Guardian Angels

A good question and one we might discount as religious clap-trap or wishful thinking, but as one builds up experience in life we begin to wonder, and perhaps its not as silly as it sounds. I'm sure we can all think of occasions in our lives where something has happened that could have been disastrous for us, either physically or otherwise, and we've spoken glibly about our guardian angel looking after us...

My view of my Guardian Angel is less charitable; I've observed and made guesses and reckon I have the real deal now.

When you get born you're assigned to your Angel, and his job (its never 'her'; I think the girls get sent somewhere else with their talents) is to look after you for the rest of your life, however long or short that might be. Your Angel is provided with an Omniscope and limited access to Future Elements, and beer. The latter is needed because for a very large chunk of your life you are a boring non-entity developing to a pre-determined pattern, growing the physical body you'll need for the next period of your life when you appreciate it least.

So your Angel has to sit there, presumably in a truly gigantic office filled with identical Omniscopes with other Angels minding or laughing at each other's assigned human souls. Nothing to do but make bets or set childish traps like banana skins or swinging doors...

Humans start out positive and self motivated. They judge themselves by the people and situations around them, and are shaped by all of these things. The Angels watch and drink their beer, and never have to go to the toilet, but they can get distracted by something happening on the adjacent stations, something most likely more interesting than YOU. Perhaps a particularly bad car accident, or some innovative death that frees up another Angel to progress to their next stage.

By the time we reach our teens we become a great source of Angel merriment as we struggle with relationships, greed, religion and the fact we're all eventually going to die. Our attempts to steer through the maze of life often produces side-splitting amusement from these watching beings and the first surreptitious nudging of circumstance. It is this time of life we discover the gold coin we think we've found on the pavement inexplicably fumbles past the fingers to fall through the grating, and the primary parachute release cord proves faulty, or perhaps you step to the edge of the sidewalk just as a bus splashes to stop ten meters past, causing the road water to cunningly splash up at you and your best clothes...

Some of us become superstitious at this stage and invest in physical or metaphorical rabbits' feet to ward off the 'bad luck', an approach that must surely engage the resident Angel in deliberate ploys to discomfort us. Deliberately misplacing critical objects at critical times, such as passports or wedding rings or handbasin plugs.

You disbelieve me? I can prove it. Begin a game of solitaire, either with real cards or on a computer. You will win the first game if your Angel is otherwise occupied, but his chagrin is so great that you have zero chance of repeating the success for the next forty games. That's how long it takes for his boredom to get back up to where he can be distracted once more.

So what are Angels for if not to be beneficial to you, the single human creature in their care? I have come to understand that they are teachers and pranksters and lokis who nevertheless do not intend you harm. Rather, they mean to get you to develop sensible practices in life, methods that will ensure the survival of the species and candidates for their own position when they too move on. If you are thoughtful to other people and develop a positive attitude in life in spite of the cunning tricks, helping those around you and generally benefitting the gene pool, you are buying a degree of immunity from their pranks for you come to the notice of other, greater beings who monitor you for sainthood. Your Angel dare not be seen to interfere in such a path at risk of being immediately reborn as a woman.