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go_exchange2010-12-12 10:40 pm
vulgarweed.livejournal.com) wrote in go_exchange2010-12-12 10:40 pm
Entry tags:
Happy Holidays, Nimmenstjer!
Late Summer Dreams, Serpents and Adam’s Favourite Food
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nimmenstjer
bypseudo_geek
Rating: G
Pairings: implied Anathema/Newton, hints of Crowley/Aziraphale and Quetzalcoatl/ZhuJinYin and very subtle hints of Pollution/Famine and Pollution/War. None of the pairings are focused on.
Word count: 4,986 words
Disclaimer: Good Omens belongs to Pterry and GNeil and so do the characters from Good Omens. Quetzalcoatl belongs to the Aztecs. ZhuJiuYin belongs to the Chinese. The reality belongs to the Creator God. The prompts are from nimmenstjer. The inspirations belong to the Muses. The work of putting them into sentences and typing the words down belong to me. And thanks to REDACTED and REDACTED for beta, plus the staff for suggesting REDACTED to me as beta and organising this event. And Happy Holidays!
One late summer Sunday morning, reality decided to take a break and went out to lunch. It did the metaphysical equivalent of pulling the tablecloth away without making whatever was on the table fall. Then it chilled alone somewhere, recreational drugs may or may not have been involved. As consequence, Upstairs, Earth and Downstairs were no longer available to their former residents.
Fortunately, people never realised such a thing. People were good at this. They just believed that their reality was still there, so it was, in a way.
The sky over Adam's house had jelly beans instead of stars. He lay on grass wet from morning dew, alone with Dog, who was either silent or loudly chewing on a bone full of meat. Once in a while he opened his mouth and a jelly bean would fall into his mouth, sometimes turning into something that tastes better before contact. Like lemon sorbet. Or Turkish ice cream. Or a piece of fresh fruit dipped in honey.
Newton and Anathema's cottage was surrounded by gadgets, tools, cogs and screws. They grew in place of vegetation. Clockwork pocket watches hung from tomato plants. Turnips turned into drills. Blueberry bushes yielded pretty cogs. Dandelions became various types of batteries. The lawn was now a mess of wires. Although Anathema had never expressed it verbally, she was supportive of her husband's interest in technologies.
A Greek and a Chinese chatted while catching fish from a large body of water. They couldn't agree upon calling it a sea or a lake, as the Greek has only fished up marine creatures and the Chinese, only river ones, but it didn't matter. The catches were excellent. They haven't seen anything like this since all the pollution and overexploitation of marine resources. There were even some white silhouettes swimming past their boat. Dolphins. The Greek, having never seen a white dolphin, thought they were belugas or white whales. The Chinese corrected him: they were goddesses of water.
The two fishermen drove their overloaded boats into an empty port, unloaded the prizes and watched the sea birds circling above them. The cries of seagulls sounded like women crying. They said their thanks and goodbyes to the water, put more than enough fish for supper into a bag, threw it over their shoulders and walked to where other fishermen were gathering.
Smells of cooked food. Smells of various beverages to drink over a meal. The bonfire was small and the smoke was thin. It did not hide the face of those sitting on the other side of it. Perfect for conversations. So they shared their stories, real or transformed. They were men of the sea, so they talked about the sea, about her treasures, her monsters and how Pollution tore away her azure dress and put her in rags, how the treasures were stolen and sometimes spilt over her like poison. They were men, so they talked about War, about her teeth of perfect bullets, her breast of napalm and missiles, her hair of fire and toxic smokes, her arms of swords, bayonets, guns and rifles, her legs of canons and tanks, and anti-personal mines, and her shoes of ashes. And they talked of Famine and Death, who prospered where the white man and the red women had ravished.
Then one of them mentioned volcanoes. Fire, pillar of smoke, panic... It was like the love child of War and Pollution. The Chinese man, like many other men here, had never seen a volcano, not even on TV. He did remember a tale his nephew had told him...
The mountain nearby disappeared. It was there again when someone remembered it, but something had escaped. If one had the hammer of titans and hit the mountain right on the top, one would know that it was emptier than an ice cream cone without ice cream [1].
-- ~ --
In older corners of cities, barber shops for eyes were opened. "Slit your eye open for only $5 and up! Vertical, horizontal, diagonal or even pictures! Get the image of your beloved carved into your eye! Dig the sight of that ugly day out of your retina! Get an opening to read dreams from hornless golden beast skulls!" Sounded creepy, but children who hadn’t learned the basics of biology begged their parents for money so they could have cool pupils like their cartoon heroes. In the matter of a day, the difference between eyes could no longer be described by colours alone.
