Fallen from Grace

It’s different when it’s your own body. Except for the wings – they were painfully torn off before they chucked me down here. It’s not like I’m damned or anything. I’m one of the Boss’s most beautiful creatures, even without my wings. It’s not vanity; it’s a statement of fact. Unfortunately, I knew too much and gave too much away, and this is my punishment.

I’m a guardian angel, or at least I was. Now, I’m human ... well mostly. I’m still immortal. If I died, I’d have the chance of going back to heaven. If I went to hell, I’d be the highest ranked of the fallen angels – in a position of authority, and I’d get my wings back. They’d be webbed and ugly, but I could live with that. Lucifer himself would be forced to pay homage to me. Besides, I’m not one of them. When they revolted, I fought steadfastly against them. I was Michael’s right-hand man – well, man is stretching it a little, but I do have male equipment.

I’m screwed, and all I did was fall in love. If I was lame, like Adam, I’d blame my situation and the boss for putting me in it. Maybe I’d blame Marilyn for being a perfect partner, a perfect loving soul, and the wife of the body that I inhabited during her last days. Even as the possessor of forbidden knowledge, she got heaven, and I got humanity. I was the one who gave her that knowledge. I fell in love with her, and she loved the body I was in, the body of her husband as he hovered near death. I couldn’t save him – he’d made a fatal mistake, cheating on Marilyn, and she had a terminal illness. Only she could save him. Her forgiveness would have set him right. Unfortunately, she didn’t even suspect him, and I couldn’t tell her. I was there to protect her – that meant NOT telling, easing her passage to the beyond, content with a well-lived life.

I was a good guardian, perhaps even one of the best. Ghandi was mine, and I was part of Jesus’s retinue. He had special status, for obvious reasons, and I was there at the end helping to carry him upstairs. Jean d’Arc was another, Galileo, several Popes, Confucius, Abraham, Moses, Mohammed – when there was a biggie, I was the one for the job. My secret was that I got really close to my charges, loving them was easy, part of my job. Falling in love wasn’t. That was a risk that had always been worth taking. If Jean hadn’t been celibate, I might have fallen then. Perhaps, it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened.

I fell hard, landing in London. It could have been worse; I could have been stuck in the middle of Africa, a naked, frightfully pale man left to fend for himself in a harsh environment. Instead, I got humanity, and the only thing that kept me from being thrown directly in jail for public indecency was my crushed shoulder from the fall. That covered up the bloody stumps where my wings had been. I landed in Trafalgar Square in full daylight near Nelson’s feet. Somebody thought I had jumped from the top of his column, but nobody could explain how I got up there, and I couldn’t exactly tell the truth. My cell would be padded instead. Of course, the fact that I survived at all was a miracle.

I was a little dazed when I hit, and couldn’t identify myself. “I’m Davidl” David who? “Just David.” I was too slow to make up a surname or an abode. So they think I have amnesia. The point is that I have no life to remember, since I wasn’t human until 7 July 2007. They’ve kept me in hospital for the past week and circulated my description in the papers. At least they’ve continued to call me David, rather than the ubiquitous “John Doe.”