The Man Who Lived Alone

 

 

Just because you arrived at Rainbow Bridge doesn't mean you want to socialize with the other angels.  Some people are just better off on their own.

High up in the mountains is a house the no one visits occupied by a person to whom no one talks.  Many angels have tried, but none of them has been successful.  It was time for another to try, and I thought it should be me.

"It shouldn't be you," Pocket said.  I asked her why.  "You are a lot to deal with and rather impatient.  To approach a hermit, you need someone passive, like me.'

I bit her a hundred kibbles that she would never get past the front door.  We set out the following day, climbing high up the mountain to the shack.  There was a fence around it, and we had to dig under it, which I hated because I had just got my nails done.  

We knocked on the door and were told to go away by someone with a strong, deep voice.  It sent a  shudder down both our backs.  Still, a hundred kibbles are the most that we can bet on anything, and Pocket could not lose them.

We walked around the house.  There was a window open a crack.  I let Pocket stand on my back, and she pulled herself inside.  She carefully walked through the house when she saw a big man, around 240, with a cruel face, sitting in a chair, looking out a window.

Pocket froze, afraid to startle the man.  Then she softly approached and scratched at the chair's leg, asking to be picked up, but was he ignored her.  She activated her wings and flew up, then softly landed on his lap.

I was sure he would slap her out of the sky like a troublesome houseplant, but the man allowed her to land on his lap.  She sighed, shut her eyes, and went to sleep, breathing deeply.  She woke up when the man's cold hand touched her fur.

Pocket stayed still, understanding the calming properties of a soft, warm dog. Pocket stiffened, thinking he would knock her off, but instead, the man's hand began to softly stroke her fur. Pocket patiently waited until the man stopped, then looked up with her deep brown eyes, and asked what was wrong.  The man said he had a son, who he had not been close to, and did not attend when the boy, now an adult, crossed over because he was afraid his son would shun him.

Pocket finally spoke, saying that he would never know unless he tried.  I began frantically searching the angel databases for a soul who matched his son.  I found him and barked to Pocket that we could take the mean old man to his son.

Pocket asked the man to take her for a walk, and when he agreed, pulled him along the trail that I had blazed until we came to someone fishing on the bank.  The man gasped when he saw his son and slowly walked to the water's edge and sat next to his son.  When he recognized his father, he smiled and reached his side to keep the pole he always brought with him in case his father finally joined them.  Pocket and I left the father and son, happily fishing and silently enjoying one another's company.

It was the best of a hundred kibbles I ever spent.