The angel in the corner.

         Dr Henry had talked a man down from jumping off the roof of this very office building just one week earlier. Now he was considering jumping off it himself. 

       He tapped his pen rhythmically against his hard wood desk, the way he always did when trying to rationalize a particularly unsettling case. He scanned his eyes around the room as if searching for inspiration among his degrees and certificates, but they only seemed to turn their noses obnoxiously, no real help now. This one had him as close to the edge as he had ever been. He had witnessed a lot in his years as a psychiatrist, but this case had really knocked the wind out of his lungs. 

         Once the door had closed on his first session, Henry found himself doubled over and fighting for breath that wasn't there. It took him a moment to regain himself, and after smoothing out his crumpled tweed, and wiping the beads of perspiration from his forehead, he had slumped down in his armchair and let the cool leather calm his mind. 

Henry drunkenly considered how he had always been a man of science. His opinions were based purely on fact, and until this day he had never really felt challenged on them. Shaking hands picked up his notebook, it was heavier now and threatened to escape his grasp. Page by page Henry read over the facts as he always did, only instead of filling him with reassurance and a warm familiarity, they only birthed a sense of dread. 

That was when he first saw the angel. 

         He thought back to that day at the cafe, grappling with the idea of it all being a reality. It was twenty-two years ago, and he remembered it in vivid detail like it was yesterday. He never noticed them when he entered, he was a hungry fifteen-year-old with the sole intention of consuming a ridiculously large burger and two portions of chips. As usual, he would order some sausages and feed them to the owners dog as he left. He came there for solace really, although he found that hard to admit. 

They approached his table as he was using his last chip to mop the remaining ketchup from his plate, their overly masculine belly laughs echoing around the cafe and causing unwanted attention. Henry stole a glance at these intruders, their demeanor matching their appearance like a cork fits a wine bottle. His eyes quickly scanned the pair, one much shorter than the other. Bald heads, football shirts, a bulldog tattoo on the bigger one's arm. They took a seat opposite. Henry was taken aback by this, Brits generally kept themselves to themselves and this kind of intrusion made him very uncomfortable. Still, he took another sip of lemonade and kept his head down. 

"Alright, lad?" His voice was deep and scratchy, and Henry wished he still had the table to himself. A few awkward seconds ticked by, made only more prominent by the wall clock ticking over the now apparently silent diner. 

"Maybe he's a mute. You a mute lad? Ay?" One of the men opposite banged his fist on the table and sent the salt shaker tumbling promptly off it. Henry didn't like confrontation. 

"No, I'm not. Sorry lads, I was in a world of my own." Henry looked up at the men opposite properly for the first time, beckoned a small nod towards the waitress and flashed a grin. The man let out a belly laugh. 

"Been there, been there myself kid" his smile made Henry slightly sick. It was too familiar. 

"Listen lad, you seem like a good kid so today might be your lucky day" Henry mentally rolled his eyes, thinking if the crime shows he watched regularly. He'd let them have their best shot happily, but he wasn't one to let go of his money at the best of times.  

"Today kid, because I'm feeling generous, you get to make a wish. Anything you want. You'll think I'm talking fairy bollocks and I know that, that's fair enough. All I'm saying is that you'll get your wish. You could be a millionaire, imagine that." Henry thought the men must be high on something. He thought briefly about his response, not wanting to be socked one. 

"Nothing is ever free, I've already learned that lesson." Henry thought of the loan sharks and bailiffs that plagued his childhood. 

"No, you're right there. Nothing is free, smart kid. Buy it's all about value, how much something is worth to you. Just make your wish and get on with your life. When the time is right repayment is made, something you probably won't even miss, simple." Henry was getting annoyed, this was stupid. 

"Right and what would payment be, my kidney?" That belly laugh again, it went right through him. 

"Who knows kid, could be anything. Anyway, there's got to be something you want bad enough for a gamble." Henry didn't have to think hard about this. There was something he wanted so badly he would give is life for it. It wasn't to be a millionaire. 

Henry had cared for his mother since he was ten years old, and more than anything he wanted her to be better again. He wanted to see the life in her broken soul again.  

"Well yeah of course, everybody wants something" Henry shrugged, these guys were bothering him now and he wanted to order a milkshake in peace. 

"Well, there you go then. We'll leave you to it. Nice to meet you Henry. Shake a mans hand to seal the deal?" The bigger man extended his hand across the table to Henry, and Henry shook it. 

He didn't call it a miracle when his mother got the all clear a year later, he called it science and medicine. That day at the cafe barely entered his mind. When his little girl Erin got a terminal diagnosis at eleven years old he nearly lost his mind, but he still rationalized it as the cruel twists of life. He never once considered he had made a deal with the devil. When he sobbed into her giant blue and yellow rabbit Luigi, he did so because he believed in his heart that she wouldn't live on in the afterlife, and that saddened him. He found no solace in prayer as his wife did.

