Excerpt from “DECEPTION”
Magdalena in her grave heard the forces of nature discussing her fate. She heard the earth grinding as it turned on its axis, the tug and pull of the other planets. She heard seeds popping open underground. She heard the worms starting to scrape and chew on her flesh.
Death was not, as she had expected, quiet. But it was lonely. None of her clan who had already gone to Glory could talk to her, nor she to them.
Her only recourse was the name of her little nine year old granddaughter, Ana Maria. She repeated it over and over again.
She was repeating it still when she felt herself suddenly lifted aloft on a bed of light and carried off to Glory.
~
Ana Maria speaks: Grandma is gone. She won’t be calling my name anymore. I woke up in the middle of the night and started crying. I guess I was loud ‘cause my Aunt Pastora came in. She sat next to me and held me. When I stopped crying enough to talk, I told her grandma had gone to Glory.
~
Magdalena spent most of her time in Glory sitting on an alabaster bench watching the celestial hierarchals wheel in flight around a central light more brilliant than a hundred suns.
Magdalena should have been ecstatic. But the Seraphim with their six wings constantly beating made her nervous. The Thrones with their bodies of fire frightened her. But the worst by far were the Cherubim: with their forty sets of eyes Magdalena felt she was being watched all the time.
Nor did she enjoy the other glories of Glory: the Elysian Fields were boring; nothing ever withered, dried up, or died; there was never a bug, a slug, or a snail. Nor did she like her own life: nothing to plan for, nothing to gain, and nothing to lose.
In short, Magdalena was miserable in Glory.
She wanted to discuss her problem with a celestial. It was not, however, an easy thing to bring one of them down to her level. It was finally an angel, of the 399,000 hierarchals, the very lowest order, that at last left off its rapturous flight long enough to settle on the alabaster bench with Magdalena and listen to her.
Not that Magdalena minded talking to only an angel. But even talking to a lowly angel had its protocols. Angels speak only in epiphanies, one-word epiphanies. Out of that one word Magdalena would be obliged to distill Divine Meaning.
Seated opposite the angel, Magdalena phrased her problem simply: she took no joy, no glory, in Glory.
Magdalena did not ask the angel to solve her problem. She knew enough to know that angels do not do the dirty work for humans. They give direction, subtle proddings, advice.
The angel listened, her small body glistening and shimmering, the feathers of her large, white wings riffling from the breezes of the other flying celestials. Then, putting a finger to to her lips, tremulous with the excitement of her inspiration, she uttered one word: Deception.
Magdalena, alone again on the alabaster bench, pondered the angel’s word. Deception was as natural to Magdalena as breathing. Among other things, she had stolen money from her clan, lied to her Father Confessor, and refused her son, Aurelio, forgiveness after he had cut off his own finger for her.
Now it seemed to Magdalena that the angel was encouraging her to use deception to solve her dilemma.
Magdalena had no difficulty with that. Furthermore, she knew exactly what she wanted: it would be Glory enough for her to live and see the world again as a child. The only problem, of course, was that as an incorporeal, she would require someone else’s body to do it.
Magdalena chose to return to earthly life as Ana Maria.
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