Falling is a very strange sensation. Even when you cause it yourself, it’s an unnatural feeling. I truly don’t think I could ever get used to it. Granted, it wasn’t like I would have the chance. You see, I had jumped off of the Brent Spence Bridge and I was quickly hurtling towards the frigid Ohio River. Or at least I was supposed to be. Instead I sat frozen in midair, unable to move any part of myself as I hung there. Just as I started to wonder which of my synapses was choosing to do this as it’s final mortal act, a glowing white being appeared in front of me.

“Hello, Ray. I’d ask how you were doing, but people who are having good days don’t usually throw themselves off a bridge.” Their voice was soft and gentle, clearly trying to calm me down. I’d give them an A for effort, but it’s very hard to be calm when a five foot androgynous person in flowing white robes with golden hair just appeared standing in front of you seventy-five feet above a river.

“Who the hell are you? How do you know my middle name? And why do you keep calling me that instead of my first name?”

A frown crossed their face and a sadness creeped into their eyes. “Oh, Ray, do you really not remember? I know you’ve fallen off the path of observance, but you used to enjoy being so devout when you were younger.”

Fear and shock ran through my body as my eyes shot open. “You can’t be real.”

“If I’m not real, then how am I talking to you? Or why would your fall have stopped if I was not who I said I was?”

“This-this is just the last thoughts of a drowning man, trying to make good with a God I gave up believing in when I was 12.”

They shook their head at my explanations and gave me a sad smile. They snapped their fingers as they said “Well, how about this then?”

Suddenly, I was standing back on the footpath of the bridge. I yanked my left arm up as quickly as I could to check my watch. 7:56 pm. Two minutes after I had jumped. My shock at everything must have shown through my normally dull face as the angel shook their head to confirm that this was indeed real.

“Oh, my God!”

“Not God, just an associate class angel. You can call me Claire, she/her.”

I gripped the handrail behind me, desperate for anything solid that I could hold. “You-you can’t be real!”

“I very much am, thank you. After all, could a non-existent being have stopped you from finishing that plunge?

The cold bit into my hands, serving to ground me as I desperately tried to collect a coherent thought to speak. Eventually, one finally worked its way out of my mouth.

“Why?”

“Why what? I’m afraid that you’ll have to be more specific.”

“W-why did you save me?”

“You’re not due up for another sixty-odd years Ray. You tried to punch out far too early.”

“But why me? If you’re real, why not go end the war in Mongolia or something, anything, that’s far more important than saving my pitiful life?”

She crossed her arms, the sadness returning to her face. “Two reasons. One, despite what you may think, your life is valuable. It’s more valuable than I think you may ever realize. Two, that’s not my department. Like I said before, I’m just an associate-class angel in a department that has almost nothing to do with Earthly wars.”

“You’re organized into departments?”

Her arms stayed crossed, but the sadness left her face. It was replaced by what was seemingly pride. “Yep! We used to just be one big universal angelic department, but a couple hundred years ago we were reorganized into specialty departments. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I’m fairly sure it was just an attempt to weaken the AAWU, not that it worked thankfully.”

“AAWU?”

“Angelic Acts Workers United. My local is number 23, feel free to look me up when you come up later!”

I chuckled at that, unable to stop myself. “The angels are unionized. I wish I could say that I’m surprised, but I’m really not.” I sighed before I continued. “So what now? You go back and call this a success and I force myself to trudge through life, knowing that I can’t even kill myself if I try?”

The pride left her face as quickly as it had come. “No. This is a one time save. I’m to do my best to show you that life is worth living, but if you were to jump again right now I couldn’t stop you.”

I turned to look back into the river, watching as it swirled and churned so far down below me. No one would stop me if I jumped this time. She’d be powerless to stop me. “Go on then.”

“I’m sorry?” She asked.

“Go on and try to convince me that this shitty existence is worth suffering through for another sixty years. Do your best. I’ll hear you out and then I’ll decide whether I still want to jump.”

“Okay. Thank you for being willing to listen. Can I ask for something from you?”

“What?”

“I’m going to need you to answer some questions for me. Please.” She was practically begging, I couldn’t say no to that.

“Fine.”

“Thank you.”

The wind decided to howl as our conversation lulled, my shaggy hair blowing into my eyes. Snow started falling, quickly working to cover the footpath we stood on. She finally spoke as the wind died down, carefully picking her words.

“When did you stop believing?”

“I don’t know, about twelve or thirteen. I can’t remember the specifics. I can’t really remember much from back then.”

“What can you remember?”

I sighed, my lack of memories a sore spot to me. “The best I’ve got is brief glimpses of memories until about my senior year of high school. I think I remember the past seven years, or at least most of it.”

“Circling back, why did you stop believing?”

I shook my head. “You not hear me? I can’t remember when I stopped believing, let alone why. I just did. Maybe I had a prayer go unanswered or something.”

Her feet crunched as she took a step closer. “Don’t lie to me, Ray. I’ve read your file. We both know that you remember exactly what caused you to question your faith. I need you to say please. It has to be you.”

Tears pricked at my eyes for the first time in a while. I had never been a big crier, but that memory always managed to bring up the water works. “My disaster of a bar mitzvah. I’d never seen mom so mad before. I must have cried enough to fill a bucket.”

“Why were you so upset?”

“I’ve never been very good with change, you should know that if you’ve read my file like you said. Between puberty and starting high school, it just became too much change too quickly.”

Another step. “That was definitely part of it, I can’t say that you’re wrong. But is that the only reason?”

“Yeah. Well, that and the fact that I couldn’t remember half of what I was supposed to. It’s not fun being a family embarrassment.”

“Ray, we both know what you’re dancing around. You need to say it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Crunch. Another step. I figured she must have been within arms reach now. “Ray, you need to say it. Please. For me.”

