Short Writings

The Beach

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On the last day of the world, the man awoke smoothly.

He climbed out of bed, wrapping a terrycloth robe around himself.  His bare feet padded softly on the floor as he made his way downstairs.

He passed through the kitchen without pause.  He didn’t need to eat.  In the front hallway, he paused only to select a windbreaker from the closet.  The wind was already picking up outside, howling past the house.

The man stepped outside through the front door, strolling across the grass.  His bare feet crunched in the dew, still half-frozen on the green blades of grass.  His feet were chilled by the cold air, but he paid them no mind.

The pliant crunch of grass yielded to the rough ridges of concrete as the man continued.  He made his way along the path, paved with poor concrete imitations of tiled cobblestone.  The wind whipped at his hair and the edges of his robe, and the man was grateful when he passed in the shadows of buildings, temporarily shielded from the elements.

The sun still hadn’t fully risen, and the world was draped in shadow.  The pathway beneath the man’s feet became rough wood for a short period, as he crossed the foot bridge over the marsh.  The wood scraped at his soles, threatening to leave splinters, but the man was careful not to drag his feet.  The rope handrails of the bridge creaked as he passed.

The bridge sloped down, gently depositing his feet in the sand of the beach.  The man stepped lightly to avoid sinking in to the soft sand.  He continued in his path, gazing ahead at where the faintest hint of light and color protruded above the horizon.

As he drew closer to the water, the sand became harder, caked together and solid beneath his toes.  The man continued, only occasionally glancing down to avoid the sharp piles of shells.  The sound of the ocean was now a near-constant rush.

The man finally reached the boundary between sand and water, where the caked sand was still damp and briny.  The pounding waves slowed to a frothy trickle just shy of his feet.  The man stood there for a long time as the sun rose, gazing out past the end of the world.

Standing at the edge of the world on the last day, the man watched and waited, a slight smile hiding around the corners of his face.

The Caveman’s Take on Modern Life

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The idea sold wonderfully on paper. “A caveman’s insights on our modern world!”, the cover letter proclaimed, and we had three agents in a bidding war by the end of the week. In retrospect, I should have pulled the plug right then.

Instead, I turned to Will, the grad student who had suggested the project, and told him that he was in charge. “I’ll admit, this wasn’t my idea when I started tapping into our Jungian consciousness,” I admitted at the lab meeting. “While I’m not thrilled about the commercialization, the insights could help us see our culture through the eyes of a truly unbiased outsider.”  Plus, our lab could use its share of the profits, but I kept that to myself.

“Yeah, exactly. That’s totally what I was thinking,” replied Will, who had been daydreaming about how he was going to spend his five-figure advance. “We were going to recruit a couple undergrads to serve as the vessels, pay them for their time.”

I briefly considered this. “Make it course credit instead,” I specified.

For the next couple weeks, there wasn’t any mention of the project, and it quickly slipped my mind. A month later, however, I found a very troubled Will sitting in my office, holding a stack of papers and wearing a disheartened frown.

“I don’t think I can publish most of this,” he complained, as I settled into the chair behind my desk. He passed over a sheaf of observations for me to peruse.

I read a line off the top sheet. “Why must we not get wet?  Do we not immerse ourselves in falling rain each morning?”

“That’s their observations on rain,” Will explained.

I flipped to the next page. “This is not food!” I read. “Where is the blood?  Where is the marrow?  Where is the fire, for us to gather around and share in wisdom?”

“One of the students visited a grocery store,” Will elaborated, sinking lower in his chair. “They also didn’t see the point behind cars, Instagram, or Twitter.” He rubbed one hand through his hair.

“Is there anything they liked?”

The question elicited a groan. “Yeah – push-up bras,” he moaned. “And once they tasted KFC, they were hooked.”

I flipped through the next few sheets of observations. “These are horrible,” I observed.

Will nodded. “Yeah, I can’t publish any of it. But I already spent my advance!” he cried. “Professor, what do I do?”

Leaning back in my chair, I closed my eyes, dropping the papers on my desk and rubbing my eyelids with my palms. I did my best to recall everything I could about popular culture and gossip magazines. “What about dating?” I finally asked.

