 
# Preface

The Bleeding Love was a short story designed by author Beth Durkee to interact with her readers by asking for their input into developing characters and story lines. Readers will note that the story is divided into "posts" rather than chapters to keep it as close as possible to how it first appeared online.

This story began as an experiment in writing horror, but quickly turned into a strange kind of romance and a parable-like lesson in Christian morality. The question being answered is: What happens to an unrepentant soul that dies unexpectedly and in mortal sin?

#  Acknowledgments

Contributors to this story include all the readers who participated by making suggestions and voting in the polls that developed it. Thank you, all. In particular, the following participants deserve special mention:

Sorche H. for the main character's name, Samuel.

Dee C. for "Samuel's" second wife's name, Sharon.

Phillip W. for the first angel of death's name, Amos.

John B. for the cement truck driver's name, Dusty.

Frances G. for the marital child's name, Crystal.

Dee C. for the second angel of death's name, Julian.

Jocelyn S. for the guardian angel's name, Gabriel.

The Bleeding Love

# by Beth Durkee

Copyright © 2011 by Elizabeth W. Durkee, Beth Durkee

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Printed in the United States of America. For information address Elizabeth W. Durkee.

Cover design by Franny Barazarte.

**License Notes**  
Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

# Table Of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

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#  Post I

Samuel groaned. His pounding heartbeat subsided into a normal rhythm. '

As he peeled his head off the steering wheel to peer out the windshield at the damage to his front end, anger surged through his chest. "What the hell is wrong with that driver? This is high-speed traffic! They could have killed somebody!"

"Son of a...!" Samuel exclaimed. His eyes grew large as he viewed his car's nose. The whole thing looked like a gigantic, collapsed accordion buried under the tailgate of the cement truck in front of him.

"Oh, my God," he thought. "What a mess! Somebody is going to pay for this damage. I had better call Sharon to let her know I won't be home in time to go with her to drop off the kids."

Tonight was Friday and it was Sharon's ex-husband's weekend with their children. Usually, Samuel went with her to drop off the kids, and then take her out to dinner. Tonight, though, they had planned "something special" in honor of his 43rd birthday (which had really been yesterday) and Sharon was very excited about the surprise she was going to give him. Samuel cringed at the thought of her displeasure when he got home late because of this stupid car accident. He felt fine so hopefully, giving a police report would not take too long and he could get home quickly.

He reached over his lap towards his seat belt buckle. As he did, his eyes fell upon an unfamiliar white cloth on the seat beside him. It was covering something. He stopped cold as he realized that the "something" was a lap. The cloth he did not recognize was actually a long, flowing garment. His head snapped up as he jerked away from the figure beside him.

"What?...Who?...How?" he stammered. He shook his head to clear it, then demanded, "Who are you and how the hell did you get into my car?"

The stranger's arm slipped off of Samuel's shoulders, the hand coming to rest on his elbow, as "it" sat straight up to look at him. Funny. Samuel hadn't felt an arm around his shoulders. He had only realized it was there when he saw it move. He jerked his elbow away from the stranger's grasp, but the grip held fast.

Samuel puzzled when he saw the doe-eyed stranger sit back. He could not decide if its soft features belonged to a man or a woman. (The flowing robes disguised its body.) Was it a smaller framed man with long, curly hair and long eyelashes? Maybe. It did sit a little taller than the average woman, had broad shoulders and its hands looked too strong to be female. Samuel decided to wait for the person to say something before he passed judgment on gender.

"Do not be afraid, for I am with you," said the stranger in a voice that was too feminine to be male yet too masculine to be female. (Alas, hearing that voice did nothing to help make a decision on gender.)

Fists clenched with rage, Samuel bellowed, "Who the hell do you think you are? Get your hand off me!"

With an expression that could only be described as sorrow, the stranger gazed down at its hand. It answered as it allowed its hand to slowly slide off Samuel's elbow, "My name is Amos and I am the angel assigned to your death."

As 'his' fingers lost touch with Samuel's elbow, Amos disappeared. Samuel snorted to himself, "Good!"

The sound of sirens could be heard in the distance now. It sounded like there was more than just one vehicle coming. He hoped the cement truck driver wasn't hurt. That would hike his insurance rates for sure. After all, he was the one who had run into it. He made a mental note to leave an extra cushion of space behind large trucks in the future.

Resuming what he had originally set out to do, he reached over his lap to unlatch the seat belt. His fingers passed through the button.

"What the f...?" he began, but could not finish. Why couldn't he finish? He could not think of his last word! He knew it began with an 'f,' but what was it? 'What the f... the f...." Samuel could not remember. He resorted to an old habit his ex-wife had developed to keep herself from cussing.

"What the fudgey pudding?!!!" He hollered. He felt stupid.

"Why can't I think of that word?" he pondered, temporarily forgetting why he was even trying to utter the vulgarity. "I use it all the time. This does not make sense!"

An answer to Samuel's unspoken thought whispered from nowhere, "Using that other word was a poor choice when you were in the mortal realm, but it was your choice. You are now in the spiritual realm, the majority of which is free from sin. It is not permitted to use that other word here."

Was that Amos' voice? Samuel shook his head vigorously. He must be in shock. He did not even know an Amos. Besides, the voice was wrong. He' just thought 'what the hell' and 'oh, my God' two seconds earlier. There had to be another reason he couldn't think of that "f" word. Perhaps he had suffered a head injury from the crash. 'Oh, boy.' He thought. If he had a head injury from this, his insurance was going to skyrocket.

He reached over again to unbuckle his seat belt. Again, his fingers passed through the button.

"This f.... this f... this f..." he could not get out the words. Rage washed through him as he clenched his fists. His face turned beet red. With the full weight of his body behind one of those clenched fists, he slammed it at his dashboard, bellowing, "This whole, stupid, freaking thing sucks!"

His torso fell forward as he momentarily lost his balance. His hand had not stopped at the dashboard. Rather, his whole arm passed right through it.

"Oh, no," he thought. He sat back in his seat. His body froze and his breathing became shallow and quick. For the first time since the collision, he actually looked at his immediate surroundings. His body and arms seemed to move freely, yet his dashboard was much closer than it should be, the steering wheel pushed up against his chest and... and... face?

NO! Oh, no!! Was that Amos person right? Was he... dead?

"HOLY . . . ." He stopped, wondering. Holy what? Holy something. It was another word he could not recall.

"Holy, holy, holy," wafted a choral voice from inside the car. "Merciful and mighty. Early in the morning . . . ."

"SHUT UP!" bellowed Samuel. The singing immediately stopped.

"I need to think for a minute," he thought.

Accepting that he was no longer bound to his body, he looked at his seat belt, "Obviously, I don't need to worry about this any more." He stood up.

#  Post II

Head and shoulders above the roof of his car, body inside, Samuel thought, "This is really weird." He turned toward the door to exit the vehicle, and then stopped as it occurred to him that he did not need to use the door. He turned back toward the front of the car . . . and walked right through its hood.

He laughed, thinking, "Being dead is kind of cool!"

Walking over to the cab of the cement truck, he poked his head right through its door to peer inside. There sat a middle-aged woman, clutching a hand-held radio in her right hand. She wore a short-sleeved, tan, button-down shirt and faded blue jeans. Short, dark hair framed her care-worn face. Samuel guessed she was a little over fifty.

"They're here now," the woman spoke into the radio. "I see the flashing lights."

"Roger that," a female voice responded.

"Thanks for staying on with me and for getting them here so quickly," said the woman. "I will let you know when I get on the road again." Her hand still quivering from the shock of the accident, she put down her radio and unbuckled her seat belt.

"Dusty," the female voice addressed the driver by name, "You should wait in the vehicle until a paramedic arrives."

Dusty did not hear the advice. She was already climbing out the door. As her second foot hit pavement, her eyes were drawn to the large, red, fire engine stopping beside her. Siren blaring ceased as the fire engine came to a halt, lights still flashing. Before the brakes were even set, men wearing tan jumpsuits and red hats leaped off the truck and ran toward the wreck behind her.

Samuel watched Dusty's eyes follow the rescue workers. He saw her eyes grow wide, her pupils dilate and her jaw drop when she saw the damage they were running toward.

"Oh, my God!" She exclaimed, taking a single step and stopping. "Oh, my God -- Oh, my God -- Oh, my God!"

Before her unfolded a gruesome scene. The front end of a dark blue sedan looked like a crushed can, its nose wedged under the cement truck's tailgate and its windshield fractured into crushed glass from the force of the impact. Firefighters struggled first with the smashed door of the car, then sliced through a seat belt to pull a man's limp body out of the driver's seat and lay it on the ground.

Samuel watched himself be dragged out of the car. His whole face and shirt were covered in blood. His nose was broken and mashed into his face. A huge gash scored his forehead where his head had hit the steering wheel. He felt sick to his stomach. Grimacing, he turned away from the sight of his broken face. He saw a tear form in the corner of Dusty's eye as she also looked at his blood-stained body through the firefighters who labored to resuscitate him.

"Why didn't he slow down? My left turn signal was on," she sobbed quietly to herself, turning to walk towards the front of her truck. Police officers were there now, setting up to direct traffic around the accident. An officer approached Dusty.

"Ma'am, are you alright?" he asked. Dusty just nodded, her face blank. Samuel could tell that she did not really look alright, but he was losing interest in her. He wanted to see what was happening with his body, over by the... Ahhh, the paramedics were there now.

"CLEAR!" shouted a skinny paramedic with short, dark hair and chrome-rimmed glasses. He held an electrical paddle in each hand. Everyone pulled their hands away from Samuel's body as the paddles were placed on his chest. It jumped from an electric shock, then relaxed.

"No pulse," called out another paramedic, this one a young woman. "That's five. Better call it."

"Skinny" looked at his watch. "Time of death: 6:39 pm."
Post III

Dead at 6:39 pm on the day after his 43rd birthday. That was hard to hear and harder to accept. Samuel followed the paramedics as they rolled his body on a gurney to the ambulance, then watched them load it into the back of the vehicle. Until he had heard his time of death declared, he knew he was dead, but the impact of it being real had not yet hit him. Hearing the time of death as he looked at his own corpse, though?? Well, that hit him. His heart felt numb.

Not knowing what to do next, he figured he would follow his corpse. At least that way, when Sharon came to identify him, he would be able to get a ride home with her. Samuel heard the engine begin to hum as the ambulance got ready to leave the scene. He lifted his leg to step into it. His foot passed through the door as expected ...and continued through the floor! He stood wearing a surprised look, his torso in the back of the ambulance and his feet on the ground.

"Being dead is totally NOT cool," he declared. "What a drag!"

"More of a drag than you yet know," wafted Amos' voice on the hint of a breeze.

"What?" Samuel wrinkled his nose. He had forgotten that angel person was watching. He ignored the ethereal murmur.

"Now, if my foot goes through the floor when I try to step into the vehicle," he wondered, rubbing his index finger back and forth under his nose, "how am I going to sit in...?" Just then, the ambulance started moving through him. "Wait!" he yelled in an unheard voice. He began to run after it, but it was already moving too fast.

Slowing to a stop, he sighed, "It's no use."

Samuel stood where he was., his shoulders slumped in defeat. He lamented, "I'll never catch up. Maybe I should just walk home." No longer needing to worry about using roads to go around people's properties, he turned to begin walking in a straight path towards his house, but no sooner had his spirit-body turned than his chest unexpectedly jerked toward the direction the ambulance was moving.

"Whooooaa," he exclaimed. Being pulled by the ambulance, he struggled to regain his footing. When partially composed, he dug his heels into the pavement to slow his movement, but it did no good. He continued sliding.

"What is happening?" he screamed although he knew nobody could hear him.

He was wrong. Somebody could hear him and an answer came on the air, "Your spirit follows your body until you are surrendered to walk toward the gathering. When you are ready to accept my help in your journey, I will guide you."

"Amos!" Samuel called out to the air. " Where are you? I cannot see you!"

"I am here," said the angel, appearing beside him. "I will not leave you until my work is done, as I am assigned to your death."