“No. I refuse.” The strain in my voice to keep it calm was obvious to me, so I knew it had to be obvious to her.

“Please. We can’t dance around it all night. It’s better for both of us if you just say it.” She reached out and grabbed my shoulder, probably in an attempt to comfort me.

I returned the favor by turning around and screaming in her face.

“FINE! I BECAME A MAN! YOU HAPPY, NOW THAT I'VE SAID IT?” I took a moment to catch my breath, my breathing having become quick and stuttery. “Ho-how could he let me become a man when I couldn't even thank him for making me one! I didn’t ask for this! It’s not fair!” She pulled me into her shoulder and rubbed my back as tears poured from my eyes. I wished that they would stop, but I couldn’t bring myself to force them to.

I continued, barely above a whisper, into her shoulder. “I prayed so, hck, much to become a girl, just for a little while. Just so I could try it.”

Her hand rubbing my back had done wonders to calm me down. I pulled my head back as she looked me in the eyes and spoke. “I know dear, I know. We heard every single one of your prayers. We heard how desperate they became as you got closer and closer to your thirteenth birthday before they suddenly stopped. There was just one problem with your requests.”

“Wh-what?”

“How were we supposed to make you a girl when you’ve always been one?”

“What? What the hell are you going on about? I’m a man and always have been. Believe me as much as I wish my dick would freeze off, it’s still very much attached and letting me know how cold it is.”

She moved her hand from my shoulder to my cheek, her palm somehow warm despite the bitterly cold air. “Oh, my poor dear girl. Yes, you may be read as male by the world but they are blind to the real you. You have always been a girl.”

I truly felt it was too good to be true. “But, I’m not a girl. I just really wanted to be.”

She sighed as she moved her hand off of my cheek and back onto my shoulder. “Let me try this a different way. Do you remember Evan, from school?”

I nodded, shock covering my face. I hadn’t thought about him since we’d graduated high school. “Yeah? I don’t know what he has to do with anything, he was just another dude.”

She gave me a pointed look. “Do you remember when he reintroduced himself in the seventh grade as Evan and told you to think of him as ‘just another dude’?”

“Yeah, yeah I do. He was, um, what’s the word? Trans, that’s it, but what’s that got to do with me wanting to be a girl?”

“It goes both ways, you know. You can just reintroduce the world to you and become just another one of the girls.”

I took a step back from her, her hands falling off my shoulders as she gave me a confused look. “Oh, my God, I can’t believe this. You’re saying that I’m what, like Buffalo Bill?! Where do you get off calling me that kind of a pervert and acting like it’s a good thing? I’d rather die than be seen as something like that.”

Her face fell as what I said sunk in. “I-wow, I mean I knew that your sister showing you Silence of the Lambs when you were eight made you repress, but I never would have thought it was this bad.”

“You leave her out of this.”

She threw her hands up in mock surrender, silently agreeing to leave her out of it. “My apologies, but let me see if I have this right. Evan can be just another guy because it makes him happier, but you can’t just be a girl?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

She looked like someone had just told her angels exist or something. Wait- “How does that make any sense? What makes him different from you?”

“I mean, if someone wants to join the miserable club of manhood, who am I to tell him no? But me trying to pretend I could be anything approaching a real girl? No way. I just have suck it up and live out my life as a man. Someone has to anyway.”

“That’s not how any of this works and-Fine you know what, let me ask you something else. Racheal, if you could take medicine to make you into a ‘real girl’ would you?”

I hadn't heard anything she had said after that name, that new and yet familiar name, Racheal. The name I had picked just in case I ever had a daughter, but clearly she had applied to me. I felt all warm and giddy despite the circumstances and I must have been shown it from the mirroring smile on Claire’s face.

“You didn’t hear any of what I said, did you?”

I looked down, embarrassed at myself. “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“You’re fine, I promise. I asked you if there was a medicine you could take to make you into a ‘real girl’ would you?”

If only. “Well, yeah obviously.”

“It’s real. It exists and you live less than twenty minutes from a clinic that gives it out.”

“Oh my God.”

“Take your time, I know this one’s important.”

I slid down against the railing, snow crunching beneath me. I could just take some pills and become a girl? I couldn’t believe it could be that easy.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“What, what do I do now? Oh God, what am I going to tell Mary! Fuck.”

She offered her hand and I took it, pulling me up and into a hug. “What you’re going to do is go pick up the Chinese takeout you were sent out to get. Then you’ll go home and figure out how you want to proceed. It’s up to you now. But don’t worry, I promise Mary will be okay.”

“Thank you, Claire. How can I ever repay you?”

Her mouth curled into a grin as she spoke. “Be happy and promise me you’ll never try to throw yourself into the Ohio River again.”

“I promise.”

We smiled at each other for a moment, before she patted me on the back and motioned towards the city. “Well, go on then. You don’t want to eat cold egg rolls.”

I started walking and shouted back another “Thank you!” as she waved goodbye at me before she disappeared into the snow.

 

---

 

Claire Hatch, Angel Associate Class, Transgender Accounts Department, ASN:834567142

Angelic intervention after action report for 7:53-8:09 EST, December 25th, 2022 as follows:

Subject, a trans woman named Racheal Allison Bailey, attempted to take her own life by jumping off of the Brent Spence Bridge into the Ohio River. By the time angelic intervention arrived on the scene, she had already successfully leaped from the guard rail. Her fall was stopped using angelic powers and, following introductions, was returned to footpath using same angelic powers. Despite hesitance and repeated denial of identity, at no point did she actively attempt to take her life again. Following prolonged discussions, subject tentatively accepted her identity and had created an internal action plan to affirm herself. No further action necessary, recommendation for the case to be closed effective immediately.