Angst! Angst!
Yeah, I always feel so self-indulgent when I do this, but I'm egotistical, so whatever.
Ben Miller was feeling like everyone else in existence had gotten a memo that he had somehow missed. He had been awoken by the eerie silence that hangs in the air precisely fifteen minutes after an alarm clock goes off, and then scrabbled about pouring himself a bowl of corn flakes and coffee. This problem wasn’t noticed until he took a sip from his mug of piping hot milk, sprayed it all over his newspaper, and then proceeded to dump the creamer in his lap. After all that confusion was sorted out, he dashed out to the driveway in order to spend ten minutes trying to get his car to start, realizing he had been turning his house key in the ignition, and then, ten minutes after that, lifting his hood and finding the entire engine conspicuously absent. It was at this point in the morning that he began to suspect there was a higher power working against him, brushed it off as paranoia, and set about locating his engine.
Little did he know that not only was a higher power working against him, but it had his engine as well. The engine that had previously enjoyed a happy, if somewhat monotonous existence nestled under the hood of Ben’s ’87 Civic was now lashed by a dozen spiked chains to a screaming rock perched in one of the lower layers of the Abyss. The owner of the chains was a minor demonic functionary named Kel’thuzan’dyryss, but he much preferred Colin, to the chagrin of his superiors. Colin had some issues with his instructions. He could understand perverting the souls of Man, spreading torment and woe at every step, and attempting to thwart the plans of Heaven, but he really couldn’t grasp making a man’s morning a living Hell, and stealing his engine to boot. Well, he supposed, Hell moves in mysterious ways. He much preferred the Earth- people never failed to amuse him. Colin sighed, and got back to torturing the engine, wishing he could be doing something else. The engine wished he could do something else, too, but no one had asked it for its opinion.
By the time Ben had gotten home from work, he was convinced that it wasn’t just a memo that he had missed, but an entire operating manual for reality that had somehow passed him by. After giving up on looking for the engine, he had borrowed a geriatric station wagon from a neighbor and proceeded to embark on a commute that nearly sapped him of all semblances of humanity. Not only had every stoplight changed to red whenever he looked at it, but at least half a dozen stop signs appeared in every intersection if he turned his back. He arrived at his office only to find that the entire building had been replaced with a sign that said “Sorry about any inconvenience, but all facilities at this location have been moved to Sri Lanka. Enjoy your day!” This had bothered him on a level that was impossible to describe. At this point Ben gave up on trying to do anything productive for the day, turned around, and drove through several hundred shining new stop signs and a good number of red lights on his way back to the safety of his bed.
Meanwhile, in one of the shadowy corners of the Upper Planes, Phil sighed. He knew that he shouldn’t be feeling this way. In fact, he had a sneaking suspicion that technically, he should be incapable of feeing depressed. He wrote it off as being a side effect of being the Guardian Angel of Neurotic Artists- all it gave him was an eye tic and a horde of souls that seemed to try their hardest to get into Hell. This current case was terrible, too. All Phil knew about it was that Hell was interested in this Ben Miller, and since all the other angels had, at least according to Michael, a “fuller caseload” than him, it was his job to protect him. Phil wasn’t particularly fond of Michael. His flaming sword wrecked upholstery, his superior demeanor grated on his nerves, and he had been hacking at Phil’s budget for the past few centuries, despite the fact the number of depressed artists was on the rise. Phil was convinced he could have prevented Kurt Cobain if he had been given a bigger slice of the Divine Will, but when he confronted Michael about it, the archangel just muttered something about Ineffable Plans under his breath and sidled away from him. Well, Phil supposed, he really didn’t have any choice in the matter. Ben needed to be rescued from the attentions of Hell, and that was that. He stood up from his desk and wandered over to the coffeepot. It was going to be a long day, and even though caffeine didn’t have any effect on his angelic body systems, it was really the thought behind it that counted.