His hand was back on Samuel's shoulder. The angel, himself, floated beside him, hair and garment blowing in the breeze created behind the moving ambulance. Glancing at Samuel out of the corner of his eye, Amos added an afterthought, "I suggest you pretend you are skating. Flailing your arms and legs about like that must be very disconcerting."

Recognizing a good idea when he heard it, Samuel adjusted his arms and legs into the roller skating position he had learned as a child. It had been years since he last skated. He had to think for a moment to remember the last time, but it came to him. His eyes lost focus as he remembered his daughter's 10th birthday party.

His ex-wife had put together a small group of children and bought a large birthday cake, drinks and snacks for them to munch on, but because she did not know how to skate, Samuel was the one who wound up skating around the roller rink as the children's supervisor. It was well worth his trouble. Crystal, their little girl, had such a good time that day! He only wished those times could have lasted. Since the divorce, four years ago, Crystal would not even talk to him.

Shaking himself out of his memories, he asked, "Does everybody who dies go through being yanked around behind their bodies?"

"Of course," Amos shrugged. "But those who are in tune with their spirits usually welcome angels when they see us. Because they initially accept us, we are able to help ease what is about to transpire." He leaned forward and lifted his leg, reaching one arm out before him in an almost graceful ice-skating move, the hand of his other arm securely attached to Samuel's wrist.

Samuel's eyes narrowed. "What kind of angel is this?" he wondered. "He does not seem to be taking my death very seriously."

Amos stood up quickly, looking directly into Samuel's eyes. "I assure you that I most definitely take your death very seriously," he contradicted. "This is a pivotal moment in your life. You have shed your mortal body to assume the spiritual home you have been building for the past...." he looked at a wristwatch that Samuel just noticed he was wearing, "43 years and one day. This is a very, very serious matter. But," he lifted his free arm over his head to strike a different pose, "there is no reason we can't have a little fun with it."

Samuel twisted his mouth into a lopsided smirk. He shook his head, thinking, "My ex-wife would love this guy. This dufus' attitude is just like hers."

Amos laughed, "Do you really think so?" He beamed a smile in Samuel's direction and stated, "That would be a great honor."

Samuel turned away from the angel and sat cross-legged on the road, pulling Amos down toward the ground with him. He could not seem to win today and if he was going to be dragged through town by an ambulance, he could at least sit down.

#  Post IV

It did not take long to get to the hospital. There, his body was placed in the morgue. As they entered it, Samuel saw out of the corner of his eye that Amos was nodding his head around the room.

"What are you DOing?" he asked, his eyes squinted. He was completely puzzled by the angel's peculiar behavior.

Amos shrugged. "This is a morgue," he stated in a matter-of-fact tone. "I am greeting the other angels of death in the room. Surely, you do not think you are the only person who has recently passed away?"

In truth, Samuel had not thought about it. He guessed it made sense that he was not the only dead person in a hospital morgue, but why did he not see the other dead people or their angels? As per usual, he did not have to ask the question for Amos to answer it.

"You are dead, Samuel. You are not heavenly. You only see me because I have revealed myself to you. Don't you wonder why I do not stop touching you? Here. Watch what happens when I do."

Amos let go of his elbow. Samuel stood alone in the room, small metal doors lining the walls. The paramedics were gone now and he knew that behind each of those metal doors lay a corpse. Creepy! A knot began to form in his stomach as he gazed around the empty room.

"Amos!" he cried out into empty air. "Come back! Don't leave me here alone!" Amos blinked into the room again, hand returned to Samuel's elbow.

"Fraidy-cat," he accused his charge. "I disappear for two seconds and you have a coronary. It's not like I went anywhere. You just could not see me. I was here the whole time."

Samuel got the point. "So," he clarified. "I can only see you when you are touching me?"

"Correct," Amos nodded.

"And that means I would have to touch the other angels to be able to see them.... Right?"

"Not exactly," Amos explained. "The angel is the one who needs to make the contact. In other words, I need to touch you for you to see me. If it were the other way around, people would freak out! Imagine walking down a street full of people... and their guardian angels."

Samuel imagined. He saw himself walking down Main Street, people everywhere, angels popping in and out every time he passed a person. The idea did not appeal to him.

Amos offered, "You want to try it out? Here. You put your hand on my shoulder and I will take my hand off your elbow." He reached over to take Samuel's hand and move it up to his shoulder.

"NO!" Samuel jerked his hand away from the angel's shoulder. He did not want to be left alone in that creepy room again. He conceded, "I believe you. I don't need to see."

Amos smirked, "Alright. Take it easy. There is no need to get your panties all in a bunch. I am fully aware that faith requires no proof."

Samuel took a deep breath and blew it out. "What do we do now?" he asked.

"We wait," Amos replied. "Would you like to play cards?" He pulled a deck of cards out from his robes.

"Wait for what?" Samuel wanted to know.

Amos allowed his arm, still holding the deck of cards, to drop to his side while he took time to explain, "You are dead. Right?" Samuel nodded. Amos continued, "Your body needs to be identified, then released to your next of kin and disposed of. You have to stick around until that is done so that you can hear the final words of anyone who wants to say good-bye to you. After that is finished, if there is no particular reason you need to stay here, I will take you to the beginning of your journey. That's the way it works."

Before Samuel could ask what Amos meant by "the beginning" of his "journey," the angel grew very quiet. His eyes grew glassy as he bowed his head and touched the middle finger of his right hand to the juncture of his ear and jawbone. Then, suddenly, his right hand dropped from his ear as his whole body began to glow with a dazzling white light. His head bowed low and he sank to his knees, as his fingers slowly slipped off Samuel's arm.

Amos blinked out of sight.

#  Post V

Long minutes passed as Samuel waited for Amos to return. Although it appeared that he was totally alone, Samuel knew better this time. He knew his angel would not leave him, so he was not afraid. Looking around the room at walls lined with steel doors, he wondered how many other souls were nearby. He supposed it didn't matter if he couldn't interact with them, he shrugged to himself.

"What does it matter?" he thought. "No matter how many other people are here, it's not like they can keep me company if I cannot see them."

Deciding that he might as well pass the time by having a look around, he turned toward the door. He took three steps before he remembered: Spirits do not need to use doors. Putting his hand to his forehead, he shook his head at himself and changed direction mid-stride to walk directly at the wall.

On the other side of the morgue wall, he stood in a hallway. He turned his head to the left. The hall stretched forward until it formed an "L" at its end, about fifty feet away. No doors on either side, there was only the entrance to the morgue and the turn to that other hall. Samuel looked to his right. It was exactly the same except for a large, orange, double-door at the hall's end. He headed toward the orange doors. He hoped they led outside. The morgue was very stuffy and it would be nice to get some fresh air.

In front of the doors, Amos blinked into view, his hand back on Samuel's elbow. His face relaxed and peaceful, his whole body held a faint shimmer.

Samuel stopped walking. "What happened? Where did you go?"

A smile touched the angel's lips, "I went nowhere. We just lost contact for a few minutes. Let's go back to the morgue. Sharon is about to arrive."

"Sharon!" thought Samuel. "Thank goodness! She'll arrange my funeral and I can finally move on to heaven!"

Amos cleared his throat.

"What?" snapped Samuel.

"Weeellll..." he dragged out the word. "Heaven? We'll talk about that later. For now, let's just go back in here." He walked through the morgue wall. Samuel followed.

"Now what?!" the man demanded.

"Thanks," said Amos. "This is really an honor and I want my colleagues to hear it."

Samuel said nothing. He was tired of beating around the bush and just wanted Amos to get to the point. He folded his arms and looked directly at the angel.

"When we lost contact a few minutes ago? That was because the Boss, Himself, was speaking to me. He has special instructions for your crossing," Amos smiled proudly. Nodding, he held his right hand high in the air and out to the side.

Samuel was just about to make a mental comment on the strangeness of angel behavior when another angel popped in and out of the room. Samuel blinked. In that brief moment, he was impressed by an unusually tall figure with skin as dark as coal and clothed in flowing white robes similar to the ones Amos wore.

"What was that?!" he demanded, surprised. At the same time, he wondered, "Was he giving Amos a high-five??"

"Yes, he was!" the angel laughed. "That was Julian. He was congratulating me on the honor we just received." He explained, "It is not often that any of us receive instructions directly from the Boss. We usually get our orders from our arch-angel."

Samuel stroked his chin, contemplating what his angel had just said. It seemed that the big boss of the angels had some kind of special interest in him. He wondered what the interest could be, and if it was a good thing or a bad thing to be singled out by the big boss. He was still forming a series of questions about it when the morgue door opened. A man in a white lab coat entered the room. He was followed by Sharon.

#  Post VI

"This may be a little shocking, ma'am," said the middle-aged man in the lab coat, "but it should only take a moment."

Sharon's only response was a nod. Samuel imagined that she was too shaken to speak without crying. He wanted to reach out to comfort her, but he knew she would not feel him. Still, he walked over to her and gently stroked her dark, shoulder-length hair. Maybe, just maybe, she would somehow feel him even though she could not see his spirit.

"Oooh!" She exclaimed, visibly shaking off a shudder. "I just got the coldest chill!"

She had felt him! Samuel felt elated. To him, this was proof-positive that they were soul mates. Did she realize the chill was from the touch of his spirit? He wondered. He stopped stroking her hair to place an arm over her shoulders. She trembled under his touch. Sharon wrapped her arms around herself to fend off the chill.

"It is probably just the cold air from the refrigeration unit being opened," the mortuary assistant surmised. "We keep the corpses pretty cold to preserve them." He smiled over his shoulder as he pulled a long shelf out of the wall. On it was Samuel's dead body. Pulling back a sheet from Samuel's face, he looked askance at Sharon.

She looked down, her fingers nervously twisting the jade and diamond necklace Samuel had given her last Christmas. Her face turned pale, then a light shade of green, when she saw the gash from the steering wheel on his forehead.

"Poor thing!" Samuel thought. "She must feel horrified."

"Yes," Sharon confirmed and turned her head, closimg her eyes. "That is my husband. That is Samuel." She paused briefly before she asked, "Can we go into the other room? I feel the creepiest cold chill in here."

"Oh, sure. Of course!" The mortuary assistant quickly covered Samuel's face and pushed the drawer back into the refrigeration unit, securing the door closed behind it. "A lot of people get that kind of chill when viewing a deceased loved-one." He gestured toward the exit, "After you."

Samuel's heart sank. The look of concern on his face changed to one of sorrow. "She is not comforted by my presence. She gets the creeps from my touch," he lamented.

Amos turned his head to scratch his ear for a moment. He suggested, "Umm... Stop touching her?"

Samuel allowed his arm to slide off Sharon's shoulders as she left the room, but he stepped through the wall to watch her walk away for as long as he could. Before she disappeared from sight around the corner on the far side of the long hallway, he heard her ask, "How long does it take to get a certificate of death? I need it for the insurance."

Amos had been very quiet while Samuel watched and listened to his second wife. When she was gone from sight, he put his hand on Samuel's shoulder. "C'mon," he encouraged. "What did you expect from her? You are, after all, dead. Let's go back and play some cards. We have some time to pass before we get out of here."

Amos again pulled out his deck of cards, and then disappeared from sight as he took his hand off Samuel to pass back through the wall. Looking one last time in the direction Sharon had disappeared, Samuel also turned to the wall. He dragged his feet after the angel.

#  Post VII

Back in the body storage room, Amos reappeared by the familiar hand-to-elbow method. Cards still in hand, he raised his eyebrows and tilted his head in silent askance.

Samuel groaned. "Why don't we just go to sleep early?" he asked.

"Spirits do not sleep," the angel responded. "It will be a very long night without something to do."

"Alright," his chage conceded, dragging out the word. He was not looking forward to a night of playing two-handed card games, but at least it was better than the alternative. He moved to the center of the room and sat down in the middle of the floor. Amos sat with him, fluffing out his robes with his free hand. As he did, the robes brushed another angel's knee. At the moment of contact, the second angel appeared out of thin air. It was Julian, the angel of death who had given Amos a "high five" after speaking with "the Boss."