-- ~ --
In his bookshop in Soho, Aziraphale was rearranging books into the most chaotic order he could imagine. Crowley should arrive in a few minutes and they’ll have a drink together, as usual.
Knock.
It was not the noise of someone knocking the door. More like something huge and blind sauntered down a lane while blissfully drunk and bumped into something immobile. Like a closed door.
That’s funny, Aziraphale thought, Crowley usually doesn’t knock on my door drunk.
“Dear, you can come in!” Aziraphale yelled, unwilling to leave his books. Crowley could take care of himself. Books couldn’t. Hence more love should go to the books. The door didn’t open. There was no reply either. There was, instead, a noise like scales rubbed against wood.
“Crowley?” Aziraphale risked. No reply. He put the books down.
It was calm as midnight.
Crowley, a dozen miles away from Soho, was relaxing in his Bentley. He was holding a cigar in between his fingers, but he was not smoking. Instead, the cigar, tip lit and flame well hidden like rabbits in the hole, was held outside the car to avoid getting ash inside the car[2] while the smoke danced over Crowley and the Bentley’s head, replaying the memories of its master. Chats in the Garden of Eden. Drinks in bars and cafés. Discussions in the bookshop. The Arrangement. Teaming up together… to do what?
It was fifty minutes past six on the Bentley’s clock. The clocks around him, like on top of the nearest bank, on the advertisement boards, in the cars nearby… all indicated different times. Most pointed ten past eight. Other displayed five o’clock, fifteen before four, nine thirty or even two o’ clock. One particularly rebellious one showed ANY TIME [3]. Crowley was meant to meet Aziraphale in the bookshop at seven. The road was still blocked. There was an elephant eating salmons on the motorway and wouldn’t move until it was full.
In Soho, the time was three minutes before seven. Aziraphale was walking cautiously toward the door. As he was too focused on the door, he bumped into the desk and knocked over the cookie jar. He cursed. The thing outside the door hissed.
Bless it, Crowley thought, and lifted his Bentley and himself into the sky. Seeing an old friend was, after all, worth more than the troubles a miracle could bring.[4]
The thing outside Aziraphale’s bookshop hissed once more and knocked the door open. Red scales gleamed like enchanted mirrors. A serpent. As the reptile shoved its head into the shop to reach for the cookies, Aziraphale noticed that, where serpents shouldn’t have eyes, there were two closed eyes.
This didn’t make sense. Serpents didn’t have eyelids.
One of the eyes opened. The shop became as dark as before Creation.
It was two minutes before seven. Crowley had just arrived at the border of the City of Westminster. The area of Soho was blinking. Crowley wondered if someone imagined that Soho should blink like a Christmas Tree. Either way, his and Aziraphale’s reality shouldn’t be affected much. They had more experience with reality bending than regular mortals. Much more.
When Crowley drove close enough to see the bookshop, he knew he was wrong. A gigantesque snake curled inside the bookshop, blinking happily while munching on the cookies. One of its eyes was as bright as the sun at its zenith and the other eye, as dark as Azrael’s wings.
“Aziraphale?” Crowley called from outside.
Thank goodness, Aziraphale thought, this abomination isn’t Crowley after all.
“Just a minute!” He whispered harder than a scream. “There is a serpent in my shop, I don’t know what to do with it and it’s blocking the door!”
“I can see that.” Crowley was almost hissing.
“I think it’s after the food. Do you think it’ll go away once it’s full?” The angel said as he fed more snacks to the enormous reptile.
“I really don’t think so. I’m positive that snakes would rather curl up and fall asleep if they are full.”
“How can you know if you- Oh, nevermind, speaking from experience aren’t you… Dear, what should I do?”
“I believe it’s your freedom to get a pet snake for when I’m gone, but since I’m here, why don’t you shove it into the basement? ”
The snake stopped for a moment when it heard Crowley’s suggestion. Its dark eye blinked a few times before shutting close. It then opened its other eye.
Crowley hissed a blessing.
The shop became as bright as noon.
“Azzzirassffale, getssss out from szzzzere.”
The eye glowed. The surrounding make-shift reality started to burn.
Crowley let out an incomprehensible blessing and dragged Aziraphale out by the collar.
