The thick electro house was starting to make the back of Jimmy’s head hurt and the raccoon was getting so much more pissed off than necessary. He was looking around, over sweaty afternoon heads bobbing up and down, as the desperately early were trying to pretend everyone was really enjoying themselves.

They weren’t.

Who the hell comes to a club at 2pm on a Tuesday?

Come to think of it, who the hell comes to a club carrying a wild raccoon in a dog crate, looking for a sign from God, and starts judging people not carrying raccoons? Jimmy thought.

He craned his neck and saw the angel shimmering in the back corner, next to the men’s room.

“Are you kidding me?” Jimmy let out. The raccoon hissed at him. “Don’t you start, Betsy. You be a good girl now. I don’t know what the Lord has planned for us, but we’ve come this far following the instructions He gave us in a dream and we’ve found the angel, so you gotta stay with me. Just trust me on this one.”

The raccoon turned around in the carrier and pooped on the spot.

“Fine. Be that way. Women,” Jimmy muttered and started making his way to the back of the club.

The angel became more solid as he approached. None of the other people in the club seemed to notice it. They hadn’t even said anything about bringing Betsy in at the door. That’s when you know you’re cruising in the classy clubs; they don’t ask you to check your raccoon. He got elbowed a few times pushing through the tired dancers, but no one said a peep about the raccoon turds spilling out of the carrier.

Jimmy was standing in front of the angel. The smell of urine was starting to get overwhelming. The wall had long streaks where people had obviously gotten distracted on their way to the urinal and decided the wall outside of it was good enough. Jimmy waved his hand. Boy, there were sorry places to be working at, but this might be in the top ten of those sorry places. The smell didn’t seem to bother the angel.

It was three golden circles with eyes around the rims and small wings everywhere. It didn’t seem to have a nose. Maybe that’s why the smell didn’t bother it. The shimmer he’d seen earlier was a faint flame surrounding the rings. The eyes all blinked at different times and it was making Jimmy’s head hurt even more than the music. Which eyes was he supposed to look at? You look people in the eyes to be respectful and Lord knew he wanted to be respectful in front of His messenger, but there were so many eyes!

Five of the eyes fixed on him while the others wandered around the room and the walls. One looked disapprovingly at the urine stains on the wall. One on the lower right side might’ve been a bit lazy.

Don’t look at the lazy eye, what’s wrong with you?! Jimmy thought to himself. Don’t look at it!

“The chosen of the Lord,” the angel spoke. “Do not be afraid.”

“I ain’t afraid,” Jimmy blurted out, then immediately regretted it. “I mean, The Lord comes to me all fire and brimstone in a dream and tells me to get my ass to a club with a wild raccoon and to bring sensible shoes, not much to argue with that.”

They both looked down at his shoes. They were very sensible. Good enough for mild spelunking. Jimmy felt his feet start sweating. He pulled on his shirt collar.

Ten or so of the angels eyes kept staring at his shoes while the five Conversation Eyes looked up at him again.

“You have heeded well,” the angel spoke. “The Lord speaks through me.”

“Um-hu, yup, He seems to.” Jimmy said.

“Stand here,” the angel pointed to a spot a few inches to the left from where he stood.

Jimmy shuffled over.

He noticed the angel didn’t have hands either.

There was an awkward silence. The eyes kept blinking at random times. All besides the one that was still staring at the urine stain on the wall with mounting rage, and the lazy one.

The angel reached out, took Jimmy by the shoulders and moved him a half and inch to the left. Then it hummed with satisfaction.

There was a crack.

A crack then a sway.

Like being on a cruise. The kind of pleasant, gentle sway you feel in your belly that masks the godawful drops and breaks of an earthquake.

They were in the middle of an earthquake.

The walls were now shaking up and down and this was bad, this was how bad earthquakes shook. Up and down, not side to side like the ocean. And the floor was giving away under his feet and he felt himself slip down on the plastic flooring, landing on his ass with a sharp thud then sliding down into the dark where the slab of floor was leading him and he could hear people screaming above and hard heels clacking as people tumbled for safety and all the while he was sliding further down, and the crumbling world was getting further away.