At first, Will said nothing, but then his eyes suddenly lit up. After an effusive burst of thanks, he went running out of my office.

He was absent from the weekly lab meetings for the next month or so. Just as I was about to write him off, assuming he had dropped out, he showed up, out of breath but bragging about his newest idea. “It’s the ultimate source of dating advice!” he proclaimed. “Oprah meets Jerry Springer!”

He went on about his newest entertainment pitch, but I just shrugged my shoulders. Despite however it capitalized on our lowbrow culture, if it brought in funds, it was fine with me.

Calcifer’s Intrusion, Part II

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Part I.

 “I’ll confess something,” the devil said. “I was originally going to pull an Old Testament when I saw you, pillars of flame and all that. But you and I both know that we can’t go around whipping out the flaming swords any more.”
Despite not wanting to agree with the enemy over anything, the angel was forced to nod. “Too much paperwork,” he complained. “I mean, even just a simple smiting requires me to complete a WX1074-B within 24 hours. The long form, even! I can’t fill out the short form unless I have three angelic witnesses testifying that it was ‘blocking an active corruption’.”
Calcifer nodded sympathetically. “And no possessions for me, not if I don’t want to go before the advisory board,” he said. “So while we could still pull of a miracle if we really needed to, we’re forced to follow the same rules as the mortals.” Azrael was nodding, agreeing despite himself.
At that moment, the barista stepped up to the table. “Something wrong, Calcifer?” she asked.
“Yes, there is,” the devil replied, obviously enjoying the shocked look on Azrael’s face as he heard the mortal use his true name. “This man, here, should be refused service and thrown out of this shop.” He made a shooing gesture towards Azrael.
The barista sighed and rolled her eyes, but she turned towards the angel nonetheless. “Sorry, but you’ll have to go,” she said apologetically. “You know, ‘right to refuse service to anyone’ and all that.”
“What? Do, do you have any idea who I am?” Azrael stuttered.
The girl shrugged. “Afraid not. But I know this guy’s a devil, and he’s the only one that stops our cappuccino machine from breaking twice a week. So we try to keep him happy.” She jerked her thumb towards the door.
Angels aren’t programmed to disobey orders; those that don’t follow the beat of the drum tend to become fallen and join the ranks of the devils. This didn’t stop Azrael from glaring fiercely at both Calcifer and the barista as he packed up his laptop. “I hope you realize that, just by consorting with this monster, you’re putting your immortal soul in jeopardy,” he snapped at her as he turned to leave.
The girl shrugged, not looking particularly worried. “I get a lot of impure thoughts anyway,” she admitted. “Besides, I stopped going to church when I was, like, eight.”
As the angel stormed out of the coffee shop, the girl turned to Calcifer with a tired look. “Calcie, I know you get off on the whole ‘abusing power’ thing, but you need to stop with this,” she complained.
“Calcie? What is this?” Calcifer broke in. “I’m a devil! You can’t give me a nickname!”
The girl wagged her finger at him, in what he felt was a far too scolding manner. “Look, if I’m your big guns for keeping angels out of here, I get to call you whatever I want,” she explained. “You can either deal with them all yourself, or you can make these beans roast themselves. Your choice.”
As Calcifer snapped his fingers, causing demonic flames to gently lick each of the coffee beans behind the counter until they were perfectly dry-roasted and ready to be ground, he wondered if he was being used. No, he decided. He was an immortal devil, tasked with the corruption and degradation of humanity itself. There’s no way that mortals could be pulling a fast one on him.
Meanwhile, as the barista headed back to the counter, she was also weighing the benefits of keeping the coffee shop devil around. He did keep the machines in perfect running order, and saved them from burning the coffee. That was worth the occasional hassle of playing along with his little squabbles.
Halfway back to his booth, Calcifer paused, glancing up at the ceiling. “Wait, squabbles?” he asked suspiciously.
He heard no response about his very important cosmic battles with the angels, however, so he returned to his booth without further incident.

Calcifer’s Intrusion, Part I

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Calcifer scowled, hunching over his cup of dark roast coffee (grounds in the cup) as he glared at the intruder. This was his coffee shop! He had staked his claim, and some, some angelhad no right mucking up the place!

