“Well, sort of...yeah,” said Pain.
“An incorrect presumption on your part,” said Gabriel. He took a few steps into the room and struck a majestic stance. He tilted his head slightly upward so he appeared to be looking down his nose at Pain and Death and said, “Let me see your proof.”
“Thing is...” started Death. He stopped immediately as he realized he didn’t have anything to say that would be helpful in this situation. He clamped his jaws together in a rictus grin and suppressed borderline hysterical tittering.
Gabriel’s cheeks reddened slightly in frustration that his request wasn’t answered immediately.
“Proof,” said Pain absently. “Well, I wasn’t prepared for that. I’m sure I have some here in a bucket or something. What sort do you need?”
“The convincing kind,” replied Gabriel tersely. His impatience becoming almost tangible.
“Oh, okay,” said Pain, nodding and doing his best to waste time until inspiration hit him. “Convincing evidence. Go it. Well, you know, what I find convincing might not fit your standard of the definition. One entity’s definition of convincing might be another’s somewhat satisfactory.”
“Do you or do you not have proof?” asked Gabriel, his voice slightly raised above its normal level.
“Sure, sure,” said Pain. “It’s just that --”
“Then show it to me,” said Gabriel angrily, “and quit fucking around.”
Pain and Death did a genuinely surprised, somewhat comedic double take at Gabriel. Archangels never, ever swore. Not even if they stubbed a wing or were assigned to sort souls in Purgatory. Something was definitely wrong with this scene, but both Pain and Death were too dumbfounded to properly put the pieces together.
Gabriel’s mouth formed a perfect “O” shape. He timidly smiled and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, obviously uncomfortable with the shocked suspicion in the air. His eyes darted around as he internally searched for an explanation for his sudden lapse in character.
Gabriel sighed and slumped. “Dammit,” he said at the floor. He turned and said to the entrance of the room, “The jig’s up, fellas. I blew it royally.”
Pain and Death could hear a few mingled curses from outside their room. The door to their room opened and four figures entered. In filed the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse...War, Famine, Pestilence and Death’s younger brother, Death.
“Hey, bro,” said the younger Death, raising a skeletal hand in greeting to Death as he closed the door behind himself.
“Okay, since when did the Horsemen start hanging out with archangels?” asked a very confused but remarkably coherent Death.
“Actually,” said Gabriel as the air around him started to swirl and coalesce, “I’m not exactly an archangel.”
The form of Gabriel began to disappear into a cloud of pure duplicity and morphed into the entity known as Deception. Once the transformation was complete she spread her arms wide, smiled and said, “Surprise!”
Pain starting laughing as he realized they weren’t in any actual trouble and had been the butt of an elaborate joke.
However, Death just stood looking at everyone, radiating an aura of obvious confusion. He managed to say, “Okay...what?”
“You don’t get it?” asked Pain. “They played a practical joke on us. Beautiful setup. Beautiful.”
Famine pointed a fleshless finger at Pain and Death and said, “This is payback, bitches. For that time you told us it was the apocalypse when it wasn’t.”
Everyone but Death was laughing wildly.
There was a polite knock at the door.
“Just a minute please,” Death shouted at the door. He turned to Deception and said, “What I don’t understand is how you knew what our plans were. How did you know we were up to anything?”
“We didn’t know anything specific,” answered War. “But we figured you two were always up to something the higher ups wouldn’t approve of. So we persuaded Deception here to dress up as Gabriel and scare you into changing your ways.”
There was another knock at the door. This time it was more urgent and forceful.
“Yeah, yeah, be right there,” said Pain to the door.
“Oh, I get it now,” said Death, chuckling. “You had Deception play the part of Gabriel and the killer.”
“What killer?” asked Deception, wiping a tear from her eye.
Pain looked at Death. Death looked at Pain.
At that moment the door to the room burst open and the real archangel Gabriel sauntered magnificently into Pain and Death’s room. He did not look appear to be pleased about the congregation in this room or the fact that he had been kept waiting outside in the hallway. His perfectly formed hand rested on the golden hilt of his sword and his facial expression implied the intent to use it with very little provocation.
“There is an urgent issue with the Kwork dimension,” announced Gabriel, his angelic voice commanding an attention that Deception hadn’t managed to capture in her impersonation. “The High Priest of that dimension is demanding a council to discuss the exceptionally high mortality rate they have been experiencing. I have investigated and it clearly is above average expectations.”
“There really is a Kwork dimension?” muttered Death.
Gabriel leveled his gaze at Pain and Death, saying, “We will have words now.”
One was Pain. The other was Death. Together they were in deep, deep shit.
* * *
Dream woke up, hearing a commotion from the room next to his. He couldn’t hear exactly what was going on, but he also couldn’t work up enough energy to care.
Rising slowly, Dream walked to the bathroom. He pulled down his Spider-man pajama bottoms and commenced urinating half in the toilet and half on it.
Dream ran a pale hand through his hair and wondered why the inside of his mouth tasted like Pez.
Thanks for purchasing this collection of short stories. I do appreciate it. I hope that you found them interesting or, at the very least, entertaining on some level. Hell, even if you acquired this for free somehow I still hope you enjoyed what you read. I’m that kind of guy.
I have to admit, I really don’t know what else I’d like to say here. Anything else seems self-serving and indulgent. I also get a little awkward climbing out from behind the comfort of the word processor and discussing myself or the inspirations behind the work you just read. I could just get all pretentious and say that I prefer the work stood on its own merits without further extrapolation from the author...but, the truth is, whenever I find myself trying to discuss my work I just stutter, stare uncomfortably at the floor and mutter incoherent, buzzword phrases about the “process” and “voices” and respecting the inherent intelligence of the audience.
I’ll spare you the boredom that would likely produce. You’re very welcome.
That being said, if you do want send some feedback you can do that on
my page at Smashwords
, or you can email me directly at:
[email protected]
.
Again, a sincere thanks. Take care and I hope to have much more available soon.
Allan Hatt
September 2011