On the Wings of Hope: Prose (Chosen)

Improbability

In the vast hall, filled with a sky-purple shimmer, with columns soaring to a height that is inaccessible to the eyes of ordinary mortals, filled with the energy of the omnipresent ether images flickered on the screen in what seemed to be a waving mirror in a carved wooden frame. It was perfectly visible for the two observers that were standing near this mirror how a male human, inspired by the common combat impulse, was at this point of time blocking a deadly enemy weapon with his own body, thus giving his comrades a chance to climb out of the trench and go to the offensive in this battlefront sector. Here his body unevenly shudders, soaking up a deadly leaden stream, and as if in time with this act, the frosted surface of the mirror shakes in response. Here in the last dying effort, this soldier clasps the enemy machine gun with both of his hands, and his blood-stained lips whisper their silent farewell "hurrah!" After a brief moment, floating in the mirror images forever capture in the ether his fading gaze together with the rushing up to the sky from the mutilated chest light-bearing spirit, who has spread out his wings like a finally released prisoner. The mirror fades out, and the images-waves gradually disappear, as if the sea of colorful information has once again come to a long-awaited calmness...

"You must certainly remember, Orianna, that I did warn you in advance of this possible ending of his earthly journey?" and the elderly, fair-haired angel with the scar on his right cheek stared at his companion as soon as the Hall of Destinies fell silent again.

"Mr. Arael, I remember that according to your calculations, the probability of such self-sacrifice was..."

"Our initial calculations, Orianna. Since then, much has changed both in the external and internal worlds. The death of his brother at the battlefront, the fatal illness of his mother, the beginning of the siege of his native Petersburg... All these events simultaneously seemed to break and strengthen his determination to fight to the end. But in the initial calculations we made, as you must remember, he should have lived almost to the end of this war."

"Mr. Arael, do you mean that I have failed to pass the entrance test and therefore cannot be admitted to your Department of probabilistic forecasting of the worlds of free will?"

"No, Orianna, they don't. Many of your calculations were correct for the man's previous choices – and we, as representatives of the probabilities department, never ask newcomers to be one hundred percent accurate, which is only available to the Almighty."

"Thank you. I really hope so..."

"Then don't forget to introduce John to our department. This knowledge will be a reward for the feat he performed on Earth."

Having that said, the head of the probabilistic forecasting department, wise with many eons of experience, tapped with a smile his future budding colleague on the shoulder and smoothly pointed his wing at the door. The one named as Orianna nodded joyfully and hastily, doing her best to hide the flicker of her smile from her mentor, flapped her small, girlish wings, and tenderly fluttered out of the hall.

* * *

"Looking strange, huh?" Orianna laughed brightly, watching how the etheric-clad spirit of John was looking around in surprise as if he still did not fully understand, or would never admit even to himself, that the life of the soul does not finally end with the death of the body, no matter what these endless and finally ending their journeys earthly materialists and skeptics might say otherwise.

"Oh... What a strange and wondrous vision... I feel as if I have died and gone to Paradise, and the most beautiful woman on earth is bending over me like an angel..."

"It's all true! Well, almost everything..." Orianna said in confusion, playfully adjusting a curl of her sun-red hair with her wing. "As you can see, having "died" back on Earth, you didn't die after all. Great, right?"