Samuel caught his breath at the sight of the second Angel of Death. Short black hair, ebony skin, a trim mustache touching his upper lip, each arm the size of another man's leg, he seemed to be dealing out his own deck of cards. Even just sitting calmly on the floor at an angle to Amos, Julian looked much like David's Goliath must have looked. He was enormous and one thing was for sure. Samuel would not want to meet him in a dark alley.

Amos gave Samuel a sideways glance. "Be careful," he cautioned the man. "Julian is a gentle giant, but his charge is a card shark. He has no scruples." Turning to his coworker with a broad smile, he playfully prompted, "What do you say, Julian? Shall we teach these guys a game they don't know?"

The rest of the night was spent playing ancient Egyptian card games with two angels of death and an invisible card shark who seemed from the angels' periodic responses to be rather put out that they would not gamble. Samuel could not remember having so much fun in a very long time. In the morning, the party disbanded when hearses came to take the two bodies to their respective funeral homes. This time, Samuel suggested riding imaginary skateboards behind the vehicle dragging him and Amos to their destination. As they skateboarded in tandem to the funeral home, it occurred to Samuel that his angel was almost as old as time itself, but playing with him made Samuel feel like a child.

Hearing Samuel's thoughts, Amos called out over the wind, "Well, of course! Haven't you heard that the Kingdom belongs to such as little children?!"

"No. Where does that come from?" He shouted back.

"The Boss says that," yelled the angel with a smile. He started a jump into an arial acrobatic and disappeared. Conversation over.

At the funeral home where they were taken, Samuel was pleased to discover that the invisible tether to his body was even longer than at the morgue, which had been longer than the scene of the accident. Here, he was able to walk through the entire building and even step a few feet to the outside if he wanted. Amos and he spent most of the morning walking around to see what was there. When they visited the on-site chapel, Amos disappeared for a few minutes. Samuel waited outside.

Around lunchtime, Sharon showed up to make final arrangements. Happy to see her, Samuel decided to avoid touching her this time. He wanted her to stay with him for as long as possible. At first, he was concerned that she might be unable to handle the stress of choosing her husband's casket after such an early death, but she looked like she was handling it well. In fact, she looked really good.

She went through several different burial options with the funeral director, each time asking specifically about cost. Finally, she decided upon cremation. Samuel was pleased with the choice. He felt no desire for his body to decompose underground in an airtight box for who knows how long. As it happened, though, cremation turned out to be the only part of his final arrangements that pleased him.

"We have several different caskets that you can rent for the service," offered the director.

"Oh, yes . . . the service," said Sharon, fiddling with the diamond and ruby watch that graced her wrist. "Samuel's family lives quite a distance from here. I talked to his mom this morning and they cannot afford to come to a service. I am going to do a small memorial for him after cremation and send her some ashes to keep."

"I see," said the funeral director. "In that case," he offered, "we have a chapel here if you would like to use that for your service. The rental rates are very affordable. We also have a nice selection of urns from which to choose. You will need two, one for yourself and one for your mother-in-law."

"Hmm, yes," Sharon drawled. "I am going to have a memorial in my house after he is creameated. As for the urn, I talked to his mom about that, too. She said that when she shopped for urns for her husband, several years ago, they were pretty expensive. She had her son-in-law build a small box out of wood and she suggested that I do the same. I don't have a son-in-law yet, of course, but my ex-husband has agreed to build something for me to use."

As Amos watched him, the expression on Samuel's face changed from lips parted and wide-open eyes to a tight-lipped scowl. He turned to the angel. "My life insurance should easily cover paying for every conceivable funeral expense, including bringing my mother to it, renting a casket and the chapel, buying an urn, and supporting Sharon for the rest of her life!" He was irate. "Her ex-husband has no business doing anything with my ashes. He has no business having anything to do with my wife! And what about my daughter? She won't even come to a funeral for the man whose life insurance will pay for her college education?"

"Calm down," soothed Amos. "There is nothing you can do about anything now except watch and listen."

Samuel snorted, "Humph! I have seen enough. Come play cards with me when you have, also." He stomped through the wall. Amos followed. Later that afternoon, two mortuary assistants cremated Samuel's corpse.

"Poor guy," said one. "Nobody here to say good-bye. Looks like he was in a pretty bad accident, too. What do you suppose his story is?"

The other assistant answered, "Yeah, it was that big one that hit the news yesterday – the one with the cement truck. The driver was in tears right on the evening news! She did not blow through the end of a yellow light and this idiot rammed his car up her tail."

"What a genius," the first assistant shook his head. "What about the family to say goodbye? Nobody?"

"His wife was in earlier today. Rich priss is only concerned with how much money will be left from his insurance policy. I guess the guy has a kid from another marriage but I don't know what is going on there. All I know is that when I go, I want my whole family to say their final farewells."

"Me, too!" the first assistant emphatically agreed.

Amos stood with his arm over his charge's shoulders as they watched the scene through a small viewing window. He knew this was hard for Samuel and that his family's absence at any kind of memorial had made this especially difficult for him. As the fire finished its job, Amos rubbed the shoulder upon which his hand rested.

"C'mon," he prompted. "This next part is by special order of the Boss. It is highly unusual and a great privilege. Are you ready to go?"

Samuel nodded silently.

#  Post VIII

One hand already on his charge's shoulder, Amos held out the other. By design of the Old One, he needed Samuel to touch both of his hands so that he could execute the transport. This was Amos' least favorite part of his job, but he tried not to show it. The unpleasant feeling of energy draining from his spirit-body was simply the way things worked. It was pure physics and there was no reason for Samuel to feel more nervous about coming events than necessary, so Amos smiled as he held out his hand.

"Could you at least tell me before we go: Will my memorial service be nice? Will there be a lot of people there? Will my daughter come? Will I get my 21-gun salute?" The questions poured out. Amos could tell Samuel felt disappointed that he had not been able to see his loved-ones before leaving.

In as gentle a tone possible, Amos answered, "I don't know, Samuel. I have lived from the beginning of time until now. I remember history that is not even in history books. I personally witnessed the parting of the Red Sea and know first-hand secrets of building the great pyramids, but I do not know the future. I am just an angel. Like you, I am bound by time. Only the three Great Ones are not."

"Great Ones?" asked Samuel, curious that he had never heard of any "Great Ones" before now.

The angel lifted his chin and let it down in a single nod. He bent to bring his mouth close to Samuel's ear. "The Boss, The Old One and The Shepherd," he whispered.

Amos again stood straight; He prompted more loudly, "C'mon. Enough questions. You are about to meet one of them for yourself. He has instructed me to bring you to him before I take you to the start of your journey. This is a very rare honor, so take my hand and let's go."

"Bring me to him?" Samuel thought. "What could a being so powerful it is not subject to time want to see me for?" He swallowed hard. He could not imagine why anyone that powerful might possibly want to see him. Slowly, reluctantly, he reached out to grasp Amos' open hand.

No sooner did their skin touch than air whooshed around their bodies. Quickly increasing wind speed made breathing difficult and Samuel looked at Amos with wide eyes. The angel's curly, golden hair was blowing straight up. The two were dead center in the middle of a cyclone! Amos flashed a grin, and then winked.

"What's that for?" Samuel wondered. He looked out over Amos' shoulder. Instead of seeing what he expected, which was the force of wind blowing around them, he saw something very different. The room itself was spinning. Faster and faster, it spun around and around until it was just a blur. Their spinning, blurred surroundings turned momentarily to a grayish white haze, then back to a colored blur before separating into spinning surroundings again and, finally, coming to a stop.

Motionless at last, Samuel let go of his angel's hand to rub his own forehead. A low groan escaped his lips. The room may have stopped spinning, but his head had not.

"I do NOT want to do that again," he droned.

"It's okay," soothed Amos. "That's the last time you should ever have to do that. Just give it a minute. Take your time."

"Where are we?" Samuel asked, his head beginning to clear. They stood in the living room of a small apartment. Bare, white walls and brown carpeting surrounded them, a second-hand sofa and a cheap office chair offering a place to sit in the tiny living room. Samuel remembered living in a similar place when he was first married, twenty years ago. He remembered how hard he had struggled to make a better life for his family and how his wife, Gloria, had carefully budgeted and clipped coupons to make ends meet.

He shuddered at the memory. Those were some hard times, but somehow he caught a few lucky breaks exactly when he needed them along the way and became the successful businessman he was today. He smiled as a thought occurred to him. If his life had been any different, he would never have made it to the position where he had a lovely office assistant named Sharon, the same Sharon who later became his bride.

As he looked around the meager dwelling, his eyes fell on a very nice coffee table. It looked oddly out of place amidst the room of cheap furniture. Yet it also looked vaguely familiar.

"Why don't you go take a look?" suggested Amos, moving toward the coffee table in order to conveniently avoid the question that had been put to him. He did not want to have to deal with Samuel's reaction when he found out where they were.

Samuel knelt beside the coffee table. Upon inspection, he was sure he knew it. This was left to Gloria in her grandmother's will. A knot formed in his stomach. He did not want to be where he thought he probably was. His eyes rolled up to look silent askance of Amos.

Amos' lips were a tight line on his face. He motioned with his head toward a bedroom door, "Let's go. The Shepherd is in there."

Swallowing hard, Samuel stood. If his ex-wife was in there with the Shepherd, he knew it could not be good. Gloria was probably whining about how unfair it was that she got no support, no part of his estate and not a penny of his life insurance. She must really hate him for sending her back to this impoverished lifestyle after suffering and struggling so long and hard to get out of it. He began to mentally prepare his own defense by remembering how unhappy he was with her. Gathering as much courage as he could muster, he lifted one heavy foot after the other in the direction of that bedroom door.

#  Post IX

"Do you know if my ex-wife is in there, too?" Samuel asked, worried. If Gloria was in the room with the Shepherd, he was sure to be in trouble. People always felt sorry for her and took her side against him. There was no telling what kind of revenge she might ask for him having left her with no support.

Amos began his reply, "There is no such thing as. . ." when, THWUMP! something banged the top of Samuel's head.

"Ouch!" he yelped, startled. Turning to Amos, he began, "What . . . ?" But the angel was not there. Samuel looked down at his own body to locate the ethereal being's hand. Instead, he found the heel of a foot touching the back of his own. In a split second, Amos had moved to stand directly between Samuel and the wall of Gloria's room.

"Do not move," he ordered his charge, his tone even and urgent. A protective and serious look on his face, this was no request. It was an order. "I will be right back." Moving his foot away from Samuel's, the angel disappeared.

Samuel rubbed his head but remained otherwise motionless. He did not know what was going on or why his head had been thumped, but he recognized the look of danger he had seen on Amos' face and he did not dare disobey. After spending the last two days in the company of a mythical creature as old as time itself, he was well aware there were forces around him that he did not see or understand and he knew he was in the care of someone who did see and understand them. If the angel told him to not move, he was going to stay exactly where he was.

The minutes seemed to drag on forever as he waited. Samuel stood there, seemingly alone and forbidden to move, in the residence of the one person on Earth he wanted least to see, his ex-wife. Even thinking about her brought up feelings of distaste and resentment. This was the woman who wanted him to stay in a miserable marriage when he had the chance to be happy with Sharon. Then, when she could not get her own selfish way, Gloria had poisoned their daughter against him. He hated the woman. He could not even remember what he ever saw in her. Yet here he stood in her shabby, low-income apartment, frozen in place and staring at the outside wall of her bedroom.

Glancing around the apartment as he waited for Amos, he noticed several familiar items. Hanging on the dining room wall was the cuckoo clock he had bought Gloria for her 37th birthday. It was the most expensive gift he had ever given her but, at the time, he felt guilty about his secret relationship with Sharon. He bought the clock to appease his own feelings of guilt. As it turned out, the expensive present just made him feel guiltier.

There was a picture of their young family on the wall. Looking at it brought back memories. Dirt poor, young and in love, that was the best time in his life. Samuel's heart felt heavy. He missed those days of no regret, when he was proudly beginning to build his life.

Over in the dish drain, he spied a pink-glass mixing-bowl. He remembered how poor they were when they bought the set, but Gloria insisted it would be worth scraping together the money. She was right, of course. Twenty years later, she was still using it and they still looked nice. He thought of the cookies she used to mix up in those bowls. He wondered if she still baked cookies from scratch.

