An Angel wakes up in Mexico (~700 words)
The sound is distant but all the more irritating for it. She has no interest in it. Her body is contorted in a position that might scream suffering to anyone else but moving is the furthest thing from her mind. Her mind – locked in the limits of a human brain and skull, is blissfully blank but she knows from a millennia and change of experience that her kind is not immune to hangovers. If anything, they suffer worse.
It’s probably some clause in her contract – prohibiting the consumption of volatile manmade substances for pleasure. As if she consumed it for pleasure.
But for now her head feels like it is hardly attached to her body and she is loath to move and disrupt that feeling of unaccountability. Of course, the noise has not stopped. It’s clearing and sharpening and with horror she realizes that she is waking up.
She doesn’t need this. Her kid is still asleep. She is off duty.
It continues. By now she has realized that it’s her phone ringing. Maybe she can curse whoever is on the other side when she picks up. It takes her a few seconds to remember she can’t curse people anymore. She read that clause alright or rather, it was very specifically pointed out to her.
“Motherfu— What? What? Why?”
As far as 7am greetings on a Sunday go, she thinks it’s quite formal.
“Hey, Gabi.”
“Who is this?” she feels the air crackle with her hiss and she hopes the obviously shitty connection doesn’t diminish its menace too much.
“It’s Michael. From— umm, Michael, one of the new guys.”
“Do you know what time it is, Mike the New Guy?”
“It’s… uhh, well, it’s around 3 here so—“
“In Mexico, New Guy. You’re calling me in Mexico so you should’ve probably checked what time it is here. Or have you not gotten to the timezone lesson yet? It’s this pain in the ass thing they—“
“Yes, yes, I know what— I believe it’s early morning where you are.”
“You bet your ass it’s early. So you better have an asteroid-shaped reason for calling me.”
“Well… yes, I— No, I mean… it’s rather… human-shaped.”
She sighs, turns her head a little to the side and feels like she has flown half across the room and hit the wall.
“My kid is passed out in a lounge chair on his terrace as we speak, so you better not mean what I’m starting to think you mean.”
“F-funny you should say that because my human is also passed out somewhere… in Mexico.”
“Your kid is in Mexico,” she states and reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose – yup, her mind is definitely in residence now and so is the Heaven-approved hangover. “And you are…”
“In Cannes.”
“Cannes.”
“France.”
“I know where Cannes is. It’s not in Mexico.”
“I-it is not.”
“Do you have an explanation as to why you’re a world away from your kid?”
“Yes, you see, last night—“
“No, no, stop. I asked if you had an explanation, I didn’t ask to hear it. Start doing your paperwork while I go find your wayward son.”
“So you’ll help?”
“Do you know how he got here?”
“Not precisely, I… I’m pretty sure even he doesn't know how he got there but I do know that he was severely inebriated when he got on the plane—“
“Weren’t we all,” she mutters to herself, regretting her decision to specialize in Guardianship for the fifth time since waking up.
“I beg your pardon? Look, Gabi, I can—“
“Listen, New Guy, I’m probably much more hungover than your kid and mine combined even though I most certainly drank less than each of them and, if you ask me, that’s something south of unfair. But, hey, nobody is asking me and now, thanks to you, I have two charges today. Both of which might die of dehydration, if you keep me on the line much longer.”
“Right. Sorry. About the… the added… the trouble and t-the hangover.”
“Yeah, well, make sure you have something greasy ready for me when we land.”
“Land?”
“Yes, man, what did you think? I’ll look after him for a week so you can kick back a bit?”
“No, of course not. I just—
“I’m bring your kid back. Today.”