At this point, Ben didn’t want attention from anybody. When he cooked dinner, the oven ripped itself from the wall and started pouring lava out of the oven door, only to be frozen by a blast of incandescent light from the microwave. In Ben’s opinion, the whole thing was getting ridiculous. He ended up phoning in takeout, ignoring the fact that every glass in the cupboard had started vibrating and was playing a passable rendition of Ode to Joy, or that his blender was spraying inky black cockroaches all over the counter. What did I do to deserve this? He thought. If I’m attracting the attentions of the higher powers, I’d really like to know what I’ve managed to do. Ben sighed, paid the deliveryman when he came, and ate some chow mien on his couch. He was afraid to turn on the TV, so he stared at the forest of stop signs that had gathered outside his house and were starting to edge their way towards the door.
Colin was getting frustrated. Ben wasn’t writhing in agony yet, and he really didn’t have the heart to do some really nasty stuff to him. He was the Demon of Inconveniences, after all- it’s not like he was expected to bring forth plagues and boils. That fell to the folks Beneath him, and he really didn’t feel like going to their corners of Hell and filling out the paperwork necessary for their services. Bloody hassle, that. Count on Hell to have developed the most mazelike and inefficient bureaucracy ever conceived. And anyways, he had been tapped for this job for a reason. Clearly someone powerful wanted Ben to have a miserable day, and Colin wasn’t one to argue. However, if this went on much longer, and if the interference from Heaven continued, he might be forced to make a manifestation, and it was always a bit of a hassle trying to figure out what to wear.
Phil hadn’t had to work this hard since he took on Van Gogh as a pet project. Hell clearly wanted this soul, and whatever demon was working on him had been keeping Phil on his toes. He had to admit, though- the bit with all those stop signs was pretty clever. Well, if the demon wanted to play, Phil was willing to play. He went looking for a suitable manifestation outfit…he hadn’t been to earth in centuries.
After dinner, Ben intended to go to bed, but the sudden appearance of a man in a sleek Italian suit and designer sunglasses thwarted his plans. His voice was worn and tired, and sounded like it was trying for malevolence, and settled with cynicism instead. “Behold! Dost thou recognize thy visage?”
Ben stuttered a bit. “Um. Well…were you at that wedding a couple weeks ago ? Sorry if I don’t remember your name, I’m terrible with names you see- it’s a bit of a shortcoming of mine. Anyways, I just had an awful day and I’m quite tired, so if you’d like coming back tomorrow maybe, and then we could chat? Maybe have some coffee?”
Colin was taken aback, but did his best to salvage the situation by making his eyes glow fiercely behind the glasses and belching a bit of fire across the room. “How dares’t thee suppose to presume knowledge on thy- this whole mode of speech isn’t working for you, is it? Didn’t think so. Okay. So, let me explain this whole-“ It was at this moment that Phil decided to appear in a flash of light. He was dressed in cowboy boots, lime green hot pants, and a black turtleneck . The clove cigarette he smoked ended up giving the impression he was a flamboyantly gay Dadaist. He spoke, and his voice rang as the voice of God, albeit a voice of God that was rather whiny and had smoked heavily for a few millennia.
“O! Mortal! Doth may quake and be afraid, but thy radiance-“
“We’re not talking like that for this one.”
“We’re not? Kind of a shame, really. Always liked the rhetoric. Wait…Colin? Is that you?”
“In the…flesh would be an abstraction. Anyways, were you the one Heaven sent to counter me?”
“Hate to say I was. If I had known it was only you I wouldn’t have tried as hard…”
“That was uncalled for…I may be the Demon of Inconveniences, but I deserve at least a little respect. Touch tone phone menus were a bit of a masterwork, if I may say so myself.”
“Granted, but the fact remains that as far as matters of the infernal are concerned, you’re hardly threatening.” Phil then proceeded to blow a rather condescending smoke ring in Colin’s direction.
“You’re not exactly on Heaven’s first-string team, you overgrown, overly-pretentious lout!”
At this point in the exchange Ben was being subjected to a rather curious property of the human mind, and was staring blankly at the wall. It was a rather nice wall, Ben noted.
