Going Up

‘I feel funny. I’m not used to travelling in a vertical plane,’ said Alfie.
‘It’s not a ‘plane,’ said the Angel. ‘It’s a lift or elevator’.

The Angel and the hedgehog were both called Alfie and when Alfie (the hedgehog, that is) discovered this he decided to keep referring to his new acquaintance as the Angel. Then people wouldn’t think he was talking to himself. Except there weren’t any people in the lift thingy, just a hedgehog and an Angel – or so Alfie thought.

‘How did I get here?’
‘What’s the last thing you can remember, Alfie?’
‘I was on the verge, I think – yes, that’s it – I was on the verge of crossing the A14.’
‘And was the traffic heavy?’
‘It was very busy, and yes, I remember now, it was heavy too when it went over me’
‘Precisely,’ said the Angel. ‘You were squished!’
‘Goodness!’ The hedgehog replied. ‘That’s never happened before.’
‘Well obviously, dunderhead!’

Careful, Angel. That name calling is out of character!

‘Who said that?’ Asked Alfie.
‘Ah. That would be the Storyteller, Alfie. You can’t see him, but he’s here in the lift with us and all around us as well.’
Alfie was curious. ‘You mean like God?’
‘I wouldn’t say that’, the Angel replied, ‘but then I work for God and I don’t work for the storyteller even though he made me.’
‘Did the storyteller know I would be in the lift?’ Alfie asked.

Of course I did. I put you in there. I put you under the wheels of that truck too, if you must know.

‘You bastard!’
‘I wish I was allowed to say things like that,’ the Angel interjected. ‘I get told off for calling a hedgehog ‘dunderhead’. It’s all so unfair.’
Alfie ignored this and continued to interrogate the Storyteller. ‘So where’s the lift going?’

I’m not telling you until you apologise for calling me a bastard.

‘And if I don’t …?’
‘Don’t wind him up, Alfie or he’ll just leave us here and no one will know what happened to us.’
‘Has this happened to you before?’ Alfie asked his companion.
‘If you mean taking the dead up in a lift, yes, all the time. If you mean conversing with the Storyteller – no, only with God.’
‘I wish I wasn’t dead. This is so confusing. A voice from nowhere and an Angel – too many new things all at once. Not to mention my mates back by the A14.’
‘Those would be your flat mates – they got squished trying to rescue you’.
‘Oh no!! If only I’d been more careful. I’m usually so careful when there’s danger, roll up and try to blend in with my environment’.
You blended into the A14 pretty well when the truck squished you

‘That’s not very nice,’ Alfie said.

Nor is being called a bastard.

‘Ok, I’m sorry’.

Hmm. In that case I think I’ll finish by letting Angel here take you …
‘See those pearly gates, Alfie. We’ve arrived’