At his small, round table at the front of the shop, Azrael had not noticed the angry stare being aimed at the back of his head. After ordering his usual drink (soy latte with hazelnut), he had removed his Macbook from his book bag and set it open on his table, looking forward to continuing on his novel. Despite being assigned to watch and safeguard humanity for the past several thousand years, he was still having a nasty issue with the plot twist on page 79.
For several minutes, Calcifer watched his enemy type, his cup of coffee starting to boil from the heat of his palms. Several times, he felt the urge to simply start throwing fireballs. However, Calcifer prided himself on having learned from his time spent among the humans. Forcing his fingers to unclench, he took several deep breaths before rising to his feet.
Azrael continued to type, pausing only to push back his scarf every now and then as it slowly slid forward to cover the keys. The plot twist was still giving him trouble, he had to admit, but he had managed to work in some excellent character exposition. After a while, however, he realized that he could feel a second pair of eyes, reading over his shoulder.
As he spun around in his chair, Azrael wasn’t sure whether to chastise (“How dare you read my work! It isn’t finished yet!”) or to ask for opinions (“Do you think I’ve properly captured the introspective mood?”). When he laid eyes on his observer, however, the question died in his throat. He was definitely chastising.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” he hissed at the smirking demon who had been squatting behind him.
Calcifer met his angry gaze. “Me? This is my coffee shop. You’re the one who doesn’t belong.”
Azrael sniffed loudly to show his derision. “Yourcoffee shop? As one destined to spread the word of God, I believe that such a bohemian abode is clearly my domain.”
Annoyingly, Calcifer didn’t cower before this righteous tirade. Instead, he slid into the chair opposite Azrael, a slight grin flickering across his features. “If that’s the word of God,” he commented wryly, nodding towards the laptop, “then God really ought to learn how to break up run-on sentences.”
The angel flushed scarlet at this insult to his writing abilities. “It’s called stream of consciousness!” he spat, barely keeping his voice under control.
Calcifer shrugged. “Look, I don’t really care,” he admitted. “But this place? It’s between a college campus and downtown. This is where the addicts, the sinful students, the money-focused business traders, come to get their caffeine fix. Clearly it’s my domain. Besides, I’ve got my own booth and everything.”
“Really,” sniffed Azrael. “Your own booth? I think Divine authority gives me more power than your reserved spot in the back.” He leaned back, glaring at the devil, but Calcifer remained undeterred, lifting up his hand to wave at somebody with a ‘come hither’ gesture.

The story continues in Part II!