Then Ben realized what was going on.
He gaped twice, looked around, gaped again, and proceeded to faint dead away. Phil was the first to notice.
“Um…Colin? It looks like our project has fainted.”
“You don’t say. They don’t make mortals like they used to. And by “they”, of course, I refer to your boss.”
“Technically, I think he’s your boss, too…he’s the one who came up with the whole Ineffable Plan, anyways.”
“What is it with angels and the Ineffable Plan? Did it ever occur to you that the Ineffable Plan might account for Hell winning the Divine War? I mean, it’s capitalized for a reason…only He really knows how it’s going to go down, and somehow I doubt He takes time out of his day to explain the nuances to you folk.”
“Now, isn’t that a little out of line? I think it’s generally accepted that since The Man chooses to live in our neck of the woods, he’s rooting for us…”
“Does anyone choose to live in Hell? I mean, really. That’s like asking if you’d rather go on vacation to Hawaii or North Dakota. Of course, The Man lives with you guys! All I’m saying is that maybe the Ineffable Plan’s ineffability might not swing quite the way you guys are expecting.”
“Do you know something that I don’t? Don’t tell me you guys have already let loose the Antichrist…I’d be the first to know, and that means I’m the one stuck with the presentation to the Higher Choruses…”
“Hell, if we’ve loosed the Antichrist, I doubt I’d be in the priority line to know about it…and it’s not like the Son of the Prince of Lies wouldn’t leave a little bit of a noticeable impact on the karmic levels of Earth.”
“Current thinking says otherwise, Colin. Latest intelligence suggests that Wormwood would mask the Spawn’s presence by halting all demonic activities in the area where the Antichrist is currently present…we’d have no way of knowing the Apocalypse had started until Hell sent some sort of minor functionary to Earth in order to awaken his latent abilities, thus precipitating the End of Days.” At this point the conversation paused.
“Um, Colin…what exactly was your assignment with this guy?” Colin balked, and fumbled around his jacket. Reaching into a pocket that hadn’t existed until a moment before, Colin pulled forth a piece of parchment that was slightly charred around the edges. Clearing his throat, he began to read.
“Grrraghthlkak’kthlakuv! Thk’braaaghyluk’ilgraghgaaaagh!”
“Colin! English, please!”
“Sorry, my bad. Attention ye demon! The Lord of Lies, Master of Deception, Beelzebub, King of Hate, The Archenemy… Lord of Sorrow and Despair, he who is called SATAN called LUCIFER commands you to do the following! Firstly, pick up SATAN’S dry cleaning. It can be found at Lucky’s Dry Cleaning on 3rd and Pine in Tulsa. Second, visit the home of Ben Miller, awaken his latent powers through manifesting various sundry annoyances, and bring forth the Apocalypse. Third, if you have any time left after that, we’re running low on milk.” Phil, being an angel, does not swear. He did now.
“Shit.”
“…Yeah. I think I agree.”
“…What?”
“I agree. The Apocalypse isn’t really sounding good right about now.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Well, it’s like this. I’m a demonic nobody. My job is basically to hold the fort and build up a lot of general hatred and woe. It’s all the specialists that get any attention…Demons of Envy, Lust, Sloth and so on. Hell probably chose me because awakening the Antichrist would probably create a whole shitload of psychic feedback, wasting me in the process. They couldn’t afford to risk a real soul-converter, so I get tapped for the job.”
“So you’re saying you’re not going to start this whole thing up? We’re talking about the Apocalypse, here…I know the folks on my end have been waiting for this one since Creation. You can’t deny them this battle…everyone’s ready to roll.”
“I think I just might…you know, I’ve always wondered why humans get free will and we’re stuck being morally bound. And besides, I don’t particularly want to be remembered as the demon who was utterly annihilated in a psychic vortex when the Apocalypse began.”
The conversation was making Phil nervous. “Do you even think you’re capable of denying your orders? Thinking about it is one thing…doing it is something else entirely. You can’t forget the Ineffable Plan.”
