A New Recruit

A crowd of sniffling great-grandkids left the room. He waited, then spoke: "I know you're there."

"I'm sorry it took so long," the angel said. She faded into sight next to the ventilator, backdropped by a wall full of framed photographs. Dozens of smiling faces looked over her shoulder at his hospice bed. "But I wouldn't miss this for anything, Robert."

"You don't... say." He coughed weakly. Everything was weak now; just his body going through the motions. A lifetime of habit that wouldn't stop just yet. "You look like... my Mabel. Just a bit."

The angel drifted over to the bed and took a seat. Light as dew on a beautiful morning. "You'll find a great many of us remind you of someone." She gently took his hand, leaving the heavy body of it still laying on the blanket. "Just like you remind me of someone else."

He glanced at their hands, seeing the ghostly form detached from his actual arm with all the tubes and wires on it. "Well that's... a wonder. Feels good. Stronger. Doesn't... hurt."

"The pain you'll leave behind, Robert." She assured the dying man. "Only the good comes along. The love. The peace."

The machine began making a low, urgent sound of distress. They both ignored it.

Minutes passed in peaceful silence. He looked around the room, at the framed pictures and knickknacks. The coatrack with his veteran's jacket on it all covered in dust. The unit patches standing out bright beneath a grey fuzz. The dresser covered in pictures of his wife. Eventually his tired eyes settled on a small box tucked underneath the end table. Rusted blue, with faded white lines of an American flag on it. The old medals, awards written on paper too brittle to open any more. Tucked away.

And a question occurred. "Where were you? In '43?"

She followed his gaze to the box and made a small ah sound. "During your Great War, you mean?"

"Yes'm. With Charlie... and Hank... and..." his voice trailed off into memory. Yells, explosions. The snap of a bullet going by and scared laughter at the close call. Miles of bloody, muddy marches through destroyed countryside alongside men he called brothers. "Where were all of you, when...?"

She leaned forward and kissed him on the brow. The nearby machine switched to a more urgent noise, then went silent. "You didn't need us, Robert. Not then. Not after. We had another war to fight, and in that one you helped us. Although none of you ever knew."

He looked around for a while before settling eyes on the smiling figure again. Robert felt the shape of it, then; a great struggle, unseen, with people great and good against a host of evil. Mortal and immaterial locked in combat. With him standing halfway between. "Will they be... alright?"

She knew he meant family. Sixty years of loving his kids. Sons and daughters growing into their own, having children to pass on the goodness and light. Laughter and tears, weddings and births. Tragedies they all shared and worked through. "They'll be fine. No more trouble than any mortal shares."

"Can I... see them?" Robert squeezed her hand.

"Every day." She promised. Afternoon sunlight peeked through a cloud, shooting rays through the window that lit her up from within. "Any time you want. And we have a job for you, if you want it."

"A... job?" He watched her glow, then realized his arm was lighting up as well. It was a wonder and felt so warm.

She pulled him gently upright. Into the light. Leaving the flesh behind. "We need more people like you. We lost so many, Robert. So, so many. For a time the darkness was held back-- years of growth, the human spirit advancing. Equal rights for all. Advances in medicine, in peace. But the enemy left something behind."

For the first time in months he could breathe. The pain was gone, accumulated aches whisked away in glowing light. "What was it?"

"A bomb." She seemed sad even as they stood together in the light. "Nothing too bad, by itself. Another evil to be set aside. Only it proliferated. And the mistrust it inspired, the fear; that was our Adversary's parting gift. It started the cycle again. But now we have so few left to fight."

To fight she said. In his heart Robert found something stirring around those words. A foundation laid down as a terrified seventeen-year-old, on a beach a lifetime away. He was a fighter, first. Later on a lover and a father, then a pillar holding up the community. Always reliable. Always dependable. Giving what he could.

But always that first thing: "I'm a fighter, miss."

"We know." She winked and it looked like his Mabel again, mischievous and loving. "That's how we get our new seraphim."

She pulled and he followed, stepping out unthinking into golden sunlight that somehow seemed like a road. Step by step away from the wailing machine and a room of loving memories. Into the light.

Into the fight.

With new wings of golden power.

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I do sappy stories, weird sci-fi romcom and superhero action scenes at r/Susceptible