The Ornithologist’s Morning

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Author’s note: Language, language!  There’s some foul (heh, fowl) language in this one.
The bird fluttered around the upper corners of my ceiling, cursing loudly enough to startle me awake. “Let me out of this place, you son of a bitch! What the hell? Why can’t I go through these openings to outside?”
Although I was initially jolted awake by the unfamiliar presence in my room, my mood immediately soured as I realized what had happened. “Ugh, they’re called windows,” I groaned. “Look, you have to go through the open one – not that one, the one without the glass!”
The bird ignored my attempts at providing aid. “Fuck you, holmes, let me out!” it cheeped angrily. Eventually realizing that beating itself against the glass panes was getting it nowhere, it alighted on top of my bookcase, glaring down at me with its beady, black eyes.
Climbing out of bed, I tried to figure out what to do. Unfortunately, my bedroom windows didn’t open very far, so they weren’t an easy exit to spot. I wondered if I could catch the bird, carry it outside. I returned its gaze as I sized up the situation.
The bird was a small starling, clearly a male, as was indicated by the brightly colored chest. My ornithology classes had taught me to identify birds and to understand most of their speech, neither skill being especially worthwhile. The bird glared down at me, as though it could read my thoughts. “Man, I got bitches to get all up on out there,” it told me arrogantly. “You can’t be holding me in here!”
I opened my bedroom door a crack, glancing down the hall. I figured that perhaps I could scare the bird out into the hallway and through to the kitchen, where the back door would provide easy exit into the house’s backyard. “Look, I’ll be right back,” I said, doing my best to slip out through the cracked bedroom door so I could close off any other possible exits from the hallway. “Just gimme a sec.”
“Where you going, big and ugly?” squawked the bird after me as I left. “Hey! Don’t leave me alone in this place! I’ll make this place my new nest, shit on everything you own! You know I ain’t got no bladder control!”
In the hallway, I quickly closed the other doors, and then threw my bedroom door wide. The starling looked suspicious, but it flew out into the hall obligingly. “This the exit? At least I’m out of that shithole,” it told me as it zoomed past. I ignored the dig at my decorating skills, instead closing the bedroom door to prevent backtracking.
The bird swooped around in circles in the hallway. “The fuck, holmes? This place is even worse! Where’s the feeder at? Where’s the bitches?”
I waved my arms at the bird, trying to coax it towards the kitchen and the back door. “Go that way!” I ordered.
“Yeah, or what? Bitch?”
I paused, crossing my arms at the unwelcome intruder. “I’m sure I’ve got a tennis racket around here somewhere,” I threatened.
“Whoa there, no need for threats,” the bird cheeped hastily, finally swooping into the kitchen. “No need, man, I give the hawks respect.” I followed it in, closing the hallway door behind me and throwing open the back door.
Thankfully, it only took the starling about five minutes to find the open back entrance and to go diving out into my back yard. “Thanks for nothing, punk-ass!” it screamed over its wing as it soared into the large oak tree behind my house. “Can’t hold me, bitch! I own you! This is my territory, stay the fuck out!” It winged its way around my bird feeder triumphantly.
A large grey squirrel stuck its head out of the oak tree. “Hey, keep yer damn mitts off that shit!” it yelled at the bird. “That’s my feeder now, ya heer? S’mine!”
As I groaned once more and turned to go back inside, a large raven, sitting on the back fence, caught my eye. “Buncha assholes, huh?” it cawed sympathetically.
I nodded, rolling my eyes. The raven shuffled a little closer, looking slightly hopeful. “Got any crusts lying around?” it asked. “I’ll do the whole ‘quoth the raven’ thing if you’ve got any old pizza. Nevermore and all that.”
“Not today,” I replied. “Finished off leftovers last night.”
The raven shrugged, unconcerned. “It’s cool, it’s cool.” It eyed the still-arguing squirrel and starling resignedly. “I’ll go try the neighbors,” it announced, taking wing.
I firmly shut the door as I headed back inside. I should have majored in history, I thought to myself as I searched for coffee grounds.   

Calcifer’s Haunt, Part II

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Author’s note: Part I can be found here.

I watched as the marble snaked its way across the floor, deftly interweaving between legs of chairs and tables until it bumped into the shoe of a bearded hipster standing in line with his Mac under his arm. Confused, he bent down to pick up the little glass sphere.

As the hipster ducked down to grab the marble, a red-faced businessman in a suit and tie was turning away from the far counter, his large coffee in one hand as he yelled into a bluetooth headset. Not seeing the crouched man in line, he ran headlong into the poor hipster, causing them both to sprawl out on the floor. The businessman’s coffee flew out of his hands across the shop, landing squarely in the lap of a blonde bimbo in a sundress staring vacantly out the window.

The cup of coffee burst open upon arrival, and even from the back of the shop, I could tell that it was piping hot. With a scream, the girl leapt to her feet, her hands flapping in agitation. Unfortunately, her dress had caught on the underside of the table, and her sudden movement caused the dress to rip completely, exposing her upper half to the entire shop.

“Ooh, bad day to skip the bra,” Calcifer commented sympathetically.

The girl’s scream had already drawn the attention of most of the shop, and every man was staring, open-mouthed. One college student, standing at the condiments area, had been adding half and half to his drink, and was now completely oblivious to the excess liquid spilling over the sides of his cup and forming a puddle on the floor.

A middle-aged woman with a pinched, angry face, brushing past the college student as she huffed over the indecency, stepped squarely in the puddle. Her eyes went wide as she found herself skidding across the floor, arms flapping. Her own coffee cup was clutched tight in one arm, and the flapping was sending droplets of hot liquid over the patrons at several tables, most of whom instinctively hunched forward to protect their electronics.

The woman’s skid ended abruptly with a bone-jarring collision into one of the small round tables, sending the legs flying out and starting a chain reaction. Like dominos, several other tables capsized, the last one landing inches from the nose of the still-floored hipster. Unfortunately, the salt shaker on that table hit him squarely between the eyes, causing him to jerk his arms in mingled surprise and pain.

