Till Death Do Us Part. And Beyond.

“Calling it. Time of death, 8:25am.”

…

In the back of her mind, Angela knew that she had more pressing matters to attend to. But this blasted fog was commanding all of her focus and she simply could not figure out where it was coming from.
“Hello?” she called out into the mists. “Anybody?”
Of course, she also knew neither where she was nor how she got there, but she could worry about that later. For example, when this stupid white wispiness would stop pressing against her eyeballs.
“Alright, I think I just went crazy. That’s cool I guess.”
“Not quite crazy,” a voice answered from nowhere. “More like dead.”
Angela craned her head in every direction trying to see who spoke.
“Hey, where are you?” she shouted, “I can’t see you in all this fog!”
“What fog?” the young man asked. He stood, facing her, in the middle of a bleak yet sunshine filled desert expanse that stretched on as far as the eye could see in every direction.
“Who are you?”
“An angel.”
“So this is Heaven?”
“…Close enough.”
Angela crossed her arms in dissatisfaction and accompanied the gesture with a pout. The stars whirled overhead as if trying to impress her with their show.
“Not quite what I expected.”
The angel shrugged.
“The Gates appear different to everyone who comes through,” he explained.
Angela sat down on the park bench behind her and crossed one leg over the other. She jiggled her foot in contemplation.
“So what’s God like?” she asked finally.
“Pardon me?”
“God. The Big Man. What’s He like? My sister is super religious and I just know that it would get under her skin if I tell her that I got a firsthand account of the upstairs events from an angel.”
The angel hesitated for a moment then joined her on the sofa and stared across at the Van Gogh sunflower painting hanging on the opposite wall.
“You do know that you’re dead, right?” he said slowly.
She waved his words off.
“Yeah yeah, the whole ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ thing. I’m going back though.”
“No… I’m sorry. You’re not.”
“Sure I am. I’m getting the best treatment money can buy. It’s going to take more than a silly brain aneurysm to kill me.”
He laid a hand on her knee.
“It ruptured, Angela.”
That was when she first noticed that something was odd.
“Angela, it’s over.”
“What is tickling my back?” she asked abruptly, looking over her shoulder. “Are those… feathers?”
“Your wings.”
“What!” Angela jumped to her feet. “I can’t return home with wings attached to my back! What would my sister say? ‘This is just taking a prank a bit too far,’ that’s what she would say!” She spun in circles attempting to grasp at the feathers sprouting from her shoulder blades so she could examine them closer.
Finally she collapsed back onto the edge of the dock and was only marginally more successful at holding back her tears than an acceptance of the truth of what had happened to her.
As her tears fell unchecked into her lap, the angel pulled out a book and opened it between the two of them. He leaned in close and whispered into her ear:
“Let me tell you a story.”

And it was a beautiful story indeed. One filled with love and laughter, heartbreaks and family picnics. It was a tale of best friends and sisters taking on the world together, sometimes with nothing more than a promise and a pint of ice cream. There were first dates and beautiful mistakes, mountains to climb, campfires, cocktails, dancing, and a hell of a lot of music.
It was a story of pain, it was a story of life. Angela’s life.

By the time that the angel was finished and the book was closed, she had come to terms with the truth of it all. They stood facing an intricate, translucent gateway which beckoned them forward. The two angels held hands as they stepped towards it, their wingtips just barely brushing against the long grass beneath.
Just before they reached it, Angela stopped and looked up at the mist which was rising up once more behind them.
“I love you,” she whispered to the darkness. “Don’t forget me.”

…

Erica stood between the coffin and the mass of family, friends, and well wishers, but all that she could process was a wave of black before her. She spoke some words about her sister. She couldn’t remember exactly which words they were, but it hardly mattered, the bond they had couldn’t be simplified like that anyway. When she was finished everyone came up to express how beautiful the service was before driving off one by one into the thick San Francisco fog.
She continued to linger there long after the coffin had been lowered into the ground and covered. It wasn’t until the sun began to set that Erica finally turned and began to head back to her car.
Then she paused, resting her hand on the angel carving that formed some stranger’s headstone. She glanced back at the freshly marked grave.
Suddenly she felt an unexpected wave of peace wash over her, and Erica smiled for the first time since Angela had been admitted to the hospital.
“I promise, I will never forget you big sister. I love you.”