Are You There, Gabe? - A.R.C. (best books to read for self improvement txt) 📗

Those bastards caught me! As if I was a Guppy on the sharpest hook, I followed that bait like it was the last piece of my life slipping away forever. She was six-one with long luxorious blonde hair to play in. Her skin was cream churned smoothly, her eyes could reflect glass-steel blue and could break hearts into pieces, and her lips bled a perfect shade of red where it traced her lips evenly. She was the headlights and I was the deer caught into her.
I've been wondering around in the busiest part of town looking for answers and it seemed like I was just goin in circles searching. No matter what, I would always found myself staring at a car accident. Hansburg Drive: The street with no eyes. The crowd is always so thick with gawkers I never have a fair turn to look. And then all that didn't mattered when my eyes set on the blonde bomb shell, Amazon beauty. Looks could kill and I died in lust. She turned away from the crowd and I pushed myself through the gawkers and ran across the street to follow her. She cut through an alley way that seemed like there was no end to it.
Her hair bounced with every step she took. She wore a long black trench coat and even though I haven't seen her hands, I'm assuming their soft and lady like as they are in her coat pockets and I'm trying to catch up to her and be a smooth Cassenova. I didn't realize the sound of her heels click clacking on the stoned ground was going fainter and the the end of the alley was looked like the end of an illustration. Everything went blank...

But only for a moment. A different atmosphere just appeared before my eyes and the next thing I knew, there were differnt set of lines that people was standing in. Much longer than a busy day in a deli/bakery. I recognized the street being Holden Street but the scenery didn't make any lick of sense. The front of the lines was leading into houses with a beam of light coming out of them once you stepped in them.
For the lines being so long, they sure moved in a quick pace like a assembly would if it was put to "fast" mode. As things were getting more confusing, my questions were soon answered by a form of light on the side of my line. It appeared to be human but no person would have a glow surrounding them unless they were screwed in a socket. But he was human form. He seemed to be like the old cliché the hopelessly romantics from the opposite sex would say "He's the dream guy that I would die for!" The strapping lad!, the rebel without a cause. Appears to be hard core; the silent type.
He wore a clean, crisp white T with the sleeves rolled up. Acid washed jeans-
Acid Washed

. His black hair was slicked back and his masculine face was so smooth, NO
pimple traces. I was looking at two eras that was crossed. 50s meet the 80s. Ponyboy
along with Danny Zuko meets A.C. Slater. I'm no expert when it comes to the latest
dress up but I wouldn't think he would pulled that off if he was in actual public. Then
again, women would've preferred nothing on him at all. He was searching through the lines for something-no, someone...I watched his eyes roaming and then the pair fell on me!
A handsome smile crept on his face and exposed a set of the whitest,
pearliest teeth that I'd ever seen on someone. Was he the dying Mr. Universe? "Oh yeeah...there you are." His voice boomed out. So deep it was. I grabbed my own throat and took a deep breath. "God...?" I heard myself say. A chuckle escaped from his mouth, humble yet a mockery of my little intelligence. Felt like I shrunk the size of a marble.
"No, no. Definately not. But I know Him personally. I was waiting for you. I had to wait till my diverson led you to me."

"Huh?" I replied perplexed.

"My diverson. I call her Angela

."

"I had to be tricked by an illusion and led on?"

"Led on? Seriously? I'll let you have that theory to run with it."

Wait, did I just get dissed?

He gave out a small laugh and and shook his head as he read the humilliation on my face. "It's ok. All will be explained to you once we get inside. I was glad to hear that but I wasn't sure if I wanted him near me after all. He just made a strike off my ego.
Once we reached inside the red bricked house, it wasn't your typical family home as the front of it appeared to be. Just four walls and in the middle, a table and two chairs. On the common table was a folder with my name on it. "Is this some kind of Special Government tatics? I'm not a spy and I didn't but anything from a terrorist. In fact, I couldn't get anyone to tell me if I even had eye crust if I had any. I'm use to not being noticed but I will admit this is an all time new kind of ignorance people are giving me."
The gray eyed stranger just smirked and motioned for me to take a seat while he sat on the opposite side of me. "To answer your question, no this is not a Government thing. We're beyond them." We're? I thought to myself. Before I can ask the next question pertaining to his answer, he opened up the folder where it revealed papers and papers of fine penmendship and from the pile he pulled out a folded piece of devestating news:

YOU'RE DEAD. ON TO THE NEXT STAGE.

