1 Just Getting By.

As the shrill sound of a phone's alarm filled the small bedroom, John rolled over in his bed and grabbed the screeching device off his bedside table. After silencing the device, he quickly logged in to his province's online lottery app to check and see if his tickets won. Nope. Still in the same old grind, with no easy way out.

John took a moment to organize his plan for the morning and got himself out of bed. As he was grabbing the essentials to shower, he saw through the crack in the window that last night, Mother Nature had delivered another healthy helping of snow all over the roads. "Great, that's gonna be a joy to drive in." John snarked to himself.

After getting cleaned up for the day and grabbing a quick bite and a coffee to take his morning medicine with, John headed out to work; upon exiting his apartment building, he spotted his truck buried in a few inches of snow. Turning it on, he grabbed his snow brush and started clearing off the vehicle. Walking around the vehicle, brushing it down, he had a few minor slips here and there but no full tumbles. "Slipping already, it is not gonna be a good day, now is it..." John ruminated.

With the truck now cleaned off, John headed into work in his still cold, old beater of a truck; he put on some music and started thinking of the overfull day ahead of him.

While sitting at a stoplight, John noticed that an older woman struggled to get her vehicle out from where she had parked it down the side street. Evident from how deeply it was buried, she had evidently not driven it in the last week as there were at least several snowfalls worth of snow on and around the car. John glanced at the clock in his dash and saw he was making better time than he thought. Signalling a lane change, he got over to the right-hand lane and turned into the street. Pulling up behind the lady's car, John hopped out of his car and called out to her, "Hey Miss, do you need a hand?"

******

Looking up at the large man who just called out to her, Wilma saw a younger man's face, who she would place in his late 20's or early 30's. The man was wearing a toque on his head and had a winter jacket and mitts on. Most of his face was covered in a sizeable ginger-coloured beard, thought she could see the tops of his cheeks were tinged a bit red by the cold wind blowing down the street. "Oh, yes, I could most definitely use some help," Wilma quickly replied.

The man shot her a smile from under his beard and went back to his truck and reached inside. He returned with a snow shovel and a few planks of wood. Wilma noticed he had a uniform of some sort on under his winter jacket as he unzipped it a bit to give himself a greater range of motion as he started shovelling out the car. "Oh goodness, young man, are you on your way to work?" She enquired to the man.

"The name's John, and I am. But don't you worry about it. Who could blame me even if I am a little bit late when I was helping someone out." John replied to her. Grinning at what she knew was going to sound to his boss like a poorly constructed excuse. Wilma said, "Well, if your boss has any problems, tell them to give me a call," as she grabbed her notepad and pen out of her purse to write down her name and phone number for the kind young man.

******

"Haha, thanks for the get-out-of-jail-free card!" John replied as he finished clearing enough snow to get to the car door and see through the windshield. He then removed the snow in front of the vehicle and laid the two lumber pieces down in front of the car's front tires. John then had Wilma start the car and apply some gas. As she did, the car crept along the boards, pulling it victoriously from the snowdrift in which it found itself. John gave it a few quick go-overs with the brush from the woman's back seat to clear off the remaining snow.

"Thanks, it feels like I had God send me my own personal little helper today," Wilma said with a heartwarming smile to John through her rolled own window. "It was my pleasure ma'am, have a Merry Christmas," John responded with a wave as he headed back to his truck. "Merry Christmas to you too!" He heard her call back to him as Wilma's car passed by him on the way to the main road.

Upon reaching his truck, John got into the driver's seat and placed his phone on the mount. As he started to reach behind his left shoulder to grab the seatbelt, John felt a sharp stabbing pain in his chest. "Uh oh," John thought to himself. "This is not a good sign. Did I push a bit too hard clearing out that car?" He questioned as he tried reaching out to his phone to call for an ambulance. But as he tried grabbing his phone, his limbs felt like they were made of cement, his numb finger clumsily trying to grasp his cellphone. The partially non-responsive digits of his right hand only managed to dislodge the phone from the mount yet failed to grab the device. John's now drowsy mind cursed as he watched the phone plummet to the floor of the truck. However, the phone was not the only thing falling as John's whole body slowly slumped to the side. His limbs now entirely unresponsive as his vision started to fade. A single tear rolled down his rosy, frost-nipped cheek, getting lost on his bushy beard, as John thought back on all the moments that had led him here. His failed marriage, not completing college, all the love and affection from his parents that he had squandered. And most of all, what was going to happen to him now.

******

As John woke up, his slowly opening eyes were assaulted with the brightest vistas he had ever seen. He was standing in a sea of clouds, at the bottom of a great set of golden stairs. Great forests surrounded him on all other sides in what looked to be valleys. John felt himself being beckoned to the top of the stairs from where he could hear faint music. As he contracted on the melody, he could make out a brass orchestra playing and hymnal chants being sung. John ascended the stairs in a trance. Once he crested the top of the staircase, his eyes beheld a man in a single shouldered robe that made John think of a Greek toga. However, this toga looked like it had been cut from their night sky itself, as he could see stars, nebulas, and galaxies fluctuating in the fabric of the garment itself. Being torn asunder and rebuilt anew.

John glanced upwards at the man's face, finally just taking in how large the man was. John stood at an already large 6' 4" (193cm). However, this man was at least twice his own height. The man in front of John had his eyes closed, but as John's gaze landed upon his closed lids, the man's eyes opened and looked directly into John's. The man's face, which had been at a neutral resting expression before, lit up with a glowing smile, which fully showed how divine the man indeed was.

The music came to a halt as the giant leaned forward in his seat, spread his arms wide and said, "Welcome, my son, I have been expecting you!"