Manhattan Hunter-Gatherers Newspaper 

Light from the ceiling is piercing my eyes, a white void covering my entire view. I can't turn my head around, I can’t feel my finger, I can't hear anything. I feel like I’m trapped in space. I feel like the world has finally hit its pause button, but perhaps it’s just me. I’m not even sure if I’m alive. A black cloak shows up. It has dark wings, long and tall, reaching high above the hospital roof. That's when I know it for sure. I’m dead. I talk but my mouth isn't moving, “I’m dead aren't I?” The fallen angel solemnly nods its head. Then it raises its mighty wings, dark feathers sprawling everywhere, and mutters in a deep voice, ‘Isn't this what you had wanted, child”. I flinched, surely that wasn't the response I had expected. I look up and a thin hand rises and all of a sudden, I’m taken back. We're no longer in the hospital. “Why did you do it?”. I whip my head around and the angels looking at me now, shrunken to my height. He looks directly at me with black eyes, ones made of marble clear enough for my reflection to be seen through them. I look young, I look oblivious. “Pardon?” I ask, slightly shaking. “Why did you leave ”. The angel tilts his head, waiting for my answer. I feel appalled, my throat suddenly dries and my back feels hot. I shouldn't be here. “Nothing, it just wasn't worth it” I don’t know if I said the right answer, am I going to get hurt if I don’t? To my surprise, the angel just nods, “I see, no need to look down. Don’t be afraid of me child. I just want to see how your life has been, that's all” All of a sudden, we get transported to a blue room. The walls are light blue with two beds against them. I see a woman laying down on the bed, her arms around a small child. “June 21st, 2005,” says the angel. I slowly walk down the room and look at my mom, only 21 at the time. She looks young, she looks tired as she holds onto me. I’m in a pink blanket, and I look peaceful.“You were quite the peaceful baby, I see” the angel remarks. “What are you doing?’’  I ask, still somewhat confused. The angel ignores me and snaps his fingers. “ September 13th, 2010”. Before I know it,  I’m no longer facing my mom, instead, I'm in the backseat of our old car. I’m sitting next to a little girl, her brown hair in pigtails, clutching her pink glitter bookbag to her chest as she beats her purple sneakers against the seat. The little girl keeps laughing, going on and on as her mom drives. Her mom looks a bit older now, she's in an old shirt that she's had for years, and her hair is in a mess. They’re both laughing. They're both so happy. “Were you excited for your first day?” the angel whispers next to me. “Why are you doing this? Why are you going back?” He doesn't reply to my question, instead he says “January 5, 2018”. The little girl is grown now, she's much taller. She's sitting by herself on the bus. She's in the back now. I look up at her from across the bus, and she raises her head and sees me. She gives me a sad smile. Her eyes are sagging with bags, and her skin is dry, she looks 30 rather than 13. “How can she see me?” The angel, once again, doesn't reply. “March 5th, 2018” The girl is back now, she's sitting by herself in her room. Her mom is across from her. She looks quite old. She looks upset. The young girl is facing the floor, she's covering her ear and face with her hands. The mother kept yelling, and she kept looking down. She's biting her lips, they're bleeding. She’s crying now. The tears are rolling down her eyes as she begs it to stop. The room grows louder with every shout, and my skin pricks along my arm. The girl looks up. She sees me. She hasn't eaten, has she? She pleads for help. I try to reach her. “

"I scream before he can finish, letting out a gut-wrenching scream for him to stop. The angel seems surprised, he looks over at me “Pardon?” “Please stop,” I whimper “I don’t know why you're doing this or what the point is, but why are you going so fast? Do you go from showing me two happy memories and then revisiting moments I tried to avoid? Why are you even here?” I look up at the wings of the angel, tears suddenly coming to my eyes, blurring my vision. I cover my eyes with my sleeves and turn around. How embarrassing. I’m even pathetic now. He doesn't say anything, nor does he move. Eventually, he snaps his fingers, and then, I start to feel cool. I feel so cold, as the fresh air washes over my body. My hair sways to the side falling over my shoulders as my cheeks turn pink. There's a soft breeze passing by me and I realize it’s autumn, and I’m in a city and it’s beautiful. All the stores glisten beneath me like marbles, all different colors. All the people walk below me, the glass floor shining a crystal glow as I put my hand on the cold surface of the glass surrounding me. I breathe into the haze and look at the white that covers the little area. I can see the entire city. All the beauty of it. The people dance among the neon streaks, rain pouring down as they all move, speeding by like a record on rewind. There are rows of colorful umbrellas in the crowd, with their jackets on their shoulders as the children laugh while crossing the street. Their hands dripped with water as they shriek, hugging each other underneath the single umbrella, her hair falling apart as she runs to her friend. They laugh as their clothes get soaked, as the people of New York speed by. They giggle at the droplets falling from their noses, and the wet cuffs of their sweaters as they dash towards a building seeking shelter. He jumps in the puddles, splashing everyone as an array of water jumps up, almost like a ring surrounding the small child. His mom runs to him, her jacket unzipped, carrying him in her arms like a cradle as she beams at his wet state. I feel so lost in the scene I don’t notice the angel talking, “Do you miss it?” I look up and all of a sudden, the moment is gone and I’m thrown back to the reality of my situation. “I don’t think we were put here to miss anything” I mumble, not expecting him to hear me. The angel takes a step forward and looks down. He’s silent for a minute and then asks “Then why were we put here?” I move my gaze from the small child jumping in the puddles and take a deep breath, trying to calm down my shaky voice. “You tell me”  “I already know, but I’m wondering, do you have an idea?”