“Why are you so sure this isn’t part of the Plan? I said it before…it’s not like The Man has any real contact with any of us. Hell, last time I even saw Him was at a distance, during one of those long-term planning summits between Him, Michael, and Lucifer…you know, the ones that no one’s supposed to know about.”
Phil was beginning to warm to the idea, but his general angelic timidness was keeping him from jumping completely on board. “So, let’s just say you prevent the Apocalypse. We both probably end up getting cast out of the Upper and Lower Planes, and are condemned to an eternity on the mortal sphere. I probably go to work in a coffee shop, maybe curate an art museum, you take up advertising, all is well and good- except that the assembled hosts of Heaven and Hell want to annihilate each other very, very badly, and all that unfocused rage has got to go somewhere, most likely our heads. I’m not sure I like that part.”
Ben groaned and started muttering things about gas mains. Colin and Phil turned to him simultaneously, and he was soon unconscious again in a flash of white light, accompanied with a hint of brimstone. Phil continued. “What’s more, I don’t really think you refusing to do your job would have any real impact on the grand scheme of things, anyways…Lucifer would just crank out a new Antichrist and the cycle would start over, except he’d choose someone reliable to set things in motion this time…you’re fighting a losing battle here.”
“Well, I’m still not going to do it…I may be the Demon of Inconvenience, and the War in Heaven may be the biggest inconvenience of all, but I like Earth a little too much to let it get leveled.”
Just then, there was a blinding flash of white light. When it dissipated, Ben was getting out of bed, nursing a terrible hangover and remembering exactly nothing from the night before. He turned and looked out the window to see a brand new Civic parked outside.
Colin and Phil found themselves sitting in a dingy Chinese restaurant, the remains of a large meal in front of them, the check already paid and a generous tip on the table. There was a single fortune cookie, already opened. The fortune read: “I like Earth, too.”
There's footnotes, but I'm too lazy to figure out a way to get them uploaded. Tough beans. They add a lot of hilarity and meaning.
Ben Miller was feeling like everyone else in existence had gotten a memo that he had somehow missed. He had been awoken by the eerie silence that hangs in the air precisely fifteen minutes after an alarm clock goes off, and then scrabbled about pouring himself a bowl of corn flakes and coffee. This problem wasn’t noticed until he took a sip from his mug of piping hot milk, sprayed it all over his newspaper, and then proceeded to dump the creamer in his lap. After all that confusion was sorted out, he dashed out to the driveway in order to spend ten minutes trying to get his car to start, realizing he had been turning his house key in the ignition, and then, ten minutes after that, lifting his hood and finding the entire engine conspicuously absent. It was at this point in the morning that he began to suspect there was a higher power working against him, brushed it off as paranoia, and set about locating his engine.
Little did he know that not only was a higher power working against him, but it had his engine as well. The engine that had previously enjoyed a happy, if somewhat monotonous existence nestled under the hood of Ben’s ’87 Civic was now lashed by a dozen spiked chains to a screaming rock perched in one of the lower layers of the Abyss. The owner of the chains was a minor demonic functionary named Kel’thuzan’dyryss, but he much preferred Colin, to the chagrin of his superiors. Colin had some issues with his instructions. He could understand perverting the souls of Man, spreading torment and woe at every step, and attempting to thwart the plans of Heaven, but he really couldn’t grasp making a man’s morning a living Hell, and stealing his engine to boot. Well, he supposed, Hell moves in mysterious ways. He much preferred the Earth- people never failed to amuse him. Colin sighed, and got back to torturing the engine, wishing he could be doing something else. The engine wished he could do something else, too, but no one had asked it for its opinion.