The round marble had still been clutched in the hipster’s hand, but it now flew free, bouncing through the chaos and around screaming customers. Open-mouthed, I watched as it rolled back to our table. As it hit one of the area rugs, some impossible act of physics made it bounce especially high, landing squarely in front of Calcifer. On the table, the marble came to a complete stop, revolving slowly before the devil snapped it back up and made it vanish into a pocket somewhere.

Grinning, the devil surveyed the disrupted, destroyed coffee shop. “Man, I’ve still got it!” he exclaimed with obvious delight. He shifted his gaze back to me. “Believe me now?” he asked, grinning jovially.

What could I do but nod? Words had failed me. “I, um, I probably need to help clean this up,” I stammered, scooting myself out of the booth with slightly more haste than was necessary.

Calcifer watched me go, still smiling widely. He looked like an impudent child. “I’ll answer your other question later,” he said as I stood. “As to what I’m doing here, that is.”

I hurried off to find a mop, my thoughts racing in a confused spiral.  I wasn’t quite sure if I had seen magic, but it definitely was something that a devil would be able to pull off.  It practically screamed mayhem.  Calcifer definitely made me feel nervous, now, but that nervousness was alongside a burning curiosity.  I was certain that I’d be returning to the booth in the back on my next break.

Sitting back in the booth, Calcifer put his hands together, and the glass sphere once again danced briefly across his knuckles before disappearing back to unfathomable depths. “Impudent, I like that word,” he said reflectively. “Not the child part, but impudent fits me.”

Calcifer glanced up at the ceiling once more. “You’ll be seeing more of me,” he smirked.

Calcifer’s Haunt, Part I

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I have to admit, it was a pretty big surprise to find out that the coffee shop where I worked was haunted by a demon.

“That’s not quite right,” Calcifer remarked the next day as he waited in line, catching my eye as I poured hot milk behind the cappuccino machine. “I don’t exactly haunt places. And I’m a devil, not a demon. There’s a difference.”

“What?” I asked, confused. “Did I say something?”

Calcifer shook his head, his eyes gazing briefly skyward. “No, it wasn’t you. Just the narrator.”

I shrugged off this odd comment as I handed the man in the front of the line his latte. “So you’re a devil? Doesn’t that make you evil?”

“Evil? Moi?” he exclaimed, throwing a hand over his chest in feigned shock. “Nah, not really. Come join me when you’re on break, and we can chat.” Calcifer took his large coffee black, without cream, although I did notice him adding a dash of honey at the self-serve station. He then sidled towards one of our booths in the rear, which, despite the constant stream of customers, always seemed to be empty. I now had a suspicion as to why.

After the mid-morning rush of customers had subsided, I made myself a drink (brewed green tea, nothing fancy) and made my way back to Calcifer’s booth. He gave me a knowing nod as I slid in across from him.

Once settled into the seat, I did my best to fix him with a piercing stare. He returned the gaze, unruffled. “Are you after my soul?” I asked, doing the best to keep my voice serious.

The devil across from me snorted into his latte. “Souls? Please, Lucern gave up on those things years ago. Put a lightbulb inside a volleyball, and you’ve got the same thing with way less trouble.”

(Narrator’s note: souls generally take the form of glowing spheres.)

Calcifer once again looked up towards the ceiling of the shop. “Of course they do! Can’t the readers infer that from the cues?” He glanced back down at me. “Sorry about that. Anyway, I have no designs on your soul.”

I kept up my suspicious face. “So what are you after? How do I even know you’re a demon?”

“Ugh, devil,” he corrected me again, annoyance flashing across his features. “But I understand the want for a demonstration. So much different from a few centuries ago, when people accepted it pretty much at my word.” Calcifer scrolled his gaze around the shop. A wicked grin spread across his face. “All right. Watch this.”

With a flourish, Calcifer pushed up the sleeves of his suit, showing me that there was nothing hidden inside. He cupped his long fingers together into a bowl, and then opened them to reveal a fairly large, colorless marble, roughly the size of a chocolate truffle.

