I wrote this for Bob using characters from Donna Lamb's Blue Moon and Green Sun:

 
Indigo Sky
 
by Donna Lamb and Erin Halfelven

They found Arnie slumped over a keyboard, electronics gear piled on shelves around him. He'd been working at home, trying a remix of the Girlfriend song. "I want to get the feeling we all had just before the crowd went wild," he'd said. It was the kind of thing he did in his spare time.

Melody cried and Richard held her and his eyes were wet, too. Kylie let Bugs hold her so no one could see the tears that dripped into his mustache. Lemon blew his nose with a completely original sound, like a sad and lonely bugle on a beautiful hill far away. Gogie stared out a window his eyes bright; not crying, but as if he were looking for something. The new girl, Elspeth, wanted to hear what Arnie had done with the tracks. "I'll bet it was brilliant," she said, her voice breaking a bit.

In a lonely private bar in the Hellish city of Pandemonium, Sophie Drake lifted a glass of chocolate cordial. "Another one got away, Bill," she said to the bartender who kept his face in his armpit. "Again," she added, after a sip.

"Sick transit galore a-Monday," agreed Bill C. Bubb, polishing a glass with his foot long black tongue. "There's a lot of that going around."

On the observation deck in a Heavenly lounge reserved for returning senior agents, Ted O'Mersey grinned his crooked Elizabethan grin. "Ginnie!" he called to the blonde angel at the railing. "Welcome back!"

She lifted her glass at him, smiling but not turning away from the panorama. "I never get tired of the view from here," she said quietly. "And after more than fifty years, it's good to be back." They stood together for a bit, not saying anything just watching. Clouds below mostly hid the Earth but the vault above was full of stars in the deep purplish daylight sky of Heaven.

At a table in a corner of the lounge, Dar Gmunro, the enormous African wizard and ruler of Limbo Dnuro explained to a crocodile godlet how to eat a Fatburger. "Not all to the once. Too much never enough can be. Letting your teeth relish the savor of the essence is masterhood." He demonstrated, finishing one of the double half-pounders in five bites. "Ow," he said. "Finger biting your own the optional becomes."

Ginnie and Ted overheard and laughed. "I never can understand him," she said. "But he's funny."

The quirk of a Heavenly wind brought them the sound of music.

In Burbank, on Earth, I-NO-Y played a memorial jam in Melody Jo's private studio. Elspeth took Arnie's place at the soundboard. Richard played the drums, steady with the left hand and an intricate soft stacatto with the right. Melody danced her fingers on two keyboards at once. Lemon invented harmonies with a silver saxophone. Bugs and Kylie stood face to face, guitar to guitar, just strumming, not picking. Gogie sat at the other drum kit wearing his shades, snapping his fingers and singing scat.

In Heaven, Ginnie lifted her voice.

I look up and see the stars
Shining in an Indigo Sky.
We're all made of Stardust,
I don't want to feel alone.
 
Life is made for joy,
Love is made for you and I.
We're all made of Stardust,
And I want to go home.
 
I look around and see
People, shining like stars.
We're all made of Stardust,
So we're never alone.
 
Men and women are lonely
Planets, Venus and Mars.
We're all made of stardust,
But we know we have a home.
 
Look up and see the stars,
Shining in an Indigo Sky.
We're all made of Stardust,
We don't have to be alone.
 
Life is made for joy,
Love is made for you and I.
We're all made of Stardust,
And I want to go home.

"Did you write that?" Ted asked after a bit. The sound of the band from Burbank faded on the Heavenly wind.

"Not yet," said Ginnie. "Maybe someday." She smiled at him. "Do you have a new assignment for me?"

Ted grinned his crooked-tooth ancient British grin. "You're going to like the next one," he promised.

We'll always miss you, Bob.

Hugs,
Erin