I Chose the Right Body Suit

You can return to earth for two days they said, but not in that worn out body. I knew that; and I was glad; it was almost blind, and had a touch of dementia any way. You have to go incognito, they told me. They were stern, and stuck up angels, Not the kind I was expecting to meet my first hour in heaven. Assertive even. Here were my body choices: fourteen year old boy, red hair, freckles, square chin. Eighty-nine year old body, old lady, wrinkled, spotted hands, sweet smile, looked serene. Or two-year-old female, blonde hair, plump and perfect. I could not see their eyes, for the eyes do not appear until you enter the body suit. Two-year-olds can be dancy-prancy. But that would mean I would have to have gatekeepers in the form of parents, probably, and I wanted two days of freedom not naps. Being eighty- nine did not appeal to me at all. I have never enjoyed arthritis in my feet or a humpback. “Fourteen year old boy,” I told them. They nodded, being smug angels, and my self-chosen-spirit-guides for many lifetimes. All of my relatives stared at the giggling freckled red-haired teenage boy at my funeral. They speculated that he had escaped from the boys’ group home on the corner. Every time one of them got up and said something nice about me, the boy burst out laughing. They did not escort him out, because weirdly enough, he had my witch-laugh, and it comforted them.