He was slipping down into the darkness. Past a cracked pipe. A ceiling light flashed by. Betsy was sliding down next to him, not looking very worried.

Well, if this is where the Lord wanted me to be at this point in my life, then I’ll guess I’ll trust him that I’m not gonna slide straight down to the Earth’s core and burn to a crisp, Jimmy thought and relaxing in the slide.

Unless this is how the Lord wants to burn me to a crisp…

He swallowed.

And just then his feet hit the ground.

The dust was still thick but the outline of the shimmering wheels of the angel shone through it.

“Stand up, son of Adam,” it said, looking very regal. There was a faint hint of a British accent.

Jimmy was brushing dust off his shirt and slacks. He peered up. He’d fallen about two stories down. Funny, it’d seemed like a much longer fall. There were echoes of a few cracks and creaks, a crock of concrete hitting another, a sewage pipe spilling its contents... but the shaking seemed to have stopped. He just wished all those poor souls at the club had gotten out. Dealing with patrons peeing all over your walls was one thing, but then getting literally crushed by your workplace; that was a fate he didn’t wish on anyone.

“Are those folk up there going to be ok?” he said, pointing up.

The angel’s eyes rolled in unison.

“Yes,” it sighed. “Everything always turns out in a way.”

“Alright, just wanted to make sure, is all,” Jimmy squinted. “So now what?”

“Behold!” the angel spread its wings and a bright, divine light lit up the sub basement.

It could also be that the dust had settled and the lights had gone up.

“We’re… we’re in a meth lab?” Jimmy stammered looking at the pipes and liquids and full plastics bags and burners on metal tables.

“Yes!” the angel exclaimed proudly. “Alright. You are the Lord’s chosen one. I trust you know what to do,” and it turned and started to fade into the air.

“Wait, no! What?! Why?”

“Why what?” the angel turned back. “Mysterious are the Lord’s ways. They are not for mortals to question.”

“No! I mean, yes. But no, I don’t know what to do! What do I do with a meth lab?!”

“You were given a vision,” the angel stared down at him.

“Yes, about catching a raccoon and getting my ass to this club with the raccoon and sensible shoes. There was nothing about a fucking meth lab! Oh fuck! I mean fudge! Excuse my language, Mr Angel. And Lord.” He made a quick sign of the cross.

The angel pulled out a golden clip board and flipped a few pages.

“It says here you’ve received vision, part I and II. Both are checked. You’ve been instructed but are refusing to listen.” The angel didn’t look happy.

Jimmy was starting to feel like all the times he was sent to the principal’s office for sneezing out string cheese through his nose and getting told he was on his way to a life of crime. This was wrong. He’d done nothing but listen. The back of his neck was getting hot.

“No! If there was a second part to this, I have not seen it. I’ve done nothing but listen. I trusted the Lord when He told me to pick Betsy of the two raccoons I caught with the cake trap because the other one had rabies, and I trusted Him to not let me die for nothing when falling down this hole, why would I not listen to him about what to do with a fucking meth lab?! Fudging. Sorry. Praise the Lord.” He made another quick cross sign.

The angel tapped the golden clip board with a wing tip as some of the eyes kept darting around the basement and some were looking up. The lazy one was staring at the bag of meth on one of the tables and kept twitching.

“I see.” The angel cleared its throat. “There has been an issue.”

“Damn straight there’s been an issue!” Jimmy let out. “Darn! Fudge! I’m sorry.”

The angel kept looking at him with all the affection of a librarian at a book burning fest.

“There has been an issue with reception. Light sleep, occasional nightly wake ups. Potentially apnea, though I’m not one to judge since I’m not your primary care physician. I’m just the Messenger Of the Lord. Anyway; this can break the vision. It happens. It’s delivered but in another part of your memory.” It looked down on the clip board and flipped the pages a few more times. “Oh well, it’ll come to you.” The eyes squinted into a retail worker smile and then the angel disappeared.

“What?! NO!”

Jimmy was standing alone in the meth lab. The fractured no echoed up the rift he’d fallen down through and dislodged pebbles that rained down on piles of cement rubble. He looked at Betsy. The raccoon hissed at him.