Michael, I swear, some days I just want to rip off these wings, toss the halo, and go drive a bus or something. City bus, school bus—I don’t care. Drive a garbage truck. Easy work, shift work. You’ve got hours of every day off the clock, and two entire days every week you can do any damn thing you want without worrying about a goddamned thing. Simple job. Drive the route, empty the can into the truck, put it back on the curb, drive to the next can. Half an hour at Flo’s: piss and wash, suck down a grilled cheese and some slaw, a coke or some coffee, leave a nice tip for Annie and swing yourself back up into the cab for another four hours. Then you’re done.

Home to the wife, or the TV, or the rowing machine. 

Thanks, Joe—another PBR. Hell, make it a boilermaker. Yeah, rye.

Michael, you’ve got it pretty easy over there in the Guardian division compared to what I have to do. Sure, you do some heavy lifting—speeding trucks diverted from playgrounds, airplane repairs in midflight, would-be murderers blunted by heart attacks seconds before they struck—I’m not minimizing that. You guys work miracles. That’s what I want, man. You have power. You can help people—real help. Help they know. Help they feel. Help everyone can see.

Please, Mike. Hear me out. This assignment would kill me if I were mortal. Dead in my tracks, I swear. Companion Angel—what kind of bullshit idea was this, anyway? Why didn’t this kid get a Guardian—someone like you—instead of some toothless companion? I can’t do a damned thing for this poor kid. Not a thing. Not one goddamned thing. I couldn’t stop her mother from smoking when she was carrying. I couldn’t stop her from giving this poor little baby—this beautiful tiny being—away. Giving her away—sending her away—to strangers. To foster “care.” To people who get a little extra money for taking in kids nobody wants, keeping them clothed and fed—jesus, we hope they do that—until the agency that owns the kid finds a buyer. I couldn’t stop it, Mike. You’d have been able to. You or Gabe—you’d have made the mother see she wanted to raise her. I couldn’t do a damned thing. Nothing. No thing. 

And the buyers—jesus, what a pair. No, I wouldn’t have let that happen if I could have prevented it—not in a million trillion years. Not ever.

Look Mike, I’m sorry to bend your ear like this. I’m just at my wit’s end. 

Yeah, I’ll have a soda. Thanks. Clear my head. You’re good to listen. Onion rings? I’m not really hungry, thanks. Yeah, I guess I should eat something. It’s been since morning. I just couldn’t. Thanks. Yeah, ketchup.

Four miscarriages she had—four. And she didn’t get the message. Didn’t see the picture. One of your guys was looking out for those four, I know it. This bird’s messed up. Her husband’s messed up. She thinks a baby’s gonna make him come home after work instead of chasing skirts. He’s got a teaching assistant AND a coed he’s screwing. No baby’s gonna fix that. She’s barking up the wrong tree with that one. He’s only married so he doesn’t get disowned. That one’s never gonna be happy on an academic salary—he needs daddy’s fortune to keep him in sports cars and fillies, and out of jail.

I should be there right now with her—it’s my job, even down to the name—what kind of Companion am I, sitting in this dive crying to you? Her nap won’t last forever. I gotta get back soon. But I don’t know how I can do it. I can’t help her. I can’t save her, can’t stop any of this crazy shit they’re doing to her. It wears a person down, not being able to help.

She’s a sweet kid, though—smart for a baby, and sings in her sleep. Sounds like stars sometimes. But my god, when she sets up to crying, I hear black holes. There’s no end to the grief in that little one, and nothing I can do. Nothing I can do to help the hurt. Nothing I can do to protect her from more.

Mike, maybe you can ask Pete to reassign you? Couldn’t we work together, be a team for this kid? You could be fighting the dragons and I could be with her—just there, just like I’m supposed to be, calming and reassuring. Comforting. Not worrying about what soul-sucking thing’s gonna happen to her next.

Whaddaya say?