyone’s shaken up about it, especially Bo. It’s a real shame that I’m the one who never really remembers those kinds of things, though I sure have tried to do so. Since nobody’s really given me the scoop either, it’s gonna be hard to scrape up any material for this debriefing if it ever gets dire.

Should be any minute now I stop waiting in this room of pure light to be called into another room of pure light. Light, light, light, brighter than any demon or human could tolerate, so incomprehensible that it circles to being utterly boring. I can sure live in a boring world, but I can’t fathom why God would do so little with the ginormous spectrum of light. I suppose we angels just simply love being professional, whatever that means. How much can it really mean when we don’t bother to revise our etiquette when needed?

“Beauregard of 6666, Mr. Gertrude of 111 would like to see you,” the secretary crows. That ain’t my name, but she’s certainly talking about me.

I head over to our employers office, a very unnoteworthy trip on account of it being so short. I thrust the large door to the office open and take a seat in the small, obsessively streamlined room.

“Welcome, Beauregard. There’s no need for small talk; I’ll get straight to the report,” Mr. Gertrude drones before perusing through said report on his computer. “You weren’t able to convert Mr. Gutierrez. If anything, your output is more… how do I say this? It’s more trobling than usual.”

He doesn’t usually get reluctant with these reports.

“According to the report, the session was ended prematurely. Mr. Gutierrez was projected to pass a couple days before you killed him.”

Killed? Despite keeping my composure, the shock flows through my body.

He continues, “now, you aren’t the first person to do this; I’m sure you know that. As much as the topic is contentious, we’re one of the few standing organizations that still allows our workers to conduct Premature Client Dispatching… within a warranty period. That warranty period passed about a decade ago.”

This ain’t good.

“I’m not one for contesting,” I begin nervously, “but Mr. Gutierrez was going to pass soon, anyway. Only so much can be accomplished in two decades, let alone two days! What necessarily is so different from dispatching him then versus doing so during the dispatch period?”

He chuckles. “You certainly know the protocol for final stage of a session, don’t you? Regardless of your experience with the client, you must provide a soothing presence until their last undoctored breath. It’s a sensitive stage, one that could really sell the whole package! Nothing makes a human want to believe like the obelisk of death! Once they believe, they become one of us, and we get a nice employment rate, so on and so forth.”

I suppose I can play it a little coyly.

“PCD is uhm, no light violation, despite some protections. Am I going to court or… something of that sort?”

“Oh no no, we’re simply firing you. If we kept you employed despite the violation, then it would get the court on us.”

“A-ah, oh.”

We’ve done nothing else besides this job. Two hundred years of working, two centuries of purpose. Where else is there to go?

Don’t be drab. It’s not the worse case scenario, at least. I think.

“That’s all that needed to be covered. Go on and clean out your living quarters. Good luck with job searching.”

He’s known me for as long as I can remember, and he’s simply brushing me off. That’s… disappointing. I thought he had at least a little bit of fondness for me, just a little… after all this time.

I make my leave and flutter down the hall to my living quarters, trying not to dwell on what the future will look like. Well, at least there’s not much to miss here—emotionally, that is.

As I make my way through long stretches of radiant hallways, I overhear the chatter of our coworkers.

“Can you believe they fired Beauregard? I never thought I’d see the day!”

“There’s no way. What could have possibly prompted it?”

“Apparently he did a PCD.”

I hear them gasp.

“I know we’re allowed to do it but… who in their right mind enacts a PCD? It’s unethical, just like every other thing about heaven!”

“I mean, we all can only do so much about our situations, but the thing we certainly control is not enacting a fucking PCD!”

One coworker who has been quiet the whole conversation finally makes a comment. “I swear it’s angels like Beauregard who end up doing things like that.” They pause. “O-okay okay, that’s just what I heard… but if you keep hearing somethin’ like that, it has to mean something.”

“No no, I get it. There’s something about the guy that always seemed… wrong to me. Like I’m not supposed to be looking at them or something. As if—”

My coworkers notice suddenly stop speaking once they notice my presence. I’ve been trying to act naive and simply make my way down the hall, but… I suppose I’m more of a nuisance than I reckon I am. I turn to look at them, their faces wide-eyed and pretending to be blank. They’re uncomfortable.

One of them speaks up, tries to play it cool. “Hey man, I heard about you getting fired. Tough luck, I’m sorry.”

I frown and look away. “I-it’s tough, but I’ll figure something out.”

And I continue my trip. And they continue talking, talking about something I don’t even know the full story of. There’s no opportunity to smooth talk and even if there was, would it really do anything? Maybe one of us did it for some cruel reason, and I have to play dumb for some awful side of me. And I’ll never know.

I’m just a devil’s advocate.