I had to be reading this entirely wrong. I was feeling like I was so out of left field and now this...phamphlet! The blunt words were biting through me-real big chunks at that. "You give me a phamphlet assuming that it's going to make this situation any better?!"

"It's bold and clear. How exact would you like it to be?" He said with a straight attitude that read *nonchalaunt.
He sat there staring at me while I sat in the chair seething. My hands trembled as I gripped the folded news of lies...a lie..now when I thought about it the things that didn't make since then was strangely coming in view of clarity now. People were ignoring me because I couldn't be seen. I could see and hear but sometimes whatever I heard sounded like an echo moving in and out and my vision would fade the same way.
And to mention how I would enter a different place, as if it had to be drawn for me first. The long lines on Holden St. ...the way you enter a house. I let my guard down and gave into the reality that I'm no longer living. I put the phamplet on the table and pushed it back towards the bringer of bad news.
He remained sitting in front of me, watching me closely. "Oh, that's it? That was the first decent tantrum that I have encountered for centuries. My name is Anthony by the way, Gabe and I suggest you keep that phamplet."

"I don't keep things I don't want."

"Yeah," Anthony said wide eyed and nodding his head at the truth, "you got that right. Been showing that attitude from the beginning."

"The begin-what are you? What is this place?"

Anthony was shuffling through the papers in the folders and he stopped when I asked. "Another problem you have, no patience. I will explain just give me a few minutes. That's why you have to keep the phamplet."
While he went back to the papers, I gave in and took back the phamplet. After all, reading was something to do as Anthony kept reading. As I unfolded and skimmed through the first side, the topic "...So, You're an Angel" felt like the words came to life and slapped me. "Am I reading this right? I'm an Angel

?
Anthony pointed his finger upward indicating for me to wait still. When he was finally done, he looked up at me with those gray eyes that pierced something fierce right through me.
"Well, not exactly. You and everyone else out there are known as 'wondering souls'. For some reason..when you croak you somehow don't enter the after life. There's something keeping you here among the living and you lost your way. And when that occurs it's slightly difficult to get you alls attention so in order to steer you guys in the right direction something has to be made to really get you souls' attention. That's where we come in-us Guardians, and help you guys see the way and get to the next phase."
I remained in my seat looking uninterested and feeling more cheated. "So, what you're really saying is that people like me-"

"Souls."

"People, like me, are incompetent and have to be treated like a slow kid who will follow some dangling keys."

"No, that's how YOU want to see it as. We help you guys find your way to us and then we help you guys mend your problems and help you pass your test in order to earn your wings and be where I am today."

"Whoa, excuse me? Test? Earn

wings? Now I'm suppose to believe in some Christmas hocus pocus tale and a star will light up or a bell would ring. You guys are smoking something much higher than the clouds."

"Watch your sense of humor Gabe. You're testing your limits enough."

"And if I get the wings? If

? What happens if I play along and fail?

"This is not a game and no laughing matter. You are long gone dead. Your body, the outter shell, is forever sleeping and you can't wake up. I understand this is a whole lot to take in but there is no option to go back to the life you once knew. And if you fail, if

... you'll take another trip and they will be glad to welcome you with open fire. That classic movie always had me in tears...but no, getting your wings is not like that."

"So I was on the naughty list but I might be an angel. What is wrong with that picture? What ever happened to The Grim Reaper coming to get you once you die?"

"You had your crooked ways but from your file here it wasn't all that bad. It's also where the wondering comes in. The part that is lost. Something is keeping you back. Maybe it's something that you've done or didn't do. I don't know but that's where I come in to help you to that point. The Death Angel itself knows where you going next once you enter this life. You wonderers are hopeless. No offense."

"You couldn't be more offensive than that to the point. So we are incompetent."

"Now I know you can handle the truth and criticism. And no, not 'we'. Just you."

"You ain't nothing but a-"

Anthony shot me a look that a mother would give saying "try me"-I said no thanks by releasing a short grunt and putting my head down.
He then pulled out