Closing his eyes, Samuel shook his head. These thoughts were not good. They were making him second-guess his life choices – choices that had brought him much financial success, a young wife and two wonderful stepchildren. He determined that he would not regret his wife and family. He had to stop remembering fond moments with his lazy, selfish ex-wife. She was no longer the same woman he had fallen in love with. She had changed and her changes were not good.

"Here is the situation," Amos, appearing out of thin air, interrupted his thoughts.

Samuel jumped, startled. He knew the angel was there and would reappear soon, but it was still pretty disconcerting when someone just popped in out of nowhere like that.

"Gloria has a guardian angel. His name is Gabriel and . . . what's that?" Amos glanced over his shoulder at the empty air behind him. " . . . Oh, okay," he nodded and then looked back to Samuel. "He says you are family so you should call him Gabe. Anyway, he has been guarding Gloria since she was a little girl and has been a first-hand witness to every happy and sad moment of her life since then. He has something he needs to say to you so wants to let you see him. I have agreed but remember that this can't be a long conversation. The Shepherd is waiting with your wife."

"Wonderful," thought Samuel. "Another person to yell at me." Drawing in a long breath, he exhaled, "You mean ex-wife... Alright. Let me see him."

"Great!" Amos reached out his free hand to empty air behind him and it came to rest on a muscle-bound shoulder. Samuel's eyes almost popped out of their sockets when he saw the rock-hard muscles of the angel that shoulder was attached to.

Gloria's guardian angel was no gender-neutral creature like Amos. This angel was all man and all muscle. Testosterone oozed from every pore, the sweat of recent activity glistening on muscles the size of small animals. Shirtless, he wore blue jeans and a cowboy hat with a large cross on the front of it. In his left hand, the weapon that had struck Samuel over the head, an oversized tennis racket, dangled at ease. Samuel swallowed at the sight of the racket-weilding, cowboy-gladiator. What could such a powerful being possibly have to say to him? He tensed in anticipation.

Hat tilted downward, a baritone voice emerged from the powerful figure's lips, "I apologize for hitting you on the head with my weapon."

Samuel was so surprised he could not think of what to say. Gabe continued, "No matter how insulted I feel for your widow, it is not my place to exact revenge in any form."

"Ex-wife," Samuel corrected. That was an important distinction to him. Despite Gloria's claims to the contrary, his marriage to her had been officially over for four years now. Emotionally, it had been over for even longer.

"Widow," the angel growled, lifting his chin to stare at Samuel from under the brim of his hat. Gabe's eyes narrowed as he took half a step forward. Seeing his set jaw and steady gaze, a chill ran up Samuel's spine. He swallowed again, his throat suddenly dry. Snapping his lips together tightly to prevent himself from saying anything else to upset the intensely powerful being breathing two steps from him, he was relieved Amos stood between them.

"The man does not understand, Gabe," interjected Amos. "He does not know the Law."

"Wrong," corrected the guardian. "I witnessed when his wife told him. He knows the Law and I am fixin' on making him understand it." Gabe moved his tennis racket from his left hand to his right.

Samuel tried to take a step backwards, threatened by the gladiator-like being's switched position, but Amos' vice-like grip held him in place. Fortunately, Amos also kept Gabe from advancing. Samuel was impressed. The angel of death was much stronger than he outwardly appeared.

Relaxing a little, Samuel asked, "What Law? What did she tell me?"

A low growl rumbled from Gabe's throat as he slowly lifted his tennis racket. Samuel's muscles tensed, but Amos seemed unconcerned. The Angel of Death explained, "The Law of the Great Ones, who are the Ones who created marriage in the first place, clearly states that anyone who divorces and remarries commits adultery. In other words, the two stay married in the eyes of the Great Ones even after divorce. The vows you spoke on your wedding day said, 'until death us do part,' and that is exactly what they meant."

Samuel reflected silently, "Yes, that sounds like something Gloria has said." Outwardly, though, he remained silent. He did not want to further antagonize Gabe.

"Your divorce decree has no more authority over your marriage than it does over electricity," Gabe rumbled in agreement.

"Well, I don't believe that," countered Samuel.

"I'm sure that will be a great comfort to you as you wail in black despair for all of eternity," Gabe barked and sprang into the air, muscles rippling with power as energy pulsed through them to swing the over-sized tennis racket in Samuel's direction. Samuel braced for impact as he watched the powerful arm of Gloria's Guardian come swinging down.

BANG! The mesh-weave of the tennis racket met an object in mid-air and for a fraction of a second, Samuel caught a glimpse of a strange, dark form.

"Scared, were ya'?" Gabe winked, back on the ground. Lips twisting into a crooked half-smile, the muscle-bound angel hooked a thumb into his belt. His weight shifted to his rear foot as a crooked half-smile crossed his face. "I said I was sorry for banging you before. Sorry is sorry. I won't do it again."

Samuel stood up straight. He was not amused, but he was also not going to admit the angel had frightened him. "What was that . . thing?" he asked.

"That?" asked Gabe. "That was one very stupid nether-being. It can't get anywhere close to your wife while the Shepherd is with her, so it thought it would try to attach itself to you." The angel chuckled, "In front of ME."

"Nether-being?" Samuel's eyebrows lifted.

"The inhabitants of the nether, the darkness," Gabe explained, but when he saw the look of confusion on Samuel's face he turned to Amos. "Do you think it would be okay to show him?"

Amos shrugged. "I don't see why not. It's not like he won't see them soon enough anyway." The Angel of Death turned his attention to Samuel, "Samuel, if you want to see a nether-being, we can show you." Samuel nodded his understanding, but Amos continued, "It is up to you, but you need to know that this is pretty scary. You might not want to look."

"Of course I want to look! Why wouldn't I?"

"You don't have to," offered Amos. "You could just trust us to take care of you without looking."

Samuel insisted, "I want to see."

A hint of cruel pleasure crossed Gabe's face as Amos said, "Okay, just as long as we are clear that you are the one making the request."

"Yes, yes. Just show me already!" Samuel demanded, growing impatient.

"Come this way and turn so your back is to the wall," instructed Amos. Still holding Samuel's elbow and Gabe's shoulder, the Angel of Death moved to help Samuel into position. Gabe's position remained unchanged. Coming to a halt, Samuel turned around to face out into the room.

When they were satisfactorily positioned, it was Gabe's turn to offer instructions, "All you have to do to see the nether-beings is let my hand touch yours. It is just like completing a circuit. When you want the nethers to disappear again, take your hand away." He reached his hand out to Samuel.

#  Post X

"What do you think I am?" demanded Samuel. "A coward? If there is something out there, especially if it is 'scary,' I have a right to see it!" He grabbed Gabe's hand to complete the circuit so that he could see the invisible nether-beings in the room with them.

Air hissed into his lungs as he simultaneously drew in breath through his mouth and nose. In one fluid motion, his jaw dropped, his eyes grew round and he stepped backwards, pulling on the hands of both angels. Three times, they had warned him he might not want to look at the nether-beings. Three times, he refused their cautions. Three times, they were right and he was wrong.

Hanging in the air, flapping huge bat-like wings, better than two-dozen gargoyle-like creatures hovered in place before him. The creatures looked like something out of a nightmare. Ranging in size from that of a house-cat to the size of a medium-build dog, the nether-beings were covered in pitch-black, leathery skin. Every foot was a large claw. Every face held razor sharp teeth. Their small, black eyes set in grotesque animal faces burned cold hatred at Samuel as he stared at them from behind the protection of the two angels.

Wanting to flee but knowing he could never outrun the winged creatures, Samuel's throat clenched. Frozen in place by terror, he could not move. Barely breathing, all he could do was stare, mouth ajar, at the sea of monsters filling the air only inches from him.

"Why are they just hanging there?" He squeezed out a whisper.

The cowboy-gladiator-angel answered, "They are held at bay by the direct presence of the Shepherd. When He leaves to watch from above, they will resume their attack and I will be left alone to defend your wife."

"Stop calling her my wife! Gloria is my EX-wife!" Samuel stomped his foot on the floor for emphasis. He conveniently let go of Gabe's hand at the same time. Seeing the nether-beings creeped him out but he did not want to appear as scared as he felt.

Gabe shrugged and rolled his eyes in Amos' direction. Amos shook his head from side to side. Both could clearly hear human thought. Samuel was fooling nobody but himself if he thought the angels did not also know his frightened feelings.

Samuel, triumphantly ignoring them, asked, "Why do the nether-being want to hurt Gloria? I mean, she is pretty nasty and I know what she did to me, but what did she do to them?"

This time, Amos answered, "Gloria stands between their master and what he desires. He knows that he cannot have it as long as she continues to plead the protection of the Great Ones, so he sends his nether-beings to whisper lies in her ears and cast doubt and fear into her heart in the hope that she might give up her stand against him."

Amos paused. His eyes grew glassy, as if he were listening to something. "We have no more time to go into this," he announced. "The Shepherd calls. We have to go. Now."

Releasing his hold of Gabe and causing the guardian angel to once again become invisible, Amos gave Samuel's elbow a little tug to get him moving toward Gloria's bedroom.

"But..." Samuel began to protest.

The angel cut him off with a repeated word, "Now."

"Ouch!" Samuel jumped in the direction he was supposed to be moving. The sting of Gabe's over-sized tennis racket meeting his rear end did not hurt but it was a surprise. It seemed both angels were in accord. The Shepherd's call was not to be ignored.

Rubbing his behind as he walked towards Gloria's bedroom wall, Samuel spied Amos frowning at the air behind them, presumably at Gloria's invisible Guardian Angel.

#  Post XI

He wanted to ask what was so valuable that Gloria would not surrender it to the nether-beings' master for the sake of her peace and safety, but there was no time. The Angel of Death paused at the bedroom's threshold to instruct, "When you enter, kneel until I bid you rise."

"Kneel?" Samuel wrinkled his nose in askance.

Without pausing to answer, Amos stepped forward into Gloria's bedroom. Falling to his knees, his vice grip dragged Samuel to the floor with him.

Catching his balance on the floor with his free hand, Samuel protested loudly, "Hey!"

"Ssst!" corrected Amos, motionless. On his knees with head bowed, fingers wrapped around Samuel's elbow, the angel did not move a muscle. Perfectly still, he looked like he was carved of stone.

Samuel, his head bowed as directed, hesitantly glanced up. Cautiously, his eyes darted around the room to locate the powerful and mysterious "Shepherd." Not knowing what to expect, he tried to imagine a creature even more fearsome than a nether-being. He could not even fathom such a creature, but it did not matter. The only other person he saw in the room was Gloria and he knew that she was NOT the Shepherd.

Nudging an unresponsive Amos, Samuel whispered, "It's okay. It's just Gloria." Even though nobody else was there to hear him, whispering somehow felt appropriate.

There she sat atop a Queen-sized bed that Samuel recognized all too well, her slender form clothed in familiar red, satin pajamas, a thick book in her lap. Her eyes closed, Samuel knew she was awake by the constant movement of her fingers rubbing each other, one of which still wore the wedding ring he had placed on it so many years ago.

Silently, he sighed. He wished she would just move on with her life. Their marriage was over. It had been over for years. If she would just accept that he did not love her anymore and move on, she could be happy. Their daughter, Crystal, would also be happier with a mother who set a good example of how to live a normal life.

Although Samuel had once thought he loved Gloria, he knew better now that he knew who she was in her heart of hearts. Thank goodness Sharon had shown him the truth! Gloria was nothing but a beautiful façade over selfishness, venom and insanity. She was wickedness personified, the last person on Earth he ever again wanted to see. Yet, strangely, he felt comforted by her presence.

Gloria's eyelids flitted open. She looked up at the ceiling and then, brushing aside a strand of dark hair that was stuck to her lower lip, she looked down into the pages of the leather-bound volume in her lap. Samuel remembered how soft that dark, beautiful hair was. He noticed that, now streaked with unfamiliar strands of gray, its silken cascade had grown several inches since he last saw her.

"Why doesn't Gloria just give up the thing the nether-beings' master wants?" Samuel whispered.

