Between Assignments

Gabe and Mickey are guardian angels. They are talking about their last and next assignments.

Gabe: So, how was your last assignment, Mickey?

Mickey: Crazy!

Uriel: What do you mean crazy?

Gabe: I had to look after some kind of crazy daredevil. The guy was completely nuts. He was running on top of buildings, jumping from one to another, climbing skyscrapers, going down mountains full speed on his skis in the winter and on his mountain bike in the summer, driving like crazy, diving into waterfalls. He was doing all kinds of crazy stuff and I had to look after him. I was busy all the time, never had time to rest. I was able to save him many times but I got fed up. I asked God if it was okay to let him go. God said yes.

Mickey: How did he die?

Gabe: One day he tied a rope between two buildings and started walking on it. There was a sudden gust of wind. I didn’t do anything to stop the wind and he fell to his death.

Mickey: How old was he?

Gabe: 26

Mickey: But why the hell was he doing those stupid things?

Gabe: To take pictures of himself, selfies they call it; and he also asked his friends to make videos of him doing his crazy stuff.

Mickey: For what?

Gabe: To put online, on TikTok or Facebook...for everybody to see.

Mickey: That’s crazy!

Gabe: What about you? How was your last assignment?

Mickey: Boring?

Gabe: Who was it?

Mickey: A Buddhist monk in Vietnam. The guy’s life was the same every day, always the same frigging routine: chanting, praying, eat a little bit, work in the garden, chanting and eating again, eat a little bit, and go to bed. And the next day, it was the same.

Gabe: You never had to save him from anything?

Mickey: No! That’s why it was so boring: nothing unexpected, no challenges, nothing.

Gabe: And how did he die?

Mickey: A mudslide. It rained like hell for a few days and there was a mudslide that completely destroyed the pagoda. All the monks died at the same time.

Gabe: What are you going to do now?

Mickey: I have a few years off until my next assignment. I’d like to go to others planets to see how people live out there.

Gabe: That’s what I’d like to do too.

Mickey: What would you like your next assignment to be?

Gabe: A regular guy, not too crazy and not too boring. A guy that you could save from drowning, stepping on a poisonous snake, being killed by an ice-cycle falling on his head or by frozen shit falling down from a plane, you know, that kind of stuff.

Mickey: Frozen shit falling down from a plane! What the hell is that?

Gabe: They call it blue ice. Technically, it’s frozen human waste that forms around worn overflow outlets for airplanes and occasionally falls to earth. I did a little research online.

Mickey: Holy shit! But why do they call it blue ice and not brown ice?

Gabe: I don’t know. Humans are weird sometimes…

Mickey: And what about you, what would you like your next assignment to be?

Gabe: Same as you. I'd like to look after a regular guy, not too crazy and not too boring.