Looking east, a sign outside the deserted Convention Center wished everyone a Merry Christmas. A gust of wind whistling down the tracks blew a fan of snow off the top of the bank that nearly hid the train station.
Behind him, a car door slammed.
He turned in time to see a taxi drive away and an elderly woman struggling to drag a brown vinyl suitcase toward the bus station. Her name was Edna Grey, she had a weak heart, and she was on her way to Windsor to spend Christmas Day with her daughter. Maybe he didn’t have a message because he was the message. Maybe he was supposed to show, not tell. Hurrying over, he lifted the suitcase easily out of the elderly woman’s grasp.
“Stop! Thief! Stop!”
“Hey! Ow! I’m just trying to help!”
Edna Grey glared out at him from under the edge of a red knit hat, the strap of her purse clutched in both mittened hands. “Help yourself to my stuff!”
“No, help you carry your stuff.” As she lifted the purse again, he dropped the suitcase and backed out of range, rubbing his elbow. “What’ve you got in that thing, bricks?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe.”
“Could you chill, Mrs. Grey. I’m just trying to do something nice for you.” He knew he sounded defensive, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. And he had no idea why he wanted her to lower her body temperature.
“How did you know my name? You’ve been stalking me, haven’t you?”
Stalking. The following and observing of another person, usually with the intent to do harm.
“No!” He stepped forward then retreated again as the purse came up. “I can’t do harm. I’m an angel.”
“You look like a punk.” A vehement exhalation through her nose, sprayed the immediate area with a fine patina of moisture.
“I do?”
“Well, you sure don’t look like no angel.”
He didn’t? “I don’t?”
“You look,” she repeated, “like a punk.”
Frank Giorno had called him a punk as well. He couldn’t understand why since punk had pretty much ended with the ’80s. A quick check found nose and ears still free of safety pins. “I could light up my head.” That seemed to be what angels did.
“You could set your shorts on fire for all I care. Now get out of my way, I gotta catch a bus.”
“But…”
“Move!”
His feet moved before the barked command actually made it to his brain. He stood and watched as she dragged her suitcase the remaining twenty-two feet, six and three-quarter inches to the bus station door. Nothing else moved for as far as he could see and the only sound he could hear was the rasp of cheap vinyl against concrete.
At the door, she paused, and turned. “Well?” she demanded.
Higher knowledge seemed at a loss.
“Get over here and open the door.”
“But I thought…”
“And while you were thinking, did you think about how a woman of my age could manage a big heavy suitcase and a door?”
“Uh…”
“No. You didn’t. The world has gone to hell in a handcart since they canceled Bowling for Dollars.”
Propelled by her glare, he ran for the door and hauled it open. Then, a bit at a loss, he followed her inside.
She shifted her grip on her purse. “Now where are you going?”
He didn’t know. “With you?”
“Try again.” She squinted up at the board. “Only other bus leaving this morning’s going to Toronto.”
“I should go to Toronto?”
“Why should I care where you go?” Grabbing her suitcase, she began backing across the room, keeping him locked in a suspicious glare.
“Fine.” Edna Grey might not need his help, but in a city of three million, someone would. He’d go there and he’d help people and he’d finally figure out just what he was supposed to be doing, and when he’d done it he’d go back to the light and demand to know just what they thought they were doing sending him into the world without instructions. Well, maybe not demand. Ask.
Politely.
But for now…
The bus station flickered twice, then came back into focus.
Why wasn’t he in Toronto? Wanting to be in Toronto should have put him there, but something seemed to be holding him in place. It felt as though he was trying to drag an enormous weight…
And then he realized.
“Oh, come on, that’s a couple of ounces, tops!” A little embarrassed by the way his voice echoed against six different types of tile, Samuel looked up to see Edna Grey staring at him, wide-eyed, one mittened hand clutching her chest. While he watched, she toppled slowly to the ground.
“Mrs. Grey?” He landed on his knees beside her. “Mrs. Grey, what’s wrong?”
“Heart…” Her voice sounded like crinkling tissue paper.
“Hey, don’t do this, you’re not supposed to die now!” Reaching out, he spread the fingers of his right hand an inch above the apex of her bosom, spent a moment stopping his mind from repeating the word bosom over and over for no good reason, then asked himself just what exactly he thought he was doing.
I’m helping. It’s her heart.
Were hearts supposed to flutter like a gas pump straining at an empty tank?
He laid his left hand against his own chest.
Apparently not.
So?
Was this the message he was here to deliver?
A pulse of light moved from his hand to her heart and he felt an inexplicable urge to yell, “Clear!” Somehow, he resisted. Her heart stopped fluttering, paused, found a new rhythm, and began beating strongly once again.
“Mrs. Grey?” Feeling a little dizzy, Samuel leaned forward and peered into her face. “Can you hear me?”
“What? I’m old, so I’m deaf?”
“Uh, no.” Maybe he should loosen her clothing.
She smacked his hand away. “What happened?”
“You had a heart attack.”
Planting both palms against the floor, she pushed herself into a sitting position. “Well, are you surprised? You were there, then you weren’t there,