At the question, Amos slowly began to re-animate. His eyes opened, chin lifted and head turned in Samuel's direction. Raising himself to his feet, Amos pulled the man up with him.

"There is too much at stake," he answered.

"Are you trying to make me angry?" Samuel demanded. Flustered because the angel was not giving him the information he wanted, his face began to burn with anger.

"You know what I want to know!" he bellowed. "What is at stake? What valuable treasure did Gloria steal from the nether-beings' master that he wants it back so badly?"

He was irate. In court, four years earlier, he had been ordered to pay for Gloria's financial support because the court believed she could not provide for herself. Yet now he had learned that she was secretly hiding something so incredibly valuable that someone was reaching across dimensions to take it from her. She was holding out and Samuel was determined to know how much her treasure was worth.

Amos raised his eyebrows. "I see. You think that because I am an angel, I will forgive you for abusing me the way you abused your wife. But what you fail to realize is that angels have no authority to forgive at all. If you were still in the mortal realm, I might suggest you learn to control your rage before my Boss became upset with you. As it is," the angel shrugged. He said no more.

"As it is, what?" asked Samuel, still angry but curious what the angel had to say.

"Well, let me ask you this," Amos posed. "You are just a mortal man. You have no power over life or time or the universe like the Great Ones do. If somebody abused, cheated on, abandoned and broke your little girl's heart, what would you do to him?"

Samuel paused. This obviously had to do with the way he had left Gloria, but he really did not see how it related to her treasure or the Boss being upset. He decided to see what the angel was leading to.

Nobody had ever before put things to him in those terms. It had been years since he had thought about this, but he was remembering now: The tears in Gloria's eyes when she begged him to go to counseling to save their family, the pain in her voice when she pleaded with him to not take Sharon's calls at home, the times he picked Gloria apart for no real reason just because she had stayed awake until he came home from seeing Sharon. He was not proud of the way he had handled the situation and he was sorry for how hurt Gloria had been, but that is the way it happened.

What would he do to a man who hurt Crystal as badly as Gloria was hurt? He did not know. He loved his little girl more than life itself. If any man ever hurt her so badly that she cried the way Gloria had during their divorce, Samuel would leave no stone unturned in making sure the guy suffered for every one of her tears.

Samuel thought, "He had better have a good place to hide and a lot of money to make sure he stayed invisible."

But aloud, he justified, "I had a right to be happy and I did not cheat on Gloria. Sharon and I waited to have sex until after I filed for divorce."

"You can take that one up with the Shepherd," shrugged Amos. "He is the One who commands holiness, says that a man who looks lustfully at a woman that is not his wife has already committed adultery in his heart, and that a man who divorces his wife makes her the victim of adultery. I just asked what you would do."

"I don't know," answered Samuel. "Her husband has the right to be happy. Maybe she was a bad wife. Did she deserve to be left?"

Amos replied, "Do you forget that I can hear your thoughts? You know as well as I do those things would not matter to you. No matter what your daughter could have done, nothing is worthy of that kind of pain. But why don't you go ahead and tell me where it says that people have the right to be happy?"

Samuel thought for a few minutes. He scratched his chin, then answered, "God wants me to be happy."

"Tell me where it is written," was Amos' quick response, "because I keep hearing that from damned souls and I have no idea where they found it written."

Samuel did not know, so he moved to another argument, "Well, the founding fathers wrote that everyone has the right to pursue happiness."

"Of course you would bring that up," sighed Amos. Samuel grinned, ready to gloat over his victory, but Amos was too quick for him.

"Two things," countered the angel. "First, I have actually met and talked to the founding fathers. They are absolutely mortified that people take that statement out of context to use it as an excuse to disregard the moral rights of others. They are such honorable men that they never even imagined such a plain statement could be twisted to mean a man had the right to chase after happiness at the expense of his sworn duty. That is a complete perversion of what they intended. Second, who has authority over eternity, your founding fathers or the Creator of the universe?"

Put in those terms, Samuel had to admit that his argument was pretty silly. He conceded, "The Creator of the universe."

Amos nodded. There was no disputing simple fact. He brought his argument home, "Gloria is the spiritual daughter of the Creator of the universe, the Great Ones. She is in pain and alone because of you. How happy do you suppose they are with you?"

Samuel caught his breath as realization struck him, "Gloria is the spiritual daughter of the most powerful being in the universe . . . Oh, nooo!" He looked at Amos with wide eyes, too frightened to even imagine.

Amos continued, "It IS written that the man who hates and divorces his wife does violence to the one he should protect, and it IS written that those who practice the works of the flesh, including adultery, will not inherit the kingdom of God."

"I'm sorry!" Samuel cried out. "I'm sorry! I did not know! What can I do to make it right?"

Amos held up his hand, "Enough. I am not your judge and I have no reason to hear your empty excuses. Take this up with Him. I am simply following orders before you move on."

The angel paused only briefly before he added, "It is a constant amazement to me that human beings, given words, laws, written history and even the example of the Shepherd himself, so frequently wait until the first days AFTER their deaths to repent their transgressions. Look, you were told what not to do and warned. It was all put into writing in the most-sold book of all time. You ignored what did not suit you, choosing to believe you would be forgiven for intentional disobedience. Now you are dead. The End. You have all of eternity to be sorry and wail about it in Gehenna. So let's get on with this."

Amos let go of Samuel but he did not disappear as he stretched both of his arms together over the floor and then slowly moved them apart. As his hands moved, a small hole began tearing into the floor beside Samuel, widening by sucking in the edges of the floor around it.

Samuel stepped backward, away from the growing vacuum. Inside it was pure black -- sheer emptiness devoid of light. Only two things escaped the blackness: A numbing heat and a horrifying noise. From the moment the rip in light began, the loneliest, most agonizing wail filled the room, accompanied by a horrible grinding noise. Louder and louder it grew as the hole opened larger.

He peered into the growing spot of nothingness, trying to discern what was in there that could make such an awful, soulful wail, but his sight could not penetrate the blackness. Hungry emptiness sucked in even the light around it. As he looked deep into the wailing void, he felt a presence. Powerful and cruel, pure rage reached an invisible tendril toward him from he dark.

Ice-cold ran up Samuel's spine. Shivering at the chill and burning from the heat exuding from the void, he looked away . . . to see black nothing.

Heart racing in his chest, his breath quickened. Had he been sucked into the void? No, he was sure he could not have been. He shook his head back and forth with a determination that was as much hope as thought. There must be another explanation. He did not remember falling into the pit.

Terrified, he screamed, "Amos! Help me! I can't see!" But the angel did not answer. The wailing and grinding from the pit was so loud that it blotted out all sound.

No light by which to see, unable to be heard by his Angel of Death, Samuel's only option was to wait for the noise to die down so he could call out again for help. Not just noise, he now noticed, this sound was pain. His whole spirit-body ached from it. Listening was unbearable! He clapped his hands over his ears to try to blot it out, but his hands were not enough. The pain penetrated deep into his spirit-flesh.

"Stop!" he screamed. He fell to the floor, writhing in pain and lonely fear. Samuel wished he were living again just so it would be possible for him to lose consciousness. "For pity's sake!" he cried. "Close the pit! I can't take any more!"

#  Post XII

Cool comfort washed over Samuel from the impression of a hand touching his arm. The searing heat on his flesh changed into a pleasant warmness that emanated from within him. The unbearable wailing also stopped, but the blackness around him remained.

"Ahh," he sighed relief. Moments later, he cried out in panic, "Amos!"

"Right here," answered the angel's voice, a short distance away. "You are safe."

"I can't see!"

"Shh, yes, I know," Amos acknowledged. "I truly apologize. I should have warned you to look away from the void. The darkness is so complete that it consumes even the light that is going to enter your eyes. Now hush."

"Oh, good," Samuel ignored the angel's attempt to shush him. "I can't see but you apologized. Well that makes everything all better."

"Please forgive the sins of the servant of the God of your father," replied the angel, his voice somber and his answer short.

"Whatever," Samuel snorted. He was really angry but he did not want to alienate the only person in the world who could both see and talk to him.

"What was that, anyway?" He asked, changing the course of the conversation. "It was like some sort of weird black hole or something."

"Samuel," the angel's voice held an urgent tone as it addressed him. "I will answer your question, but please be quiet and listen in the presence of the Good Shepherd."

"The Good Shepherd?" Samuel wondered. Obviously, Amos meant the Shepherd – one of the Great Ones, but why had he also used the word, "Good?" "Good Shepherd," actually sounded like something familiar from childhood stories Samuel had once heard.

Amos continued answering the question at hand, "The void you saw was not a black hole. Black holes are an astronomical phenomenon that physical things like heat and sound do not escape. The darkness you saw is called 'Gehenna.' In Greek, its name is 'Tartarus.' It is where angels who have sinned are held in chains of darkness to be held for judgment. The fallen angels' and other residents' wailing and gnashing of teeth is the horrible sound you heard. Gehenna is also where those of mankind who do not follow the Good Shepherd will be sent after judgment. . . . In your language, you call it 'hell.'"

Samuel shuddered at the thought of any creature being bound to that place for all of eternity. He could not even imagine spending an entire hour in that horrible, wailing, burning emptiness. No wonder it was called "hell." Thank goodness he had been pulled out of it because he never wanted to go there again!

No sooner had he finished his thought than his angel was speaking again. "Glory and praise to the Great Ones, who know all and instructed me to wait for that thought before I answered your question about what is so valuable that Gloria will not surrender it to the nether beings' master."

Samuel lifted one eyebrow. Amos was talking very strangely. Still, he wanted to know the answer to his question, so he did not comment on the angel's strange speech. Rather, he simply nodded acknowledgment to the reference.

Amos continued, "She refuses him her soul, sets an example for her children to follow so that their souls may also be saved, and guards the path to redemption for her adulterous husband."

If Samuel could have seen, he would have given Amos an icy stare. He knew that was aimed at him. As it was, he could not see to stare at anyone. His retort was instant, "How many times do I have to tell you people? I divorced Gloria before I had any sexual relations with Sharon. I am NOT an adulterer and I am not her husband any more!"

This time, it was not Amos' voice that answered him. The voice that answered was unlike any he had ever heard, and it came from right in front of him. Samuel jumped in surprise and his heart skipped a beat at the sudden presence of the stranger.

"Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery," said the voice, its powerful manifestation reverberating through the air while at the same time soothing Samuel's ears with its soft gentility. Samuel caught his breath. The power of that gentle voice hung in the air around him. He was engulfed by it. If he had not already been sitting on the floor, he would have fallen to his knees in reverence.

Though he could not see the stranger, Samuel bowed his head to Him. Tentatively, he asked, "Who are you, sir?"

"I am the Good Shepherd," answered the voice, its absolute authority resonating against the walls, its gentility encouraging further questions.

#  Post XIII

The GOOD Shepherd. Of course! Samuel remembered HIM. How could he forget? The teachers had talked about Him every week in Sunday school when Samuel was just a little boy.

"Finally!" he thought. Aloud he asked, "Are you going to take me to heaven now? . . . Sir?"

The Shepherd's response was immediate, "Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

Remembering many drunken nights during his youth, and thinking of his slander against Gloria during their divorce hearing, Samuel protested, "That's not right. Scripture says that anyone who believes in you will go to heaven. All we have to do is believe. That's what You said and I believe, therefore I will go to heaven."

If Samuel had been able to see, he would have witnessed Amos in the background, ever so slightly shaking his head. The angel just knew that comment was coming. People over the last two centuries, especially in the more developed nations of the world, had seemingly come to think they could break the Laws of the Old Ones without any kind of consequence. It was always a big surprise to them when they found out they were wrong and it was too late to do anything about it.

The Shepherd answered, "Did you, "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance?" Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."

"I did accompany my faith by action!" the man protested. "I was baptized. I even went to church. . . sometimes."

The Shepherd replied, "Truly I tell you, I don't know you."

"Yes, you do," contradicted Samuel. "I am a good man and a hard worker; I am a good provider for my family; I believe in You; and I always try to do the right thing."

"Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, "You shall not commit adultery," also said, "You shall not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker."

Samuel thought, "Again with the adultery!"

