Closed

She walked down the street looking lost and alone. A shimmering glow peeked through the grime where she’d wiped the tears from her cheeks. Her feet were bare, little trails of blood as though she’d been walking for days. Her golden hair lay limp across her shoulders. Filled with twigs and leaves.

Her dress was tattered. White with golden streaks hanging loosely down her back. I watch her stumble, grabbing out for something as an automatic reflex not out of any real sense for self preservation.

I reached out and caught her arm, catching her. She looked at me with tired, sad eyes that couldn’t quite focus upon my face. She was beautiful. Perfect. She tried to speak ‘I-I-‘ and gave up. I could hear her voice was as wonderful as her face. Dancing to my ears from her lips.

She caressed my cheek briefly before returning to the crowd. I followed her, chasing her as she tried to get away. No-one else seemed to notice her as she pushed past them on the busy sidewalk. Finally my fingers closed around her fragile arm and she turned to face me again.

‘Wait.. where are you going’
She looked confused, unable to answer.
‘Do you have a home?’
‘N-no’ she stuttered, her beautiful voice again filling my ears.
‘Where are you from?’
‘It-It doesn’t matter. It’s gone now.’
‘Gone? How can a place be gone?’
‘He closed it. He gave up. Said there was no point anymore. No-one was ever good enough. No-one had joined us for thousands of years ’
‘Who closed what? How can you close somewhere? Thousands of years?’
‘He’s God. He can do anything.’
‘Go—What? Do you mean Heaven?’
‘Heaven. Yes. That is what you call it here. God closed Heaven. Told us to come to earth and try to improve your kind‘
‘You can’t close Heaven! Where do we go when we die?’
‘The same place mankind has been going for the past few thousand years. Hell.’