It was only at her funeral, when he turned his tear-filled eyes towards a robin perched on a branch just above him and saw two familiar faces and one familiar bulldog tattoo standing on the outskirts of the cemetery, that he began to question the events from all those years earlier. It was on the first day of his sessions with Rachel King that he realized he knew absolutely nothing about the world he lived in, and that terrified him to his core. 

It was exactly 3pm on a Thursday and Henry was trying his best not to be annoyed that his next patient wasn't’t already sitting in front of him and would now likely be at least five minutes late. When she entered the room, she did so quietly enough that Henry didn't hear her. 

"Excuse me, I'm here for a session with doctor Henry Miller." Henry turned to acknowledge the woman, and promptly reached out his hand to shake hers. She was small in stature and mousy looking. After a rather week handshake Henry beckoned towards the armchair opposite his. 

"Have a seat Rebecca" 

Rebecca tearfully recounted how she has been repeatedly visited by the ghost of a child. Although she cannot see this child, she hears her voice inside of her head. This case had been passed on to Henry to give his profession input as to which mental illness this woman was suffering from and how best to help her. 

"She first came to me out of the blue and asked me if I knew where her rabbit was. I thought I was bat shit obviously. This little girl's voice was in my head clear as day." Henry began to go through his usual questions and jot down anything of importance in his notebook. 

"Did you speak back to her Rebecca?" She shook her head. 

"Not at first, no. I didn't want to feed into it at first. I tried putting a film on, or my headphones, but it was useless. She could be louder than anything and she drowned it all out. She spoke to me about silly things at first. She told me she was eleven years old and loved Disney. She would tell me her favourite ice cream flavours or ask me if I had seen this tv show or read this book. She would tell me how she missed playing with her old friends, even though she had new ones now. It was when she told me about the angel I couldn't help but answer her." Rebecca set her water bottle down on the table and rested her arms on the edge to stop them shaking. 

"Angel?" Henry questioned, leaning forward with fresh intrigue.  

"Yes, she told me she had an angel. She said she could see it for as long as she could remember, but at first it was just a shadow. She said it got brighter as she got sicker, and about a year before it took her she could see it clear as day. She told me she was afraid of it at first because she had these huge black wings and she never spoke, just sat there staring." Henry furrowed his brow. 

"Did she say anything else about this angel?" Henry took a swig of his purified water. 

"Not much more, she mostly spoke about how she couldn't find Luigi." She shifted in her seat. 

"And who's Luigi?" Henry asked. 

"Her giant stuffed rabbit. He's blue and yellow and sits in the corner of her bedroom." Henry Millers heart found a new location in his throat. 

"This little girls name, do you know it Rebecca?" 

"Yes, its Erin." 

Henry suppressed his dry heaves until the end of the session. There must be more than one Erin who had a stuffed rabbit named Luigi and passed away aged eleven. He had never met Rebecca before in his life, he would have remembered. 

The night was drowned in a sea of whiskey and misery, and as Henry dozed in his office armchair, wondering if his professional career would still be intact for much longer, was when the angel appeared. In his drunken state he wondered if she was a hallucination, or a physical manifestation of his stressful day. Her wings were a black unlike any shade he had seen before. As if, if he stared too long he might fall into them, into nothingness. They seemed to create their own ripples of silver movement in the air as she walked. She was beautiful and terrifying, and he both fell in love with her and despised her all at once. 

"Henry, it's alright. Don't be alarmed." Her voice came from everywhere. 

"Your daughter found you despite my warnings. She wanted you to know that what happened to her is not your fault, that’s all. She wanted you to know that her fate was already written and could never have been altered." She brushed Henry's hand and she felt electric. 

"Who are you?" Henry slurred 

"I'm Lucifer, and I'm not the one who made that deal with you. I don't reside in a pit of fire and I am not evil.  I collect the souls and I keep them safe until they are where they're meant to be. I have no power to make deals even if i wanted to." Henry, still sluggish, let the situation wash over him. 

"Henry you made the biggest sacrifice for your mother that day. He knew what you were prepared to trade without you saying a word. He sees what's in our souls, and he saw what was in your heart. He saw sadness in you and he gave you an invisible choice. A soul for a soul." Henry reached for the whiskey glass on the table and took one last swig. The world he had come to know had changed in an instant. 

The angel opened her wings and swept Henry up in them, like an eagle would its pray. As he was carried out if his armchair, he let the weightlessness fill his body and the warmth wash over him. Henry glanced back down at the shell of himself he left behind on that armchair, and the gun in his hand one bullet down.