Aloud, he calmly replied, "Sir, I am not an adulterer. Sharon and I waited to have sex until after I filed for divorce."

"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart," was the Shepherd's answer.

Then He added, "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."

Samuel's heart sank. Not only had he divorced Gloria, but he had also married Sharon – who was a divorced woman. He gulped as he realized there was no more arguing about this. In his heart of hearts, he had known all along that developing a relationship with a woman he was attracted to, while he was married to Gloria, was wrong. He knew he had hurt Gloria, too, but he convinced himself that everyone would be better off if they ended the marriage. He and Sharon were happier – sort of. . . for a time. The children were young and resilient, so they should all have been alright when they got used to the change. At the time, he had anticipated that even Gloria would get over it eventually, move on with her life and be happier for the change.

Obviously, Samuel had been wrong and now he was about to pay for it . . . eternally. Despair overwhelmed him as he thought of going back into that wailing pit of darkness and pain. Tears formed in his blind eyes and he began to sob, "I am so sorry. I did not believe Gloria when she warned me. If I could go back now and change what happened, I would. But I can't."

Behind the Shepherd, Amos' head was bobbing up and down. Once the tears came, he knew what would happen next. Through the generations, he had seen and heard it over and over again whenever a soul was privileged to confront the Shepherd. It was always the same. The Shepherd would restore the man's sight, show him the wrong he had done and the sorrow he caused his faithful wife, then send him on his way to await Judgment Day.

This time, however, was about to be different. Amos was going to be reminded that knowing the patterns of the past is not the same as knowing the future.

Samuel, still sobbing, heard Gloria's voice murmur from across the room, "Sweet Lord."

Quickly, the Shepherd "put His hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly." As He moved His hands away, He drove home the point, "The man who hates and divorces his wife, does violence to the one he should protect."

Again able to see, Samuel could finally view how the Good Shepherd looked. Not at all like what was portrayed on television and in the movies, the Shepherd looked to be somewhere between his late thirties and mid-fifties. He was a smallish man, very slim, with wheat colored skin. Wavy black hair with just a few streaks of gray framed His clean-shaven face. He wore evidence of good humor on that stragely beautiful face in the form of tiny wrinkles at the corners of his mouth. His dark brown eyes looked kind and loving but very sad.

Seeing the light return to Samuel's eyes, the Shepherd rose and turned away. He removed an undyed homespun blanket from his shoulders and strode quickly back to Gloria's bed. In stark contrast to His humble appearance and meek carriage, power dripped out of every pore of His being. The combined effect of the polar opposites in one being, power and humility, was magnetic. Without being invited, Samuel rose and followed.

Reaching Gloria with haste, the Shepherd draped his homespun blanket over her shoulders. Samuel now saw with newly opened eyes what the cloth covered when it was draped over her and he gasped aloud at what he saw.

#  Post XIV

The thing that caught his eye was the huge splintering wooden shaft protruding from Gloria's back, new blood pulsing out with every heart-beat over the old, crusted blood at its entry-point.

"What is that?" he swallowed. Sitting across from Gloria on her bed and placing His right hand over her left, the Shepherd ignored him and looked deeply into her eyes to listen as she prayed.

"Lord, I am so thankful for everything you do and have done. You are so good to me," she began her prayer, not seeing or even realizing there was anyone else in the room with her. Samuel did not see her lips move, but he heard her perfectly.

"That's Gloria," Samuel thought. "Always making things out to be better than they are. Just look at this tiny dump! I would not be thanking anybody for this hole."

"What is that sticking out of Gloria's back?" he repeated, this time more insistent. Again, his question was ignored.

"Every promise you make in your Word, you have kept – save one," Gloria continued. "You promise that a husband shall not divorce his wife, but Samuel did divorce me and now I am alone. He will not even talk to me or answer my emails. Yet still you command that a divorced wife must reconcile with her husband or remain un-partnered, and so that is what I do. But I am so alone, Lord, so alone, and it hurts so much. When will you look upon my misery and restore to me your covenant blessing instead of this curse of divorce and abandonment?"

Suddenly it dawned on Samuel, "She doesn't know I am dead." He turned to Amos. "Why doesn't she know I am dead? Didn't Crystal tell her?"

"How can Crystal tell her?" Amos answered. "She doesn't know, either. Sharon won't tell her. If Crystal knew you were dead, she might claim her child's rights to your estate. By hiding your death from Crystal, Sharon will get to keep everything."

"But what about my mom?" the father inside the man demanded to know. "Won't she tell Crystal I am dead?"

Amos was about to answer that Samuel's mother had chosen to avoid contact with the girl after the divorce, but before he could open his mouth, the Shepherd turned large, tear-filled eyes in Samuel's direction. Blood flowed freely from large holes in His hands. The side of His garment was also drenched in red. Crimson even dripped from pinpricks around the crown of His head. The flow from His hands and head spilled over Gloria's lap and bed, but she did not notice. Neither did she notice the growing red puddle oozing out from under the Shepherd's long robes. She just kept praying and whining about the divorce. Her behavior was disgusting.

Still covering Gloria's hand with His own, the Shepherd asked, "Samuel, 'why do you persecute me?"

Samuel's jaw dropped. "Persecute you??" he breathed with horror but the Shepherd had already turned away, His eyes fixed on Gloria as she continued to pray.

Amos, a few steps away, answered Samuel's question, "It is written that what you did for the least of His people, you did unto Him. So everything you have done to Gloria, is done to Him. He literally feels her anguish. Look there," the angel pointed to Gloria's back. "That big, crusty spear with blood oozing all around it is from your continuing adultery against her. The Shepherd feels it as deeply as she does. The long, thin one right next to it is the divorce you forced on her. – You have to look closely but you can kind of see it under the cloak when she moves. He feels that, too. The short spear under the side of her arm (you probably didn't see it either) is the legalization of your adultery with Sharon, another unprovoked assault on your wife and the Shepherd. Would you like me to go on? Because I certainly could. Gloria is quite a courageous prayer warrior. Her battles are well known throughout the heavens. There are few warriors like her left in the world."

"No, no," Samuel shook his head. He felt both horrible and proud: Horrible that he was the one who had inflicted such devastation on his wife and proud that she was so admired in the heavens. "Just tell me, are all those injuries from me?"

"Of course not," answered the angel. "Do you see that little bruise right there? It is from your mistress. . . I mean Sharon, answering your emails on your behalf and pretending they come from you. Of course, that deep blue one on Gloria's chest is from you ignoring her emails. But that long, festering scrape right near her neck? Do you see it?"

Samuel nodded, scrunching his face and holding his breath in anticipation of what Amos would say the scrape was from. He was not sure he really wanted to know, but he had asked.

"That is from Gloria's mother."

"Whew!" Samuel released his held breath. At least that nasty scrape was not his fault. What a relief! Silent condemnation of Gloria's mother filled his heart.

"Her mother won't stop bad-mouthing you or telling Gloria what a horrible environment your marital home was for Crystal's upbringing. Let me tell you. That woman does NOT like you and her negative words constantly grate on your wife's heart."

Samuel winced. That comment really stung. Not only did that mean the nasty scrape was really his fault but he had just learned Gloria's mother never liked him. He had always liked Gloria's mom, and he thought she liked him, too.

"Do you remember when you gave out Gloria's cell number to the woman you met at that restaurant while you were separated?" the angel continued. "That little pinprick you see on her arm there is. . . ."

"Okay!" Samuel yelled, unable to bear hearing any more. "That's enough! I get it already. All of these wounds are from me and I should be ashamed of myself."

"Well, there is also a long, thin, white scar near her heart that you had absolutely nothing to do with. It is covered by her clothing now, but I was around when the wound was open and new. There was blood everywhere! Her very first love broke up with her."

Samuel felt a little better. "I remember hearing about that," he said. "It took a long time for her to heal from him, but she did it. A little scar is not so bad."

"That's true," nodded Amos. "A little scar is not so bad. Of course, he was just a boyfriend. The wound from losing a boyfriend is nothing like what a one-flesh marriage partner can do." The angel gave a single nod in Gloria's direction, "You are looking at that kind of damage right now."

Samuel said nothing. He was too busy looking at the carnage to his wife's spirit-body. She was really a mess, covered in scrapes, cuts, bruises, gaping and festering sores, spears poking out of her, etc. She must really love him to go through this much pain on his account. He wondered if he loved anybody that much. He doubted it.

Turning to Amos, he justified, "I wish I could love her the way that I used to so that she would not be in such pain. I just can't. I love Sharon."

Amos lifted an eyebrow. He knew Samuel and Sharon had been having problems at home, but he determined to answer the man's objection anyway. "There is a reason is written, "Take captive every thought to make it obedient." Many have died and more have suffered for the sake of obedience to the highest Law, and they will find their reward in the end. You are no different than they. Everything is possible for one who believes."

Samuel rolled his eyes and sighed. There was really no winning this argument. The angel knew all the right answers.

"It does not matter, Samuel," Amos interrupted his thoughts. "You are dead. Remember? Gloria begged you for years to come home to work things out, but you traded four years for all of eternity. From the building of the great pyramids until now is not even a drop in the ocean of eternity. So I hope you are happy with your decision to violate your wife for that four years because you can't go back and change your mind now. All you can do is pay the eternal price of repeatedly breaking your vows."

"What do you mean 'repeatedly' breaking them?" Samuel demanded. "Broken is broken. I only broke them once and, after all, I did get a divorce. Then the breaking was done."

"Not that it matters," Amos responded, "because one sin is still sin. But your marriage vow was for life. Divorced or not, each time you failed to "forsake all others" for Gloria, you broke your vows anew. Each time you denied her the right "to have and to hold" you, you broke your vows. Every time you thought or professed that you did not love Gloria any more, you broke your vows. Shall I continue?"

For the first time, the angel began to raise his voice. He was growing tired of answering Samuel's same, ridiculous objections. Even if the man could somehow win an argument with an angel, there was no way he would ever win one against the Great Ones, the inventors of logic and argument, the creators of the Law.

"No," Samuel bowed his head. "I get it." Amos' words had been harsh and pointed, but he knew they were true before the angel had uttered them. He had known all along. He just did not want to admit it. Unfortunately for him, though, absolute truth does not need to be admitted to be true.

"We should go now," he suggested, face sullen. He knew he was doomed and he realized that a few minutes more or less was nothing in comparison to all of eternity. "I can't look at this suffering any more. Let's finish my journey."

"Then go say goodbye to your wife," instructed the angel. "That is why we are here. For her obedience and long suffering, this beloved child of the King of kings has been granted special privilege. Bid final farewell to her."

#  Post XV

Samuel was impressed at the honor Gloria was being awarded, but at the same time he wondered how many other "beloved children" were given the same privilege. Certainly, she was not the only one.

He raised his eyebrows to look askance at the angel. "What do you mean I should say goodbye?" he asked. "You mean I should go over to her and talk to her? How will she hear me?"

"It's not rocket science," Amos scoffed. "Go over and kiss her goodbye. It's not like you've never kissed her before."

It was true. Although Samuel had not seen Gloria for the past four years, over their fifteen years of legal marriage he had probably kissed her more than ten thousand times. He could easily do it once more in obedience to the ShepherdS, especially since Gloria could not see or even feel him beyond the presence of a cold chill. At least after this last kiss, he would be free to move on.

Drawing near to the tortured woman he had come to recognnize as his widow, he hesitated. He did not know if he should bend down to kiss her now, or wait for her to stop praying. If he had only listened to what she was saying, he would not have wondered. He would have known to wait. Uncomfortable and not knowing what to do, he swallowed.

He dredged up his courage to ask the Shepherd for guidance in a single word, "Sir?"

The Shepherd's head snapped to face him. Anger flashed across His eyes from not only the interruption but also from Gloria's prayers. She was in pain again from Samuel's abandonment. An icy wind whooshed through the room and His quiet voice thundered, shaking the walls, "Who is it you have ridiculed and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel "

Samuel, and Amos behind him, both dropped to their knees, heads touching the floor. Amos' hands stretched out before him in genuflection, while Samuel's hands covered his own head in the classic "tornado drill" position he had learned in grade school. Trembling with fear and wondering what he had done to anger the Great One, Samuel dared not even breathe. He held his breath in terror, simply thinking, "Holy crap!"

