By, Wendiann Alfieri Clouds
I feel the wind
Beneath my feet
The ground I loved
Is falling slowly
I’m riding up
I begin to feel holy
Going to heaven
Leaving my body behind
Going blind by all the light
Hearing pained
Feeling their unnecessary guilt
From down below
I hear them beg and say
“ Please don’t go”
I want to tell them I’m okay
That they can look at the clouds
To see me one day
I reach a big gate
An angel stands there with keys
Warning me that sometimes in heaven it’s hard to breathe
That when your cloud dissolves and falls upon earth
That they have a nurse
That the gates have security to protect us
From harm
I believe this angel means harm from demons even though he means earth
All the sadness that upwards disperse
I look at him and nod in agreement
He unlocks the gate and gives me a look over
Almost tearful and out of hope
What does this mean for my soul?
I hear the gates click behind me
Able to float I am
I twirl around in the air
I look around
Something is wrong with every soul on the clouds
There is weird mist surrounding each one
Family’s of angels and souls
Hiding from someone
I see a guard with a machine
As a baby’s soul can’t.. breathe?
Wait...
This must be a mistake
We don’t breathe
We are souls
We are not alive
I look around
The clouds look like they’ve grown mold
A angel flies over to tell me I had a good life
Becoming and angel is my prize
We head to the nurses station
I am so confused
Isn’t this what I’ve left behind
Pain and suffering is supposed to end
This twist knocks me straight over not even letting me bend
I feel someone who taps my back
It’s a nurse angel with measuring tape
She says “ Come to my office, right now it’s not safe”
I float past another wall of mist
What I see makes me wonder
Why I’m reliving what I’ve lived
Soon I have these wings, I find out
These wings were not just for us to mount
This woman nurse soul explains it all
The wings now have filters
To catch the dirt smoke and debri
We will almost always get caught in our wings
The purgatory souls we now share clouds with
God finds that we all are equal in times of crisis
My wings are placed on my back
They give me a little “ clean your wings filters” pack
I use my wings and am assigned to go to a cloud
With a soul from purgatory that takes care of people with these new wings
This soul rushes towards me, happy to help
I burst out,
“ How can you be happy now heaven is hell?”
She chuckles but doesn’t smile
Looking down she replies,
“ I’m not happy and I’ll tell you why
This may be heaven
But it’s still part of earth
One we pay for
When the ones we leave behind
Think, ‘This world will be mine’
The crisp air and green grass
Is filled with sewage and gas
We are in heaven but earth was our home
We live here, but in the upwards dome
They can’t see their weakness as causing permanent damage
Alive or dead, we still have to manage”
She turns me around and sighs
“ How are you here?” I ask with narrowed eyes
Not wanting to believe
Hoping it’s all lies
“A simple blessing helped me past the test
At first it became what I was at best
Angels helping us as we helped them
But I called it bullshit now, and I called it bullshit then
The entrance to here is messed up
Literally I’m only here because of an extra taco I gave to a customer
What is considered a blessing can be minute
It makes a difference when you are waiting to be a heaven recruit”
I look at her confused
“ it’s a long story, I long for the days here in purgatory when it was just boring, a relaxing thing but also mundane
I learned to love it
These things happen through luck or a system
Who knows really
We never get answers to questions”
She sighs
“ how does this pollution... how do we survive?”
She looks at me and nods her head
“ There’s something I learned something that is not often said, it’s got a confusing meaning but is a good way to define this world that is less than divine,”
She closes her eyes and opens them and I wonder, she’s telling me this but why?
She speaks, her mouth turned down before the meaning goes away and flies,
“ Not all clouds belong in the sky”