Not even angels

He stood by a large octagonal flowerpot filled with dusty pansies leaning in different directions. A trumpet in his hands, but he wasn't going to play. Like me, he was intrigued by a skinny guy shouting slogans about the guaranteed approaching end of the world on the corner of the shopping center.

"He's kind of a nutcase, isn´t he?" I remarked, circling my index finger around my temple.

"No, he isn´t." The man glanced at me quickly from top to bottom. "The problem is something else. Actually, someone else. You know... it could have been all over by now, I could have folded my wings and taken a vacation. The waiting is really annoying."

Something in his speech—and it wasn't just the words—smacked of suspicion. Meanwhile, the man by the flowerpot cursed Nostradamus's name for what felt like the fiftieth time. He raised his voice.

"Can you see them?" sighed the trumpet player.

Them? Yes, that skinny guy wasn't just talking into the wind. He had an opponent. A smaller, dark-skinned man with his head between his shoulders, hunched over combatively, was shouting over the herald of the approaching apocalypse with arguments that differed—as I managed to notice—in the details of the event and, above all, in the date. He was addressing passersby. Not everyone managed to change course in time.

"I really thought it would work. Ta-da, four in the saddle, boom, bang, the end." He waved his hand with a broad gesture. "Sorry."

As I dodged, I caught a glimpse of something like the indistinct outline of wings.

"Excuse me, I haven't introduced myself yet. Gabriel."

I felt hot. Cold. Everything you consider unpleasant. Because—no further clues were necessary—it was really him.

The angel of the Last Judgment.

I looked up at the sky. It remained monotonously gray.

He knew what I was thinking.

"Not yet. It was supposed to reveal there, I think, the date," he pointed to the arguing prophets. "They both know it. And they're both right. Well," he sighed deeply, "they should be. Which is precisely the problem. The crouching one flew in from Belize. That's what they call the region today, you know. Have you heard the stories about the carefully calculated destruction of the world according to the Mayan calendar?"

"Sure. But no one knows when the calendar starts," I hastened to add.

"This guy does."

It sounded definitive.

"They could agree, don't you think?" asked Gabriel hopefully. Immediately afterwards, hope deserted him. "Oh no!"

No, they didn't start fighting. Not yet. A third man joined them. The angel clicked his tongue in annoyance.

"Millerite."

I looked at him with a clearly legible question.

"A preacher from Hampton once read the year 1844 from the Bible. How, I have no idea. But really, I don't. Matthew 24, you know?"

I didn't.

"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father," he recited. "They had to recalculate when they missed the forty-fourth. Now there are three."

"And you."

"Not me," Gabriel protested. "Didn't you hear me? Not even the angels. I only know the address. Here."

He resignedly looked around, glanced at his instrument.
Noticed the case in my hand.

"Alto?"

"There's a small jazz club down the street where I play in the evenings. I used to play..."

The angel smiled. He gazed at the three heralds of the final reckoning with the human race.

"That's just it. I'm waiting for a cue to sound the beginning of the end. One cue. One end. But there are three of them. Each with their own truth, you understand? TRUTH," he repeated emphatically. "They'll come to some agreement," Gabriel's voice sounded cautiously hopeful again, "They'll choose a date that suits everyone. It's not that difficult, after all."

"Do you think so?"

He looked down the street. People were rushing by. From shopping to shopping. Home. Somewhere. Each with their own thoughts, one step ahead of the others, knowing their own truth and the mistakes of others with absolute clarity.

"Yes. I think so. Eventually... Right now, it seems I have plenty of time."

He breathed on the metal and wiped the brass of his instrument with his sleeve. He nodded in the direction I had originally been heading.

"Shall we jam?"

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