Page 7 of Angels Fall

And as I stop to ponder this, he slaps me across the face.

“Yo! Wake up, bitch! There’s decisions to be made.”

Seriously! A dick!

“So, whatcha say, man? You got two choices. Head back to earth, do right by Maddie Clayton, get her to forgive you for all the fucked-up shit you’ve done, remind her why she fell in love with you in the first place before you turned into no-show Johnson, and basically Adam-and-Eve paradise back into being—”

“Wait. Whatayou mean Adam-and-Eve paradise back into—?”

“I’m using it as a verb, bro! Like how Adam and Eve ruined the Garden of Eden with their Original Sin and all that shit? YOU and MADDIE can reverse that through the power of your eternal connection. You can make a heaven-on-earth for yourselves. Or whatever. I dunno. The whole Adam and Eve story is actually bullshit. If they had really been around back then, dinosaurs woulda eaten ’em for fuckin’ lunch, but I’m trying to employ a myth that will make sense to your tiny human brain. Look. Stop complicating the simple. I’m just sayin’… fix what you broke with Maddie, NO MATTER THE COST. Hell, you can fuck like a couple of incarcerated rabbits on conjugal visit day if you want, I don’t care—just make it right. OR be a huge fuckin’ pussy and stay here for eternity helping rebuild this Me-forsaken mess.” He gestures to the rubble around us. “Choice seems pretty clear to me.”

I shake my head. “This isn’t happening. This can’t be real.”

“What’s real, homes? Reality is a construct. It’s only real if it feels real to you. And what you’ve done to Maddie sure as shit feels real to her. So… ball’s in your court.”

I hang my head, ashamed. “I don’t know if I can face her again. After what I did. I… I’m not sure I can…”

I sigh. He takes a breath and lifts my bearded chin with his hand.

“Hey. Look at me.” I meet his eyes, reluctantly. They’re kind. He smiles a tiny smile and says, “Not everything is always about you, bro.”

I take a beat. I breathe in deeply. Then I nod.

“That’s my boy!” He shouts. “Cool. Alright, G, so I’ll go ahead and dump you back in your body, and when you wake up, you’ll be good as new. Oh. Word of advice: Forget all this has happened and REALLY don’t tell people about this. They’ll just lock you up in the fuckin’ nut house and then you’ll just be stuck making baskets and shit all day.”

“Don’t worry,” I tell him, “I’m not saying shit about fuck. I don’t need anyone thinking I’m any crazier than they already do.”

“My man.” He slaps me five, winks, and starts walking off. And as he’s heading away into the great expansiveness of forever, I realize I have one last question.

“Hey,” I call after him. He stops. Turns. “...Why do you look like James Franco?”

He gets a small little smile and says, “...Dunno. That’s you, man. People see me how they wanna. Honestly? I’ve got no idea what I look like. No mirrors at my place.”

And then he’s gone.

“Clear!” Evan’s voice shouts. And then it feels as though a bolt of electricity is being shot through my body. Because it is.

“Clear!” he shouts again. Again, another shot of current surges through me and I startle into alertness.

Lights. Flashing, spinning lights. The lights of Vegas. The spinning, pulsing lights of the Strip. And also police cars, and ambulances, and a fire engine decked out like a hearse. I considered earlier tonight when I was at the Halloween charity thing at the firehouse that if they had to go on a call with the engine looking that way it would be disconcerting to whoever it was coming for. Now that it’s come for me, I actually find it pretty funny. So I start laughing.

“Oh, Jesus,” Evan says, “Jesus Christ. He’s back!” he shouts.

“Hey, dude,” I manage to mutter. He leans down close to me so I can hear him over the din and commotion around me. As I look up, I see smoke billowing out into the sky from my swanky penthouse apartment. Oh. That’s right. I set my apartment on fire. Wow. You don’t hear someone say that every day.

“Dude,” Evan whispers. He’s traded his Great Gatsby Halloween tuxedo for his fireman’s gear. I’m glad. If he came to save me while wearing a tuxedo, that’d be weird.

“Dude,” he continues, “are you okay? What the fuck happened up there?”

“What did it look like?” I croak out.

“Bro, it looked like you started a bonfire with all your shit in the middle of the living room and it got out of control, like real fast.”

“Yeah,” I muster up, “that’s about right.”

“Dude—” he begins.

“Maddie,” I interrupt.