 I shake my head, feeling comforted all of a sudden by the genuine wonder I hear in his voice. I don’t know why, but all of a sudden, I feel relaxed and loosen my muscles a bit. “Well…that really does us no good right now considering my current state does it? I think as humans, we all want to find a purpose. The purpose seems so powerful. It’s a way of creating an end goal to make all our challenges seem like it’s worth it. It’s a way of overcoming failure and despair with feelings of strength and hope, it’s like an anchor we use to keep ourselves grounded so we don’t get lost in the madness. I doubt any of us truly feel accomplished with all our materialistic gains. None of them follow us to the graves. So we have religions, and we have beliefs of an afterlife that will benefit us if we are good. If we are righteous, we believe that there is more beyond an end. Simply because we refuse to believe in an end with no happy ending, an end where the characters don’t receive the reckoning for their actions. We tell ourselves we’re mortal, we tell ourselves we're dead, and we have an end. Then we say there's more, we say there's heaven and hell, we say there's rebirth, we say our soul moves on. Because we are so focused on the idea of being immortal. We're so focused on the perception of just more so we can escape how meaningless this all truly is. We want an end, but we’ll never accept it when it comes.” I finish my sentence and finally look up at the only one who can hear me right now. The Angel of Death nods at me, looking like he understands. Then he raises one of his wings and asks me “Was this world so worthless you felt you had to kill yourself?” 

  I blank out and the atmosphere falls silent as if time itself was a feather on the angel's wing, slowly falling down into a descent. After a couple of minutes of not answering, the angel moves next to me. I move slightly, a bit uncomfortable at his presence but he simply sits down next to me and points at all the people. “Hope,” he says. I look down at what he's pointing at and see nothing. He sees my clearly confused expression and says, “I am nothing but an angel. My purpose is to do this. To take your souls. It’s all I have ever known. I truly believe life isn't as complicated as it seems. It is complicated, I shall admit. But truly, it’s not a life with hidden puzzles and adventures that urge a question to be answered, such as Who am I or What is The Meaning of life? You would have liked it to be that way, wouldn't you? Then it would make life more fulfilling, and more worthwhile when every new mistake adds a piece to the answer. But no, that's not it. Truly life is complicated because of all the other moments you experience. It’s not the big questions that need to be answered, rather it’s our own understanding of becoming a better person that has to. And that's truly the hard bit. Because we all want to be good people. And such an idea is so lost in a corrupt world like this. But how to become a good person is not the question. It’s how to stay a good person changes. And that's what's so hard to learn. The answer to questions such as what is your purpose will never change, they will always have the same answer. But the world will change. It’s knowing the answer and trying to hold on to it that every fall is for. Our faults are new ways for us to hold tighter. Just don’t let go. You're all too hard on yourself, or you simply cannot find the strength to get back up. You want to change something but are simply at loss for how. It’s one thing to have life telling you how to change, it’s another to change. But you will never change, you will never succeed if you simply think it's all about following the instructions given to you. It’s about accepting that this is who you are. And not running away from it. You humans, you all daydream so much. I see your dream of love, wealth, of happiness. You are all dreamers, you are designed to be. You all run away from reality. You have to accept that you were never put here to be happy. It is up to you to find out why you were put here. But the purpose, you're right, it’s powerful. But would you, the divine people you all are truly be put here with no purpose? It’s up to you to decide what it is. You must have hope my dear. There is and forever only will be one of you. You say you are alone. I say there are others who would weep until they can barely blink if they lost you. You are loved by those whom you can see and those whom you will later meet once you leave this place. Have hope, for hope, is never gone until I see you in that grave. Hope comes at no price and there is no situation where the hope of believing in the beautiful, complicated person you have molded yourself into, cannot fix. The people you have seen in your life have hope. The unseen have hope in you. So who are you to not have hope yourself?”