“Temper you didn’t print the bulletin yet did you?” Yelled a panicky-sounding male voice from down the hall.
Temper paused, finger actually hovering over the “print” button on her desktop. “No” She sighed and lowered her hand. “Whaddaya got? Last minute announcement?”
The minister wooshed into Temper’s office and plopped himself in the chair across from her desk. “Thank God”.
“No pun intended right”. Temper gave him the “look”.
Rev. Arnold grinned, grabbed a lined pad from her desk, and started frantically writing notes. “The council chair called me about these notices two days ago and I plumb forgot all about ‘em until now.” He glanced up apologetically and then grinned again.
Temper couldn’t stay annoyed with him....the old geezer. She smiled resignedly and took the now scribbled-on note pad back from him. “you’re one lucky son of a...”
“Ah ah ah!” He smirked, wagging his old wrinkled finger at her, “no swearing in the church”
“Did I swear?” She began deciphering the scribble and entering the new information to her already jam-packed Order-of-Service Bulletin for Sunday’s service. “And anyway, this isn’t the church, it’s my office....I claim this little square of real-estate in the name of Agnosticism. You have no power here. Scram before your God finds out you’ve been fraternizing with the forces of evi....”
She was rudely interrupted by his hyena-howl of a laugh. “We’re the UNITED church. I can talk to anyone I want. God WANTS me to talk with the likes of you.” He chuckled some more as he ducked the paper ball tossed at his head. Arnold loved teasing his favourite secretary. “Seriously though Temper...” he gave her his sweetest nice-old-man smile “Thank you”.
She melted, as he knew she would and smiled back. Then she turned back and busied herself with the computer. “Don’t you have a meeting or something to go to?”
“Indeed I do! See you tomorrow Temperance.” With a quick wave of his hand and a final Santa-like twinkle, he was gone.
Two hours later, Temper placed the stack of printed bulletins in the sanctuary, grabbed her coat & umbrella from the hall closet, checked the lights, locked the door and headed out into the drizzly November night.
“Well at least I earned some more Accumulated Time” she muttered to herself as she walked wearily down the street. She’d be able to take a whole week off in January if this hectic pace kept up until Christmas. That was fine with her. She needed to be busy just now. Her personal life seemed depressingly quiet these last few weeks. Which was crazy. There were lots of people in her life. Just like always. sigh. Lot’s of people on the edges but no one on the inside who...
Suddenly she was plunged into darkness. “What the....??” Temper had been walking down the very brightly lit streets of Wolfville towards her apartment. Not only had the street-lights just gone out, but all sound had stopped as well. There was no more rain, no more puddles, no more moon or clouds.... there was... nothing.
“Behold!” cried an authoritative Voice.
“W-w-what?” whimpered Temper
“Dude, they don’t say that now” cried an equally authoritative though (it thought anyway) slightly “hipper” Voice.
“Behold and rejo..... what do you mean they don’t say that now?” cried Voice #1.
“’Behold’ is sooo yesterday” cried Voice #2. “You need to say something like ‘Yo mama check it out’, or ‘Hey there (cheesy finger snap and point). Howz it goin?!’ I mean, we are TRYING to be understood properly this time right?”
“Very well” cried Voice #1 a touch exasperatedly. “What was that second greeting again?”
Voice #2 took on a ‘Jim-Carey-at-his-comic-cheesiest’ sound and repeated “Hey there. Howz it gooo-in?!” Temper couldn’t see the dimpled grin or the cheesy wink or the finger snap and point (she couldn’t see anything) but she could tell they were there all the same.
Voice #1 sighed heavily and cried with great precision “hey/ there/ how/ is/ it/...”
“Don’t forget the wink!” cried Voice #2.
“Go/ ing... I beg your pardon?” cried Voice #1.
“The grin and the wink” explained Voice #2.
“I’m not going to wink” hissed Voice #1 “she can’t even see us!”
“Yes, but she can hear it in our voices” grinned Voice #2 with another wink.
“This is ridiculous” steamed Voice #1. “We’re Angels, not some kind of 70’s Game-Show hosts!!”
“They call us hosts all the time!”
“Not that kind of host you idiot!”
“Um....” interrupted Temper weakly.
The Voices stopped arguing and turned their attentions back to Temper – which creeped the heck out of her. “Uh... wha... could you... um... where? what are y.... uh...” Temper’s mind reeled towards the brink of insanity, touched it for a moment, then came back as she settled finally on one word. “Angels?”
-written by Donna Holmes. November, 2010.
