Page 5 of Angels Fall

I sort of recognize this place and sort of don’t. It looks like the heaven from my DREAM, but it’s no longer clean and white. It looks charred, and sooty, and black. I walk along carefully, because I’m not sure what I’m stepping on. I know how it feels to step on the incinerated flesh and bones of the previously living, and the sensation I’m experiencing is very much like that. I don’t look down.

No one is around. All the helpful, wingless angels dressed like Apple Store employees are gone. Everyone is gone.

“Angel?” I call out. Nothing.

“Scarlett??” I shout. Silence.

“Maddie!?” I yell. Not even the whistle of wind.

And then… from behind me… I hear her voice.

“Tyler?”

I spin around, tingling with hope and fear, but instead of my angel, Maddie, I find standing in front of me…

James Franco.

A dude who looks EXACTLY like James Franco.

I remember when I was having THE DREAM, I kind of sarcastically mused over the notion that if there was a God inhabiting this particular version of heaven, he would probably look like James Franco. Well, shit.

“’Sup, bro?” he says. “Hey, why so slack-jawed, Ty-Bo?”

“I—” I begin stammering. “I didn’t—I—Who are you?”

“Bro,” he says, “I’m God. Who the fuck you think?”

I feel very confused. “But,” I start, “I heard Maddie.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, “Nah, bro, that was me. Here, check it. I’ll do it again.” And then he says, sounding exactly like Maddie, “Tyler? Is that you?” I stare at him, mouth definitely agape. He laughs. “Ha! Look at your face. Oh, man. Classic. Hey, sorry. I was just fucking with you, homey. All good.”

He sticks his hand in the air. Palm out.

“What’s up, my dude? You gonna leave me hanging?” he says.

I raise my hand slowly and he slaps me five.

“My man!” he says. Then, “Yo, come chill on this, um, I think this used to be a chair or a desk or something. Can’t tell. It’s all burned the fuck up, but come sit on it with me for a sec, will ya? Need to rap with you about some shit.”

He steps over to the burned-up whatever-it-used-to-be and I don’t follow right away. I just continue staring. Profoundly disoriented.

“Dude,” he says, “Cop a squat. No fuckin’ around. Need to chat.”

I eye him and amble over carefully. Then I cautiously take a seat on a smoldering lump of ash a few feet away from him.

“OK,” he says, “you wanna keep your dist. I get it. If I had managed to burn down fucking HEAVEN, I’d be pretty worried about incurring My wrath too. All good.”

“What?” I manage. “What are you talking about? What’s going on?”

“Duuude,” he sighs out, “you know exactly what’s going on. I hooked you up. Like, HOOKED you up. Gave you your dream angel, the salvation to ALL your sins, the key to your redemption, and you just torched that shit like you was making Baked Alaska. You fucked me, bro.”

I shake my head trying to make any sense out of what’s happening right now. “I don’t understand,” I say. “Am I dead?”

“You’re in heaven, Charlie Brown. Albeit a fucked-up heaven that you jacked yourself, but, uh, yeah. Obviously, you’re dead, dummy. Duh.”

Wow. God’s kind of a dick.

“But so look here, cat-daddy. Here’s the skinny: You is one stone-cold sinner, my man. You should probably be in hell right now having big dudes dressed like milkmaids shoving cattle prods up your butt—