Constance We Have Heard On High

This story was written for Trifecta’s weekly prompt. For previous stories about Constance, go here. Enjoy!

Constance Magenta was getting bored. She’d been sitting on her cloud for, oh, a good hour at least, and she had nothing to do. Not being a fully realized angel yet, she hadn’t received the usual accoutrements, wings, a halo, and so forth, and she was terrible at the harp anyway. She’d expected the training to start earlier; apparently punctuality was not as heavenly a virtue as one might have thought.  In desperation she turned to the person next to her.

“So…” she said, “What are you here for?”

“I’m a phantom,” came the doleful reply.

“A…phantom.”

“Oh yes. A phantom of death. I’m supposed to go to people when they, y’know, die.”

“How nice,” said Constance, since she wasn’t sure what else to say. In the back of her mind a little tune began to play. “Death angel, death angel, will you be mii-iiine….”   Hastily she suppressed it and tried to think of something more polite. What would her mother, Juliet Magenta, queen of the social set, have said in this situation?  “Have you, er, been at it long?”

“No, not really,” said the phantom. “Only just now. I was supposed to start earlier, but I tried to claim the soul of a zombie, and, well, they don’t have souls, you see, being dead already. So it was decided I needed some training. I’m Winifred, by the way.”

“Constance. I think I’m supposed to be Search and Rescue. Or maybe one of those messenger, types like on that show, Monica what’s her name. Not sure. Just so long as I don’t have to protect my loathsome squid ex-boyfriend Ben. I swear, he’s a real s-”

“Ahem,” rumbled an echoing voice, startling Constance and Winifred both.

“Saint,” Constance said quickly. “Saint, I meant to say. I was not going to use a bad word in heaven.”

“Good thing,” said the angel, sighing. “We do have a policy on that.”