“That’s it?” I asked, unimpressed. “You made a marble appear?”

Calcifer glared at me. “That’s not the trick, mortal.” He sighed. “You lot are always so impatient. No, thisis the trick!” He extended one hand and flicked the marble onto the ground with a twist of his fingers, sending it rolling away from the table.

Part II will be posted in the next update!  Once posted, it can be found here.

Prayers before mealtimes

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For scientists:
Bolster our fitness, O Lord, and for these individuals of lower tropic levels, which we shall consume to maintain our fitness, we thank you.  Through Darwin our prophet and evolutionary biology, Amen.

For atheists:
God may exist, or God may not exist, but as a self-aware species we are grateful for our highly evolved consciousness nonetheless.  If there is an invisible, all-powerful deity, we thank him for our food, drink, comfort, and not putting our noses on our backsides as a practical joke.

For single, lonely comic book nerds:
Our lord Superman, son of Jor-El, we thank you for the (relative) peace on Earth.  For defending us from Braniac and Darkseid, for keeping the capitalist takeover of Wall Street by Lex Luthor in check, and for using your jealousy-inspiring powers for good.  But most of all, for those we love, unless we’re talking about Lois Lane, who was totally into us in college, but then you had to come on the scene, with all your powers, showing off and totally cockblocking us, you total jerk.  Just kidding.  Please don’t burn us with your not-at-all-overpowered laser vision.

For a family fallen on hard times:
O Lord, we thank you for the gifts of your bounty which we enjoy at this table, even though most of it is generic label.  As you have provided for us in the past, so may you continue to sustain us, even if we have to stop eating out and start teaching our kids to enjoy Ramen for every meal.  We know you will not forget the needy, which kind of includes us at the moment, ever since John lost his job and Sarah and Joey have had to start taking the bus and bringing bagged lunches instead of buying them at school.  We know that your love is infinite, and maybe if some of that could take the form of a shower of gold, it would be greatly appreciated.

For after a recent breakup:
Our God, who both gives and takes away that perfect angel Lana, with her golden hair and most beautiful face ever, please bless this meal, even though everything tastes like dust without her.  Please, O Lord, grant us peace and serenity in our coming days, and take away these feelings that I want to curl up and eat ice cream for the rest of my life.

Soul Harvesting Difficulties

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With a gout of flame, the devil clawed his way through the portal between worlds, bursting out of the pasta sauce shelves in aisle three.  His arrival didn’t cause much damage besides the wholesale destruction of three dozen jars of marinara, but an elderly lady comparing brands of linguini gave him an obscene gesture for splattering her dress with red sauce.

The devil straightened up to his full height, and then cursed violently as his head bumped into one of the fluorescent lamps with the tinkling of broken glass.  He shrank his size by two feet so he would fit inside the confines of this puny world.  He turned to the elderly woman.  “Where is Harold Ancillar!?” he bellowed.

The old woman glared at him.  “You ruined my dress, you prick!” she snorted.  “Get outta here before I take my cane to ya!”  She waved the instrument vaguely in his direction for emphasis.

Confused, the devil backed up several steps, exiting out of the aisle.  He spotted another weak little human, this one with shorter hair and a green apron on over his clothes.  “Where is Ancillar!?” he repeated, flexing the six-inch claws at the ends of his fingers menacingly.

The young man looked up at the towering red-skinned monstrosity with a bored look.  “Aisle six,” he said, and returned his attention back to mopping the floor.

The devil was perplexed.  He had seen fear before, had watched several training videos, but he didn’t seem to be generating the proper responses.  “Aisle six?” he repeated, his tone slipping slightly, returning back down to normal speaking levels.

The man in the green apron held up one arm, pointing at a large sign with a six above one of the aisles, not looking up.  “Yeah.  Anchovies, aisle six.  On the left.”  He shuffled past the devil, pushing his wheeled bucket of water.  “Thank you for shopping at Rainbow,” he added sulkily as he passed.

The man hadn’t pronounced Harold Ancillar’s name correctly, but the devil still wandered into aisle six, just to be sure.  He found nothing on the left side of the shelf except several small jars of disagreeable fish, so he pressed on, eventually finding himself standing in front of a large glass case filled with cut pieces of meat.