The Shepherd's voice reverberated through the room, "To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech."

Oops. Calling crap holy would definitely have qualified as perverse speech, even though it was really just a thought. Samuel remembered what Amos had said about taking "every thought captive." He felt instantly sorry.

Opening one eye, he slowly turned his head to the side and looked up at the Shepherd. Lips quivering with fear, his voice trembled, "Sir? Amos says You want me to kiss Gloria goodbye?"

Moving nothing but his hand from Gloria's lap, the Shepherd gestured toward her as if to give permission, stating in a matter-of-fact tone, "You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees."

Samuel rose to his feet and stepped toward Gloria. Bending forward, he gazed into her blood-stained face. Suddenly he realized that nobody would suffer this much just to keep another from being happy. Only a deep, abiding love could make this much suffering possible or worthwhile. He realized now that his wife had never been trying to keep him from happiness when she refused a quick and easy divorce. She knew the spiritual cost of his actions and had been fighting for his everlasting joy all along. Through his adultery and even after he divorced her, she sacrificed herself to try to rescue him from eternal punishment. He wondered if he would have done the same for her and came to the conclusion that he would not. Guilt washed over him. His anger with Gloria was suddenly displaced by sorrow.

Pausing briefly, he took note. This last kiss had been granted to him for the sake of his wife's obedience to the Creator's Law, the one woman whose love for him was true, selfless and unconditional. Samuel felt ashamed that a last kiss was more than he had done for her before he sued for divorce, but he felt grateful that he was receiving one from her. It would have to last him forever in an eternity where love did not even exist. He needed to remember it always, and he intended to savor that memory.

"Thank you," he whispered to the Shepherd. Eyes closed and mouth slightly open, he leaned slowly forward. Mindful that his spirit-body would pass right through her mortal one, he barely touched where his wife's perfect lips should be. Sweet softness met his mouth.

"Mmm," he felt her sigh. Her chin lifted to accept his touch. Pleasant warmth washed over him as his lips, followed by his hands and arms, mingled his spirit-flesh with her mortal flesh and spirit. Lips entwined, he felt sharp but pleasant pains in his chest. It felt like something hard cracking and breaking apart to become supple, and it felt both right and good. He had not felt this way in years but he instinctively knew that it was how he should have felt all along. Samuel's hardened heart was softening into flesh.

The kiss ended too soon but Samuel wanted more. Not wanting to break contact with the woman who could melt his hardened heart and make him feel warm and loved, his lips sought her cheek, her jaw bone, her eyelids. Every touch brought a new and deeper emotion: love, joy, relief, gratitude, concern, friendship, mirth. Joining with Gloria this way was unlocking the door to emotions in him that he had never fully experienced. He was feeling a woman's heart, the depth of her emotions. He had never before now known such intense feelings and he yearned to bask in them forever.

"Samuel," she breathed, opening her beautiful blue eyes to look up into empty air. Although she had felt him kiss her by the permission of the Shepherd, Samuel's spirit remained invisible and untouchable to her. When she opened her eyes to see visually instead of spiritually, she lost her connection to the husband she loved. She reached up to grab the empty air by her face, a tear forming in her eye.

Still mingled with Gloria's spirit and body, searing pain pierced Samuel's chest as he felt the pain her heart did. Despair washed over him. Consumed by her loneliness and fear, he staggered backwards and away from her. His whole body doubled-over in agony. Gasping for breath as he backed away, he clutched at his heart until the pain began to subside.

"Oh, my God!" he cried out, his eyes wide and wild with the sudden realization of what he had done to his wife's heart.

"Do not be afraid, for I am with you," answered the Shepherd, glancing at Samuel. Still seated on Gloria's bed, He reached over to cover her hand again with His, the marks on his body again beginning to pour blood over her.

# Post XVI

"What was that?!" Samuel panted, gasping for breath.

Amos was the one who answered the question, as the Shepherd was again occupied. "Well, to me it looked like a kiss. It must have felt glorious to be able to join and feel her spirit like that." He shrugged, "Angels don't get wives, so I don't know how kissing one feels."

Samuel would have answred but his attention was drawn by Gloria's sobs. Lips unmoving, her thoughts begged, "Why, Lord? Why? Why did he leave me? I was a good wife. I tried to please him, but he left me for that wicked seductress. Now I am alone and he is with an adulteress who intentionally drives away our daughter and cares only for herself."

His heart ached for the pain in her prayer and so he turned his attention away. He could not bear to see her hurt any longer.

Still doubled over from the searing pain he had experienced, hands braced against his knees, he lifted one arm to wave away Amos' comments with a broad motion. "Not the kiss," he clarified. "What was that PAIN?"

Amos lifted his shoulders and both hands, his elbows bent, "Well, what did you expect? Your spirit-bodies were re-joined, like they were joined by the Great Ones when you married. Only, this time, you had no physical body to get in the way of feeling her emotions. When Gloria opened her mortal eyes to see you were not really there, I assume she thought she was dreaming again. So you probably got to feel a little bit of her pain from your betrayal. I bet it felt really good. Didn't it?"

"No," Samuel grumbled. "It felt awful." Now that he knew the effects of his mortal actions, he knew he would never forget. Just like he had thought he wanted, he would remember for eternity the last kiss he had shared with the wife who loved him. He now understood that hell was more than the searing pain and wailing emptiness he had already briefly glimpsed. It was also everlasting regret for his wrong-doings, eternal guilt and the inability to change what he had done in order to make things better.

His spiritual eyes and ears now opened, he continued to hear Gloria's prayers. They were relentless and only added to his guilt, but he could not walk away. He knew this knowledge was the beginning of his eternal torment.

"I pray a hedge of protection around my husband, Samuel," her prayer rose, "so that You will keep him safe, Lord, and bring him swiftly home to me. Despite everything he has done and all the hurt he has caused us, Samuel is still my one-flesh partner. I am incomplete without him and I need him home. Yet, still, I know there is a reason for everything You do and I trust that You will keep Your Holy Word to work everything for the benefit of Your children. . . ."

Samuel clapped his hands over his ears. Having felt her emotions was awful. Being reminded of how good he could feel with her and then feeling the intensity of her pain was awful, too. He knew it was part of his punishment but he just could not willingly bear to hear her begging for him!

"How can the Shepherd stand the begging?!" He wondered. "No wonder He is bleeding all over her!"

"Don't worry, Samuel," interrupted Amos. "In the grand scheme of eternity, 63 years is no comparison."

"63 years?" Samuel reflected that was a very long time for Gloria to hurt for his wrongs.

Amos nodded, "With medical advanceas, her suffering continues only for about 63 more years before I pick her up."

"But how do you know?" Samuel protested. "I thought you couldn't see the future."

"Oh, I can't," the angel confirmed. "She is on my list." He pulled a huge scroll out of the folds of his robes. "I am to pick her up in roughly 63 years to take her to final judgment. There, the Shepherd will keep the promise to His followers that His burden is light (comparatively speaking) and Gloria will enter through the narrow gate set aside for them. She will be one of the few who crosses to the opposite side of the chasm from Gehenna."

Samuel smiled. Although he still mourned his part in her intense and life-long pain, he felt pleased that Gloria would spend eternity in bliss. It was the first selfless pleasure he'd felt in years. He now felt ready to face eternity.

"Let's go, Amos. It is time."

Amos nodded. Without uttering a sound, he gestured for Samuel to follow his lead as he again knelt before the Shepherd in homage, awaiting dismissal. This time, Samuel copied the angel's movements without question and quietly waited.

"Amos?" he asked as they knelt, awaiting the Shepherd's attention.

The angel's gaze turned to him. "Yes?"

"Just out of curiosity, how is it that I went to church and heard the readings just like Gloria did, but she understood the Law all along and I only learned it just now?"

The angel answered, "It is written that, 'Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.'"

Samuel nodded. That made sense to him. He was quiet again, but only for a few moments. Ignoring Gloria's prayers, he had been thinking about himself.

"Amos?" he asked again.

This time Amos did not turn to look. "Yes, Samuel?"

"Now that my spiritual ears are open, does that mean I belong to God?"

"Well, everything belongs to God," the angel shrugged, "but no, not how you mean. Only the living can choose to follow and belong to Him."

Alright. Samuel could accept that. After all he had done, he deserved no mercy. Besides, divine will was divine will and he was nobody to argue. He just had one more question.

"Amos?" he asked for the third time.

Amos smiled. The number three was often significant. "Yes, Samuel? Do you have another question?"

Samuel hung his head, embarrassed for asking so many questions after he had said he was ready to go. "Just this one," he answered.

"Alright, then," the angel answered with quiet curiosity. "What is it?"

"I just want to thank you for being so patient with me," Samuel said, still feeling emotional openness from having been joined with his wife. "And to ask if you can get a message to Gloria that she is free to move on now? I don't want her to suffer that horrible loneliness any longer than she already has."

The third interruption had again proved it did not disappoint. Amos loved when he was able to witness the softening of a hardened heart. It was always such a pleasure and it happened so infrequently. Softly, he responded to the softened heart of Gloria's covenant husband, "No, Samuel. I do not have that power. Only the Great Ones do, but don't worry. The Good Shepherd cares for His flock. Gloria is greatly loved."

"Thank you."

Amos gave a curt nod. He was about to let that be the extent of this conversation because he tried to avoid rendering his opinion to the deceased, but Gloria's obvious suffering made him feel unusually protective of her.

"You know, you pretty much ignored all the good advice your wife gave you during your mortal life. In fact, Gabe told me that you cut down her ideas and she had to nag you incessantly to get you to listen to anything she said. He also mentioned that you benefited when you gave in to her. So now you are dead and about to be sent to Gehenna for all of eternity because you refused to listen to the one person in your life who ever loved you without wanting anything in return except the love you promised her. Don't you think it is about time you shut your yap and finally heard just one thing she is saying?"

Samuel blinked surprise. He was shocked that Amos would talk that way to him, but he knew the angel was right. Embarrassed, he turned his focus to the soft sound of Gloria's voice. Looking in her direction, he began to see the love the Shepherd has for His children.

". . . Please hurry, Lord, because I am weak and grow weary."

Saying nothing, the Shepherd looked deeply into her eyes. He stroked the back of her hand comfortingly.

"I yearn to keep your Laws and our covenant yet I have human needs by Your design. You said ask and receive, seek and find; that if I believe, I would receive what I ask for in prayer."

Eyes never leaving her face, the resident Great One nodded recognition of her Scriptural references.

"Lord, I do believe that You will keep Your promises, but how long must I wait? Will I die before I am reunited with my own flesh? Please, help me for your name's sake; deliver me out of the goodness of Your love. Please breathe life into the dead bones of my marriage with Samuel."

At this, He stopped stroking her hand. In answer to her prayer, he turned to look directly at Samuel. Samuel's heart skipped a beat. He held his breath while the Shepherd looked him up and down. An instant later, the Shepherd boomed a whisper, "Love your wife as I loved the Church and gave myself up for her," and Samuel's head started to spin.

Amos' eyes grew large with surprise. He looked first at the Shepherd and then at Samuel. Could it be? Was this really going to happen? In thousands of years, it had happened to only a handful of people, but this looked about like what he remembered happening the last time. He noted that Samuel looked like he was about to pass out, an impossibility in the realm of spirits.

"The End of Days must truly be fast approaching," thought the angel. He saw the Shepherd turn again to Gloria. Amos watched, awestruck, as "He said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.'"

The Shepherd again turned to Samuel, who was now on only a hair's edge of consciousness. He commanded, "For my own name's sake, I delay my wrath; for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you, so as not to cut you off. Go now and leave your life of sin "

Samuel's spirit disappeared from the room.

#  Post XVII

Samuel groaned. His pounding heartbeat subsided into a normal rhythm. '

He pushed an air bag out of his face to peer out his windshield at the damage to the front end of his car. The whole thing looked like a gigantic, collapsed accordion buried under the tailgate of the cement truck in front of him. Joy surged through his chest.

"Oh, my God," he thought, before quickly correcting himself, "I mean gosh." His eyes pivoted to look upwards.