By the time Ben had gotten home from work, he was convinced that it wasn’t just a memo that he had missed, but an entire operating manual for reality that had somehow passed him by. After giving up on looking for the engine, he had borrowed a geriatric station wagon from a neighbor and proceeded to embark on a commute that nearly sapped him of all semblances of humanity. Not only had every stoplight changed to red whenever he looked at it, but at least half a dozen stop signs appeared in every intersection if he turned his back. He arrived at his office only to find that the entire building had been replaced with a sign that said “Sorry about any inconvenience, but all facilities at this location have been moved to Sri Lanka. Enjoy your day!” This had bothered him on a level that was impossible to describe. At this point Ben gave up on trying to do anything productive for the day, turned around, and drove through several hundred shining new stop signs and a good number of red lights on his way back to the safety of his bed.
Meanwhile, in one of the shadowy corners of the Upper Planes, Phil sighed. He knew that he shouldn’t be feeling this way. In fact, he had a sneaking suspicion that technically, he should be incapable of feeing depressed. He wrote it off as being a side effect of being the Guardian Angel of Neurotic Artists- all it gave him was an eye tic and a horde of souls that seemed to try their hardest to get into Hell. This current case was terrible, too. All Phil knew about it was that Hell was interested in this Ben Miller, and since all the other angels had, at least according to Michael, a “fuller caseload” than him, it was his job to protect him. Phil wasn’t particularly fond of Michael. His flaming sword wrecked upholstery, his superior demeanor grated on his nerves, and he had been hacking at Phil’s budget for the past few centuries, despite the fact the number of depressed artists was on the rise. Phil was convinced he could have prevented Kurt Cobain if he had been given a bigger slice of the Divine Will, but when he confronted Michael about it, the archangel just muttered something about Ineffable Plans under his breath and sidled away from him. Well, Phil supposed, he really didn’t have any choice in the matter. Ben needed to be rescued from the attentions of Hell, and that was that. He stood up from his desk and wandered over to the coffeepot. It was going to be a long day, and even though caffeine didn’t have any effect on his angelic body systems, it was really the thought behind it that counted.
At this point, Ben didn’t want attention from anybody. When he cooked dinner, the oven ripped itself from the wall and started pouring lava out of the oven door, only to be frozen by a blast of incandescent light from the microwave. In Ben’s opinion, the whole thing was getting ridiculous. He ended up phoning in takeout, ignoring the fact that every glass in the cupboard had started vibrating and was playing a passable rendition of Ode to Joy, or that his blender was spraying inky black cockroaches all over the counter. What did I do to deserve this? He thought. If I’m attracting the attentions of the higher powers, I’d really like to know what I’ve managed to do. Ben sighed, paid the deliveryman when he came, and ate some chow mien on his couch. He was afraid to turn on the TV, so he stared at the forest of stop signs that had gathered outside his house and were starting to edge their way towards the door.
Colin was getting frustrated. Ben wasn’t writhing in agony yet, and he really didn’t have the heart to do some really nasty stuff to him. He was the Demon of Inconveniences, after all- it’s not like he was expected to bring forth plagues and boils. That fell to the folks Beneath him, and he really didn’t feel like going to their corners of Hell and filling out the paperwork necessary for their services. Bloody hassle, that. Count on Hell to have developed the most mazelike and inefficient bureaucracy ever conceived. And anyways, he had been tapped for this job for a reason. Clearly someone powerful wanted Ben to have a miserable day, and Colin wasn’t one to argue. However, if this went on much longer, and if the interference from Heaven continued, he might be forced to make a manifestation, and it was always a bit of a hassle trying to figure out what to wear.
Phil hadn’t had to work this hard since he took on Van Gogh as a pet project. Hell clearly wanted this soul, and whatever demon was working on him had been keeping Phil on his toes. He had to admit, though- the bit with all those stop signs was pretty clever. Well, if the demon wanted to play, Phil was willing to play. He went looking for a suitable manifestation outfit…he hadn’t been to earth in centuries.
After dinner, Ben intended to go to bed, but the sudden appearance of a man in a sleek Italian suit and designer sunglasses thwarted his plans. His voice was worn and tired, and sounded like it was trying for malevolence, and settled with cynicism instead. “Behold! Dost thou recognize thy visage?”