Looking down at the display, the devil felt slightly more at home.  He was used to raw meat; many of the training videos had featured humans being chopped into similar pieces.  Although those pieces had featured far more blood and much fewer price signs.  He looked up from the case and found himself being angrily watched by a fat man holding a short knife.  “What cut can I get you?” the man asked.

The devil stared back.  Did he want to be cut?  In the training videos, the humans had always run away from the knives, so he suspected that the answer was no.  “Nay, puny mortal,” he replied politely.

The fat man gestured to one side with the blade of the knife.  “Get out of the cue, then, would you?  You’re holding up the line.”  The devil looked behind him to find several other grocery store patrons impatiently waiting for him to move.  Several of them seemed to be preoccupied by small pieces of black plastic they were holding.  The devil moved to one side, and the humans shuffled up to the counter past him without sparing a glance.

The butcher watched the devil amble off, still holding his knife at his side.  “Emo freaks,” he muttered.  “Ought to get a job, contribute to society.”

The devil was feeling more and more lost.  He wandered past several conveyor belts, where old women yelled at him in a foreign tongue.  He tried yelling out for Harold Ancillar at them, but they merely threw back more words he couldn’t comprehend.  He strongly suspected that they were insults.

 Eventually, the devil found himself trapped, surrounded by flimsy plastic and metal carts that had been abandoned by their former users.  The entire experience was bewildering.  He had done very well in the training class, scoring top marks, and had been honored by being selected to collect a damned soul.  He had been given the name, and the overworked-looking demon manning the controls of the portal generator had assured him that he would materialize closely nearby.  It had all seemed so simple.  Show up, roar a few times, watch the crowd run in fear, and grab the poor chosen mortal and return through the portal.  He couldn’t figure out where he had gone wrong.

Shoving the carts out of his way, the devil stepped through a pair of magically moving doors and found himself squinting in the bright light he recognized as outdoors.  Throwing up one clawed hand to block out the light, he staggered forward, blind and unseeing.  He suddenly felt the ground dip under his feet, he heard an angry yell and a loud screech, and then everything went black.

The fallen angel sat up and opened his eyes.  He was back in Hell, standing on the runic focus of the portal generator.  His instructor, off to one side, made a mark on his clipboard.  “Closely nearby?” the angel sputtered.  “You call that close?  He wasn’t anywhere nearby!”  He rubbed his aching head.  “What happened, anyway?”

“You stepped into the street,” his instructor replied.  “You were hit by a car.”  He sighed and set down the clipboard.  “Sadly, we’re losing a lot of operatives that way.”

The portal operator shrugged.  “It’s not like the old days, anymore,” he said sympathetically.  “We don’t get no respect.  They just brush us off, don’t run away like they used to.”

As the failed recruit sadly shuffled off to study for his next attempt, the instructor glanced sideways at the portal operator.  “Thank goodness for Contracts,” he said conspiratorially.  “They’re the only division still in the positives for soul collection.  Thankfully, they’re bringing in enough to cover for the rest of us.”

“Thank goodness for greed and banking crises,” the portal operator said.  He sighed and began resetting the portal generator for the next run.  Just another day in Hell, he thought resignedly to himself.

Lucern’s Little Whoopsie, Part II

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Part I can be found here!

Nervous twitches be damned.  Lucern reached up and grabbed his halo off his head, twisting it around in his hands.

The other angel winced.  “I’m really sorry about this,” he said apologetically.  “It wasn’t my idea.  But let’s be honest, Lucern, you’re supposed to be keeping an eye on celestial bodies, and that meteor came right out of your section.  That’s a big oopsie to make.”

“Okay.  So what happens next?” Lucern asked.  The sinking feeling had settled into a general dread in the pit of his stomach, and he now just wanted to be done with the whole thing.  He spared a moment for the airy new apartment he would never see.  He’d probably be demoted all the way down to cherub, spend the next ten thousand years directing traffic to make sure there weren’t any malakim collisions.  He’d have to wear one of the glowing vests.  He shuddered.  Those ugly vests clashed with everything.