"Sorry," he apologized.

He looked to his cup holder for his cell phone, but it was not there. "It must have fallen to the floor during the impact," he deduced. He tried to bend over to search the floor with his hand, but he was pinned by the steering wheel smashed up against his chest. He strained, but all he could reach was the seat beside him. This time, there was no angel in it, but his cell phone and a deck of playing cards.

"Thank you!" Samuel called to the air. He smiled as he picked up both the phone and the cards, knowing they had been perfectly placed by a particular angel. Hearing sirens in the distance, he did not look at his phone book before beginning to push the numbers. His fingers just pressed the buttons by instinct. He stared at the cards in his free hand. It was the deck Amos had used in the mortuary but a message had been scrawled across them. In blood red ink on the back of each card was written, "Love your wife, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her!51"

Samuel held his breath as the phone began to ring.

Ring... Ring... Ring...

In another town, Gloria heard her phone ring and looked at its caller ID.

"Why is Samuel calling me?" she wondered. A knot grew in her stomach. Since discovering his adultery, she could not remember even one pleasant conversation with Samurl. No matter how hard she tried, he was always poking at her in one way or another. He simply did not seem able to be happy unless she was unhappy.

Although she loved him and prayed daily for him to come home, she felt reluctant to find out how he wanted to abuse her again. She watched the phone ring, trying to decide whether or not to send the call to voice mail. After three rings, she made up her mind.

"Hi, Sam," she answered and then became silent. She would volunteer no ammunition for him to use against her. She would just wait for him to tell her what he wanted and then she would deal with it.

"Gloria!" her name burst out of the receiver. Gloria yabked her ear away. That was loud! She wondered why he was so excited but she remained silent. Curiousity was not enough to get her to let down her guard when she was apprehensive of an attack.

"I was afraid I might get your voice mail," he tried to engage her.

"Mmm," she answered quietly. She had been fooled by his false friendliness on too many occasions to respond with conversation.

Inwardly, she thought, "Yes, well you almost did. Now tell me what you want so we can hang up and I can deal with whatever it is you are doing to me this time."

There was an awkward pause as Samuel tried to think of what to say next. He wanted to come home to her, but he felt from her coolness that she did not want the same thing anymore. Now that he knew the right thing to do, he was afraid he had missed his chance to do it. He knew she loved him from what Amos and the Shepherd had shown him, but he did not even know how to begin to ask to come home when she was acting so hostile.

He considered that maybe calling her without thinking through what he wanted to say might have been a bad idea. He wondered if maybe he should just hang up for now and figure out his words before he called her back. He looked down at the deck of cards in his hand. Reading the handwritten words on their backs, he remembered watching the Shepherd beside Gloria, bleeding all over her and ignoring His own pain to care for hers.

"No," Samuel determined. "I am going to 'Take every thought captive' and follow the Shepherd's example. I am a follower now52. I am not a coward and I am _not_ going to mess up my second chance!"

Aloud he posed, "I have something I need to ask you, but I don't know the words." Looking upwards, he silently prayed, "I want to do what You told me, Lord, but I don't know the words. Please help me!"

Almost immediately, his prayer was answered. Gloria cautiously broke the silence, "Samuel, are those sirens I hear?"

"Sirens?" he repeated. He had not been paying attention. The fire truck was there now, firefighters trying to pull open his partly buckled door. "Oh, yes. Sirens. Mm hmm. That's what they are."

"Why are there sirens?" she asked.

Samuel's heart began to race. He hoped he had enough time. He remembered that the rescue workers would take the crushed door off of his car very quickly. He knew what he needed to say now. The words had come to him. He just needed to say them. Nervous, he began by answering Gloria's question, "I was in an accident. My car is pretty messed up."

Then he asked, "Gloria?"

Gloria's heart skipped a beat. Alarm washed through her. She wondered if Samuel might be suffering amnesia from a head injury. That was the only reason she could think that he had called her from the scene of an accident. Her mind raced, imagining possibilities.

"Yes?" she asked, worried and anxious that she was too far away to help him if he needed her.

"Do you remember when I told you that I would never, ever, under any circumstances come back to you?"

Gloria mentally kicked herself. She had known his dig at her was coming but she still let him lead her right into a trap She had fallen for the set-up again. She braced herself to get hurt again for having opened herself up. She felt like a fool!

"Hm. Yep," she answered, slipping back into her self-defense mode and closing her heart.

Hands were reaching into the car's cab now, grabbing at Samuel's arms and body.

"Here now. Give me the phone, sir," instructed a rescue worker.

He batted the man's hands away with the deck of cards in his free hand. Concentrating on getting out what he needed to say before his phone was taken, he blurted, "I was wrong, Gloria. Getting divorced was the biggest mistake of my life! I talked to the angels and the Good Shepherd, and I know now that I need to come home. Will you still take me back?"

Gloria froze in place. She was stunned speechless. She could barely even think. For so long, she had prayed day and night for the restoration of her marriage but when her husband finally said he wanted to come home, she did not know what to say.

When her wits slowly returned, she wondered, "What does he mean that he talked to angels and, did he say the 'Good Shepherd?' Who calls Jesus the Good Shepherd anymore? He needs an MRI. He must have banged his head pretty hard in the crash."

"Ma'am?" a strange man's voice spoke into her ear.

Gloria felt wetness on her cheeks. She had no idea why she was crying. She brushed the tearst away but they kept flowing and she could not stop them.

"Y.. y.. yes?"

"I am with the fire department. Your husband has been in a pretty serious accident. Air bags were deployed and I have no idea how it happened but he doesn't have a scratch on him. We still need to have a doctor check him over and he probably needs an MRI to rule out possivle head injuries but head injury seems unlikely from what we have seen so far. We are taking him to Mercy hospital. You should get there as soon as you can."

"O.. okay. I will come right away. Will you tell him something from me?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Tell him I said yes."

The End.

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Endnotes

First line of Isaiah 43:5

Reference to Matthew 19:14, Mark 10:14

Reference to Mark 10:11-12, Luke 16:18

Reference to Matthew 5:28

Reference to Matthew 5:32

Paraphrase of Malachi 2:16

Reference to Galatians 5:1-21

Reference to Matthew 13:50

Reference to Matthew 8:12

Fragment of Genesis 50:17

Reference to 2 Peter 2:4

Luke 16:18

Fragment of John 10:11, John 10:14

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Matthew 3:8

Fragment of James 2:17

Matthew 25:12

James 2:10-11

Matthew 5:28

Matthew 5:32

Fragment of Mark 8:25

Reference Malachi 2:16

From 1 Corinthians 7:11

From 1 Corinthians 7:11

From 2 Samuel 16:12

Fragment of Acts 9:4

Reference Matthew 25:40

Fragment of 2 Corinthians 10:5

Fragment of Mark 9:23

2 Kings 19:22

Proverbs 8:13

Fragment of Leviticus 18:4

Fragment of Isaiah 43:5

34 Reference to Job 1:10

35 Reference to Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:6, Mark 10:8, Ephesians 5:31

36 Reference to Romans 8:28

37 Reference to Matthew 11:30

38 Reference to Matthew 7:13-14

39 Reference to Luke 16:26

40 John 8:47

41 Reference to Isaiah 40:29

42 Reference to Deuteronomy 7:12

43 Reference to Matthew 7:8, Luke 11:10

44 Matthew 21:22, Mark 11:24

45 Reference to Psalm 109:21

46 Reference to Ezekiel 37:5

47 Reference to Ephesians 5:25

48 Mark 5:34

49 Isaiah 48:9

50 Fragment of John 8:11

51 Ephesians 5:25, modified to the singular

52 Reference to Luke 9:23

##  Also Available by Beth Durkee

T he Disposable Noble Wife – (Autobiographical Fiction) – Faith is a tenured homemaker who loves her husband and children. She has endured many trials in her marriage, but none quite so difficult as the one she is about to experience. When she discovers her husband in the back seat of their family car with another woman, she turns to scripture for guidance and discovers, to her dismay, an obligation that is contrary to what the world prescribes. After her adult son suggests she keep a daily journal, she begins to record an adultery-spawned craziness that she never even dreamed could apply to any life, much less her previously loving marriage.

This book appears to be a heartbreaking tale of one woman's futile struggle to spare her family from being torn apart by adultery. On a deeper level, it is much more. To the spiritually trained eye, it is also a strong example of mankind's natural bent to reject unconditional love in favor of carnal desire, his self-interested disobedience to divine command and his own stubbornness being his ultimate undoing.

N avigating Marital Abandonment – (Self Help) – This handbook is written by a betrayed spouse for the benefit of other betrayed spouses. Its first-person narrative takes readers by the hand to show them the patterns of behavior that can be expected from a wayward spouse seeking divorce. From the mentality of an adulterer and the signs of infidelity through infidelity trauma and common the voices of other injured spouses.

 The Bleeding Love – (Fiction) –

If you enjoyed this book, please help others find it by leaving your rating/review with the retailer.

A  Beginner's Guide to Defy Divorce and Take a Stand for Your Marriage

(Christian Self Help) -- A to-the-point, how-to guide written specifically to those learning how to "stand" for the Christian restoration of their marriages and to those needing reassurance that their stand is right with and supported by God. One of the restored who testified remarked that this book could have shaved two years off of her learning curve of how she should effectively stand for her marriage!

Features an interview with J. Rellos and 40 other named and anonymous testimonies from the restored. Named testimonials written by P. Armstrong, C. Case, C. Gullett, K. Recore, K. Rellos, B. Rose, E. Sperico and K. Taylor.

### A Memoir. A Testimony. eSeries

*  Memory of Miracles – Volume 1 relays the heartwarming, true story of the author's miraculous survival of multiple major medical incidents that could easily have claimed her life if not for heaven's intervention.

* Memory of Romance – Volume 2 briefly relays the next chapter in the life of the author and how God gently guided her choice of a lifetime.

**Coming Soon** – Volume 3 expects to continue with a collection of personal anecdotes accompanied by brief discussions.
FREE Presentation (Replay)

Are you "Standing in the gap" for the restoration of your marriage covenant? Do you feel you need some encouragement? If so, you will not want to miss this! Beth Durkee, award-winning Christian author and author of The Bleeding Love, has made her original (and true) presentation, "The Carrot Miracle, The Ripple Effect & Other Tales of Divine Inspiration," freely available to listeners.

Originally presented to a live call line, the 45 minute content-only replay recalls and reflects on several miracles received in Ms. Durkee's own Stand. Take advantage of this unique opportunity to hear this award-winning author tell about personal experiences of divine inspiration. Download and listen today! The presentation can be found on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/255655915 .

#  Connect with Beth Durkee

Visit Her Homepage http://www.bethdurkee.me

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#  Memory of Miracles

  1. A Memoir. A Testimony. Volume 1

  2. Excerpt...

I remember that to arrange for baptism and first communion at my age, my parents were required to bring me to the rectory to speak with a priest (my church had more than one). First, he spoke with me to ask what I wanted and why. Then he asked me to wait in the hall outside of his office while he spoke with my parents. His office was right next to the outside door and there was a slim window through which light shone. The sun was at just the right angle for that light to hit my hair as I waited and I decided to comb it.

Gazing at the light in my hair as I combed, silence all around me in that building where prayer was the practice, the Spirit of God descended upon me. Sorrow washed through my heart for all my transgressions and tears wetted my face. I let them stay only for a few moments as my heart silently reached out in sorrow to heaven. Then there was peace. I quickly dried my face with my fingers and continued combing my hair into place.

I know this was the Spirit of God for two reasons. The first is that I was in a place of devout prayer to the Lord and He was certainly there. I doubt an evil spirit would have dared enter. The second is that I have come through the years to recognize the feeling of the Holy Spirit's presence. Sometimes He gives gentle nudges and sometimes He covers like a blanket. This time, He blanketed.

In retrospect, I know this incident was my true baptism. I also know that year was likely the last chance during childhood that I would have been able to be baptized with water and confirmed into the Church where I grew up. I wonder. If my baptism had not happened, would the hand of God have rested so closely over me during the trials that were soon to follow? I am glad I did not need to find out.