Ben stuttered a bit. “Um. Well…were you at that wedding a couple weeks ago ? Sorry if I don’t remember your name, I’m terrible with names you see- it’s a bit of a shortcoming of mine. Anyways, I just had an awful day and I’m quite tired, so if you’d like coming back tomorrow maybe, and then we could chat? Maybe have some coffee?”
Colin was taken aback, but did his best to salvage the situation by making his eyes glow fiercely behind the glasses and belching a bit of fire across the room. “How dares’t thee suppose to presume knowledge on thy- this whole mode of speech isn’t working for you, is it? Didn’t think so. Okay. So, let me explain this whole-“ It was at this moment that Phil decided to appear in a flash of light. He was dressed in cowboy boots, lime green hot pants, and a black turtleneck . The clove cigarette he smoked ended up giving the impression he was a flamboyantly gay Dadaist. He spoke, and his voice rang as the voice of God, albeit a voice of God that was rather whiny and had smoked heavily for a few millennia.
“O! Mortal! Doth may quake and be afraid, but thy radiance-“
“We’re not talking like that for this one.”
“We’re not? Kind of a shame, really. Always liked the rhetoric. Wait…Colin? Is that you?”
“In the…flesh would be an abstraction. Anyways, were you the one Heaven sent to counter me?”
“Hate to say I was. If I had known it was only you I wouldn’t have tried as hard…”
“That was uncalled for…I may be the Demon of Inconveniences, but I deserve at least a little respect. Touch tone phone menus were a bit of a masterwork, if I may say so myself.”
“Granted, but the fact remains that as far as matters of the infernal are concerned, you’re hardly threatening.” Phil then proceeded to blow a rather condescending smoke ring in Colin’s direction.
“You’re not exactly on Heaven’s first-string team, you overgrown, overly-pretentious lout!”
At this point in the exchange Ben was being subjected to a rather curious property of the human mind, and was staring blankly at the wall. It was a rather nice wall, Ben noted.
Then Ben realized what was going on.
He gaped twice, looked around, gaped again, and proceeded to faint dead away. Phil was the first to notice.
“Um…Colin? It looks like our project has fainted.”
“You don’t say. They don’t make mortals like they used to. And by “they”, of course, I refer to your boss.”
“Technically, I think he’s your boss, too…he’s the one who came up with the whole Ineffable Plan, anyways.”
“What is it with angels and the Ineffable Plan? Did it ever occur to you that the Ineffable Plan might account for Hell winning the Divine War? I mean, it’s capitalized for a reason…only He really knows how it’s going to go down, and somehow I doubt He takes time out of his day to explain the nuances to you folk.”
“Now, isn’t that a little out of line? I think it’s generally accepted that since The Man chooses to live in our neck of the woods, he’s rooting for us…”
“Does anyone choose to live in Hell? I mean, really. That’s like asking if you’d rather go on vacation to Hawaii or North Dakota. Of course, The Man lives with you guys! All I’m saying is that maybe the Ineffable Plan’s ineffability might not swing quite the way you guys are expecting.”
“Do you know something that I don’t? Don’t tell me you guys have already let loose the Antichrist…I’d be the first to know, and that means I’m the one stuck with the presentation to the Higher Choruses…”
“Hell, if we’ve loosed the Antichrist, I doubt I’d be in the priority line to know about it…and it’s not like the Son of the Prince of Lies wouldn’t leave a little bit of a noticeable impact on the karmic levels of Earth.”
“Current thinking says otherwise, Colin. Latest intelligence suggests that Wormwood would mask the Spawn’s presence by halting all demonic activities in the area where the Antichrist is currently present…we’d have no way of knowing the Apocalypse had started until Hell sent some sort of minor functionary to Earth in order to awaken his latent abilities, thus precipitating the End of Days.” At this point the conversation paused.
“Um, Colin…what exactly was your assignment with this guy?” Colin balked, and fumbled around his jacket. Reaching into a pocket that hadn’t existed until a moment before, Colin pulled forth a piece of parchment that was slightly charred around the edges. Clearing his throat, he began to read.
