Fiction: After all

After all

AN ANGEL, A DEMON, A GIRL, A VAMPIRE AND AN ACTOR WALK INTO A BAR ...

Written by Rachel Carp

Illustrated by Don Tang

Goddamn

The angel Sandalphon decided he’d heard enough. He was reclining on a motel bed, tearing into a box of powdered donuts, when he caught on TV a man acquitting a criminal. Sandalphon dusted donut powder off his complimentary robe and listened for a prayer. He heard none but choked on his donut when the same man who’d acquitted the criminal later affirmed his guilt.

“Godda —”

A Mediocre Start for a Day in Human History

The end of the world was on a Tuesday. The time was 11:01 a.m, though nobody recorded it.

Lily was starting a new project. An award-winning performance with costumes designed by her, songs written by her and A-listers cast by her, all drawn up in her mind as precisely and determinedly as her intention to abandon it. She worked as a barista, but she was going for the big leagues. It was a tradition among barista to have big ambitions, so they could keep working as baristas until they died or until, Heaven allows, everybody else died.

“I’m not tired,” Lily mumbled, bobbing her head up and down as she cut out pages from a Vogue magazine and blasted the TV. “The Ulcer” was on, a medical show about doctors making out in supply closets that only seemed to lock when there were no keys to open them.

The main actor was having a signing today in her city, and Lily marked it on her calendar. He was a terrible actor. She wanted his autograph. It was as good a motivation as any to abandon her musical. So she did, walking out to get an autograph without bringing anything to the Actor to sign. She did that with intention.

It was a beautiful day. She smiled at everyone who didn’t look at her and looked away as soon as they did. She bought a coffee cup and emptied it in the street, saving the cup for the actor to sign.

At the theatre, she saw a mob of five or six people. A woman in business attire stood off to the side, scanning the street and playing with her hands. When she spotted Lily, she called out, “Hey! Do you want to meet the star of ‘The Ulcer?’”

“No!” Lily shouted indignantly, with the superiority of someone who had much better things to do. She walked faster to pass them and took a sip of her coffee, forgetting it was empty. She paused at the end of the block, leaning on a building as pedestrians crossed the street. She could never go back now. Rejecting the Actor like that brought a devastating satisfaction and a satisfying devastation. It was unbearable.

She took another sip before remembering her cup was empty and tossing it in the trash. A man jumped at the sound. He was tall and pale, alarmingly so. He stuttered and Lily could see elongated incisors in his mouth.

Angelic Cell Block Tango

Sandalphon flew to the end of the world, hovering his finger over a shiny red button.

“Um, excuse me,” Samael said, “What are you doing?”

The angel and demon stared at each other. Sandalphon in his motel robe and donut powder on his face and hands, and Samael in snorkel gear.

“Vacationing in the —”

“Maldives.”

“Oh, nice,” Sandalphon wriggled his fingers over the button.

“It looks like you’re having a hard time.”

“Not me,” the angel laughed uneasily.

“Uh huh. And what are you doing with that button?” the demon nodded empathetically, standing like he was waiting in a line.

Sandalphon hesitated. “Just a teensy restart on our little project. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Maybe Boss would. You keep restarting before we’re even halfway to finishing.”

“He wouldn’t, though,” said the angel earnestly, coaxing the demon to see things his way. “Our project has too many inconsistencies. He likes keeping things straight, right?”

“Yes, heterosexual.”

“No, straight!” Sandalphon shifted and pulled Samael in next to the button. “Here, you do it. If He sees that even a roundabout twisted folk like you can’t handle it …”

Immortal for the Apocalypse

Oppenheimer was not-a-man starved. He hadn’t eaten in weeks, such was the case for vampires who hated blood. It made him gag. But hunger was all that remained of him, so he introduced himself to Lily. When she turned to walk away, he followed, waiting for an alley to drag her into.

Before he could, the bomb struck.

“Go figure,” he said. In the next moment, Lily slammed into him, propelled by the force of the blast.

When he opened his eyes again, she was gone, and so was the city. Sitting up, he noticed stains on his clothes. Blood. He opened his mouth as Lily’s face appeared in front of him. She blinked as he emptied his stomach in her face. The content of it passed straight through her.

“Hey, man, what the hell!” She lunged at him, trying to hold his mouth shut with her hands, but she fell through him and disappeared in the ground. Oppenheimer scrambled to stand, searching for her. She appeared moments later, floating up from the rubble.

“Am I dead?”

The vampire saw that she was. His hungry nausea turned into nauseating hunger. He started to weep.

The Ulcer

There was a scream somewhere under the rubble. Oppenheimer ran for it. Lily floated forward, catching up to Oppenheimer who was digging for the screams. Lily clasped her hands around the survivor’s arm but they passed through it. Oppenheimer leaned down to help but noticed a trail of blood on the man’s face. He couldn’t stop his vomiting but managed to pull the survivor up anyway. It was the Actor.

“Oh my god,” Lily gasped, “Could you autograph my … my ..."

The Actor gaped at her, shoving Oppenheimer away, “You want my autograph? Now?"

“I’m your only surviving fan!” said Lily breathlessly, then remembered. “Kind of!”

The Actor looked around to confirm this declaration. Then he turned to her with his handsome face and deep-set eyes sparkling in two stagnant pools of tears. “My agent had my pen!”

Lily looked at Oppenheimer and nodded. The vampire needed no further permission. Desperately he grabbed the Actor by the neck. “I’m so sorry about this.”

The Montblanc

Samael and Sandalphon were rolling in the dirt like tumbleweeds when God found them. He picked up Sandalphon’s box of donuts and finished them, snapping the powder off his fingers to get their attention.

“I was watching ‘Real Housewives’ when suddenly there was no TV and no housewives. What would you do if you were in my shoes?”

“Watch the news,” Sandalphon said.

“I would, if you had spared some newscasters and some loons they could make news with. And what about the survivors?”

“Survivors?”

God pointed to a hill in the distance. Sandalphon and Samael flew to it and found Oppenheimer struggling with the Actor, alternating between drinking his blood and gagging. The vampire looked up and regurgitated on His holy shoes.

“I was never a huge fan of ‘The Ulcer,’” God said,

stepping back, “But I need to know how it ends.” “I’m an atheist,” the vampire said, just before God flicked him into the ruins of a Barnes & Noble, smackdab in the middle of the teenage vampire aisle.

With another flick, he revived the Actor and charged with finding the rest of “The Ulcer” scripts. Satisfied, he turned to Lily and stuck his godly, powdered finger in her face. “Finish it. The big leagues.” Lily gaped. “But I have no audience.”

“If the people like it, I’ll bring back the audience.”

“But how can I know if the people would like it if there’s no audience?”

“No more questions,” snapped God, already turning away to check on the Actor with his scripts. He could be heard mumbling to Sandalphon. “Maybe next time we make a less argumentative mankind, yes? Write it down.”

“I have no pen, sir,” said Sandalphon timidly.

“I do!” the Actor cried triumphantly, standing over the remains of his agent, holding up a Montblanc that, in the next Holy week, God would use to rewrite the world. On the sixth day, God rested. The Montblanc had run out of ink.