The other hashmallim dug through his files and folders until he found a large, bulging file, which he passed over to Lucern.  The folder was a bright red color, which didn’t make Lucern feel any calmer.  After he had passed over the file, Melis waited expectantly for Lucern to open it.  Lucern hefted the file consideringly.  “Have you read it?” he asked, and received a negatory shake in response.  Lucern set the file down on his lap and flipped it open.

For a moment, he couldn’t comprehend what he was reading.  The other angel looked strained, torn between respecting Lucern’s privacy and desperately wanting to know what the punishment was.  Lucern flipped the file around so the other hashmallim could see.  “Does this make any sense to you?” he asked.  “I’m being given a plane to run?”

Melis frowned, grabbed a couple of papers to look at closely.  “Man, the Almighty doesn’t mess around with punishments,” he commented.  “You’re being put in charge of all the other screw-ups, I guess.  Ba’al’s coming with you, see, here’s the transfer paperwork.  And they’re opening up a new level below the celestial plane for you.  It looks like you’ll be pretty autonomous, though.”

Lucern snorted.  “Autonomous?  Look at all this prophecy he’s tacked on!”  He held up a thick sheaf of densely written boilerplate.  Apparently I’m going to eventually get so fed up on Heaven that I’ll declare war, and lead all my misfits in a failed coup.  Look at this!”  He slid the papers across the desk for the other angel to study.  Melis’s frown deepened as he read.  “What sort of civilization is he planning to impose these crazy rules on, anyway?” Lucern questioned.  “Plants?” he asked with a slight hint of hope.

The other hashmallim shook his head.  “Mammals, this time.”

“Mammals?  Are you serious?  Those little rodents that are running around?”

Melis rummaged around through the files once again.  “Obviously, there’s a bit of evolution left to do.  Here’s the final artist’s conception.”  He slid the sheet across to Lucern, who snorted.  “I know, not much better.  They don’t even have wings.”

Lucern was still frowning as he leafed through the papers, but he was beginning to warm to his role.  He would have to move to the new plane, of course, but he would be taking quite a few of the other angels with him.  And to be honest, he could use a change of scenery.  Lucern knew that he wasn’t very good at managing details, but corrupting?  He had always been good at striking deals with the other angels for favors.  How hard could it be to do the same with some small hairy bipeds?

“There is one more detail,” Melis added.  Lucern glanced up at him.  Melis had one more sheet of paper in his hands.  “I’m afraid the high council isn’t thrilled with your name.”

“What’s wrong with Lucern?” he asked defensively.  Lucern didn’t know the origins of his name, of course, but he thought it had something to do with light, and it sounded very pleasant.

The other angel shrugged.  “It didn’t score well with the testing groups,” he said.  “It doesn’t sound, well, evil enough.”  He held up a hand to fend off Lucern’s angry retort.  “Look, the new name isn’t that different.  You’ll like it, I’m sure,” he added, pleading.  He slid the last sheet of paper across to Lucern.  “Just sign this, and the new name will be assigned.  You’ll be able to move forward, put this whole meteor debacle behind you.”

Lucern looked down at the new name, tested it out in his mouth a few times.  It actually wasn’t too bad.  It sounded fairly close, even.  And he really didn’t have any other choice; angels couldn’t just bow out and retire.  He picked up a pen and signed his name.

Melis hastily collected the sheet of paper back.  “Wonderful, I’m glad this is all behind us,” he said, obviously relieved to have this ordeal over.  “Just head down to the portals and they’ll have you sent down to the new plane that’s being opened.  Special orders are out for it already, so you shouldn’t have problems with customs.”  Privately, Lucern doubted that.  Angels didn’t handle change well.

As he stood, Lucern looked around the ugly office once more, suddenly overcome by wistfulness.  “Is there a new name for this plane?” he asked.

“Hell.  Ugly name, if I do say so myself, but at least it’s easy to remember.”

Lucern shrugged.  He was already considering his next plans.  Normally, he had a very difficult time with new things, but he was finding this new assignment surprisingly easy to accept.  Building a new plane from the ground up took lots of time and effort, but given the state of the rodents running around the celestial plane at the moment, he would have pelnty of time to prepare.  As he left, he spoke his new name aloud, trying to adjust.  “Lucifer.  Lucifer.”  It didn’t sound quite the same, but he would adjust.  Eventually.