“Grrraghthlkak’kthlakuv! Thk’braaaghyluk’ilgraghgaaaagh!”
“Colin! English, please!”
“Sorry, my bad. Attention ye demon! The Lord of Lies, Master of Deception, Beelzebub, King of Hate, The Archenemy… Lord of Sorrow and Despair, he who is called SATAN called LUCIFER commands you to do the following! Firstly, pick up SATAN’S dry cleaning. It can be found at Lucky’s Dry Cleaning on 3rd and Pine in Tulsa. Second, visit the home of Ben Miller, awaken his latent powers through manifesting various sundry annoyances, and bring forth the Apocalypse. Third, if you have any time left after that, we’re running low on milk.” Phil, being an angel, does not swear. He did now.
“Shit.”
“…Yeah. I think I agree.”
“…What?”
“I agree. The Apocalypse isn’t really sounding good right about now.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Well, it’s like this. I’m a demonic nobody. My job is basically to hold the fort and build up a lot of general hatred and woe. It’s all the specialists that get any attention…Demons of Envy, Lust, Sloth and so on. Hell probably chose me because awakening the Antichrist would probably create a whole shitload of psychic feedback, wasting me in the process. They couldn’t afford to risk a real soul-converter, so I get tapped for the job.”
“So you’re saying you’re not going to start this whole thing up? We’re talking about the Apocalypse, here…I know the folks on my end have been waiting for this one since Creation. You can’t deny them this battle…everyone’s ready to roll.”
“I think I just might…you know, I’ve always wondered why humans get free will and we’re stuck being morally bound. And besides, I don’t particularly want to be remembered as the demon who was utterly annihilated in a psychic vortex when the Apocalypse began.”
The conversation was making Phil nervous. “Do you even think you’re capable of denying your orders? Thinking about it is one thing…doing it is something else entirely. You can’t forget the Ineffable Plan.”
“Why are you so sure this isn’t part of the Plan? I said it before…it’s not like The Man has any real contact with any of us. Hell, last time I even saw Him was at a distance, during one of those long-term planning summits between Him, Michael, and Lucifer…you know, the ones that no one’s supposed to know about.”
Phil was beginning to warm to the idea, but his general angelic timidness was keeping him from jumping completely on board. “So, let’s just say you prevent the Apocalypse. We both probably end up getting cast out of the Upper and Lower Planes, and are condemned to an eternity on the mortal sphere. I probably go to work in a coffee shop, maybe curate an art museum, you take up advertising, all is well and good- except that the assembled hosts of Heaven and Hell want to annihilate each other very, very badly, and all that unfocused rage has got to go somewhere, most likely our heads. I’m not sure I like that part.”
Ben groaned and started muttering things about gas mains. Colin and Phil turned to him simultaneously, and he was soon unconscious again in a flash of white light, accompanied with a hint of brimstone. Phil continued. “What’s more, I don’t really think you refusing to do your job would have any real impact on the grand scheme of things, anyways…Lucifer would just crank out a new Antichrist and the cycle would start over, except he’d choose someone reliable to set things in motion this time…you’re fighting a losing battle here.”
“Well, I’m still not going to do it…I may be the Demon of Inconvenience, and the War in Heaven may be the biggest inconvenience of all, but I like Earth a little too much to let it get leveled.”
Just then, there was a blinding flash of white light. When it dissipated, Ben was getting out of bed, nursing a terrible hangover and remembering exactly nothing from the night before. He turned and looked out the window to see a brand new Civic parked outside.
Colin and Phil found themselves sitting in a dingy Chinese restaurant, the remains of a large meal in front of them, the check already paid and a generous tip on the table. There was a single fortune cookie, already opened. The fortune read: “I like Earth, too.”
There's footnotes, but I'm too lazy to figure out a way to get them uploaded. Tough beans. They add a lot of hilarity and meaning.