It’s hell being an angel.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking-- being an angel is great, all floating around on fluffy clouds, eating anything you want without worrying about weight gain or cholesterol, a euphoric stress-free existence in a place where the weather’s always perfect and everybody’s friendly.

Well, it is-- if you’re a Full-Fledged Angel. But if you’re like me-- not quite an angel (or my official title, Angel in Waiting), it ain’t no picnic in the park.

And who am I? Allow me to introduce myself. I am Tristan  Barrington, 4th Earl of Ryland. I died nearly two hundred years ago, on a frigid January morning in 1820. If I’d been given a preference, I would not have chosen to die at the age of thirty-four. And I certainly wouldn’t have picked to do so on a non-descript patch of brown, ice-encrusted dirt on a field just west of London. Most undignified, really. And truly, I shouldn’t have died-- I was a far superior shot to the dolt who stood across from me on the dueling field. 

As our seconds-- my childhood friend Albert and the dolt’s bug-eyed solicitor-- counted off the paces, I marched ahead, my pistol gripped in my chilled fingers, resigned to get this over with. Then suddenly something happened to me… an unprecedented, overwhelming weariness at the reality of my situation-- that I was about to turn around and kill a man two decades my senior who’d challenged me on the field of honor for tupping his young wife. A nuisance really, having to do this, especially as I was still hung over from the previous evening’s frivolities. He wouldn’t be the first man I’d killed, nor was his bored wife the first married woman I’d entertained. Yet it occurred to me that at least the dolt had a modicum of honor. And something he believed was worth fighting for. Whereas I had…

And that’s where my mind went blank. What did I have? What was all this for?

I had no answer.

I didn’t love his wife. Indeed, I didn’t even particularly like her. A selfish, shallow shell wrapped in a beautiful package. Being selfish and shallow myself, I would have forgotten her name in a fortnight’s time. She was but a momentary diversion in a privileged, dissolute life filled with self-indulgent debauchery.

As I continued crossing the field, my future suddenly flashed before my eyes with crystal clear clarity: years of drifting from one empty, meaningless depravity to another, my fortune wasted, my health destroyed, abandoned by fair-weathered friends. Alone. Utterly, completely alone. My conscience, an inner voice I’d believed long dead, coughed to life, and in that instant self-disgust and something that felt exactly like terror nearly choked me. And with that, an insight struck me with the power of a lightning bolt: I didn’t want that existence. I didn’t want to die alone, my insides rotted by drink, with nothing to show for my immoral life but a string of paramours, broken friendships, and cuckolded husbands challenging me to duels. In fact, I didn’t want this duel. I didn’t want to take this man’s life.

In the space of a single heartbeat I felt as if my life changed. That I’d changed. And I was going to implement that change immediately.

I decided to delope.

Of course dueling tradition dictated I’d still have to allow my opponent to fire, but given his advanced age, poor eyesight, and reputation as a dreadful shot, I didn’t consider he’d even come close to hitting me.

Boy, was I wrong. 

Albert and the bug-eyed solicitor reached the end of the count and shouted, “present!” With my weapon aimed toward the sky, I prepared to turn, but before I could so much as blink, a pistol shot rent the air. Searing pain exploded in my head. My last thought was bloody hell, that doddering old blind dolt shot me.

I was dead before I hit the ground.

As I said, most undignified.

I’d been taught that after death there were three options: good people went to Heaven, bad people went to Hell, and then there was Purgatory for those who fell in the middle.  I’d never given much thought to what would happen to me after I died-- if I had, I might have behaved better while living (although probably not), but the instant I was shot I knew I was headed straight to Hell. Indeed, I was halfway there, plummeting downward through the darkness toward the eternal fire pit when I suddenly jerked to halt.

And that’s when I discovered several things: first, that contrary to any doubts I may have harbored on the subject, there is indeed a Most Powerful One, who is privy to all one’s thoughts and actions. Second, the Most Powerful One has a Council, a group of six angels in charge of making certain that deceased humans go where they’re supposed to. And third, that based on my thoughts of changing my immoral ways in those last seconds of my life, it was decided that I deserved a chance to prove myself.

And that’s when I discovered that in addition to Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, there’s a fourth place where the dead like me, those with last minute epiphanies, are sent-- Pre-Pearly Gate Limbo. Spin doctors call it a not-quite-an-angel holding pattern, but the truth is it’s nothing more than a prison, a void where the occupants wait for do-good assignments that will, if completed successfully, push their Goodness Quotient high enough to earn a Review from the Council. Those who make the grade become Full-Fledged angels and are allowed to pass through the Gates and enjoy the full benefits of angelic existence, including the spa (which I hear is to die for. Ha! A little angel humor there).  If, however, the do-good assignment isn’t completed successfully, it’s back to the end of the line-- the very loooooong line-- to wait for another turn.  Which means, if you’re a perpetual screw-up, you can find yourself in Pre-Pearly Gate Limbo for a very loooooong time.

Welcome to my world.