-- ~ --
At the fishermen’s gathering, an Aztec asked the Chinese if his serpent had feathers. The answer was negative. The Aztec was disappointed that the serpent was not Quetzalcoatl, but cheered up when the Chinese suggested that they might be friends. The Torch Serpent and Feathered Serpent as drinking buddies sounded like a probable reality. They’d talk about their demiurgic activities over cups and bowls of chocolate rum and rice rum, light up mountains like candles and put birds on trees. The extrapolation went on and on until the men realised their hypothesis had become some kind of crossover religious slash fiction. After a minute of silent embarrassment, one of them decided that it would be a good idea to write it down. The other one agreed: it’s the kind of things his daughters would love to read.
Somewhere, a feathered serpent as big as a road roller dropped from sky. It saw a warm light flashing on and off in the distance, and headed its way.
-- ~ --
Spare the books, Aziraphale prayed, then realised that the connection to Upstairs was probably also out to lunch. He dashed back into the bookshop. Crowley blessed again, this time shorter and more comprehensible. In a flash, the whole shop exploded into sparks of gold and red like a firework that bloomed on the ground. Debris fell around Crowley as if in slow motion. One of them hit his Bentley. It was Aziraphale, charcoal black.
-- ~--
“Strange.” Anathema whispered almost to herself.
There was a disturbance in the aura. It was as if two suns had shifted in shapes and moved towards each other. Much like Adam’s aura, theirs were as big as world itself and full of something best described as love. There was also something else in one of them. She had a vague impression of how it felt, but could not remember what it was or when and where she had felt it before. She vaguely remembered that Newton might have been involved.
-- ~ --
From the inferno, the great serpent’s head shifted clumsily to the roasted angel. It tilted its head slightly to the side as it approached the target. Crowley knew that gesture: it was what a curious animal sometimes did before taking a bite of something possibly edible [5]. No way that he was going to let that happen. Before the mutant snake could open its mouth, however, a serpent twice its side blocked its way. Its golden eyes shone brighter than the three moons of the sky [6]. Its body was of a matte green and brown. Its mouth, a curve that spoke the first temptation on Earth. The Serpent of Eden was back on Earth. Not for temptation, but for l- fr- did a nightingale just sing in the square?
It was not a nightingale, but the sound of a large mass freefalling from the sky. It landed square on the first snake’s back.
-- ~ --
“Dear, what is… um… How do you call the feeling of having a headache, nausea, inability to think or walk straight, thirst, fatigue and on?” Anathema asked Newton.
“I don’t know… are you hinting that you’re going to have the, er, woman week soon?”
“Not exactly, no. It’s this weird feeling.” She started to remember where she had seen this kind of feeling before.
A bar [7].
-- ~ --
The imitation shooting star held down the sun-and-darkness serpent with its own serpentine body. Instead of scales, it had green and red feathers. With a miracle, its upper half took a humanoid shape.
“Wake up, Zhu!”[8]
The serpent that the feathered snake had addressed as Zhu stopped struggling at once. The feathered one started to caress Zhu’s body. Like flowing ink, the serpent took full human shape alongside its friend. It emitted a weak groan as its captor pushed its head down to apologise to Crowley and Aziraphale.
“Sorry for the trouble he caused, I somehow managed to walk out of the metaphorical apartment while sleepwalking after getting terribly drunk. Again.”
“But you killed Aziraphale!” Crowley screamed.
“Not yet. You better help him up though. I don’t think he can stand up like this.” The feathered one informed him.
Crowley was suspicious. He poked the angel with his tail. It was sticky. Crowley frowned as well a snake could frown. Was that mud? He quickly wiped it off from Aziraphale. It was thick, black mud mixed with unrefined petroleum.
-- ~ --
Near the coast, the idea of war and blood sacrifice walked slowly up to the two men writing the novel on Snake Gods of East and West, and sat by them. There was no third chair at the table, but the idea needed no chair. Only minds. She sat there, naked, spoke no words beside the occasional purrs. The novel became a war record. The carmine figure, invisible to mortal eyes, smiled like a knife.
The men started to argue before breaking into a fight. The men outside came to stop the fight, but after hearing their dispute over the power of their gods, argued with them, finally turning the place into a battlefield. Sea serpents, krakens and other sea monsters fought in the sea and made sea water fall on the lands, salting the fields. Then the sky cracked open. Warriors descended upon the land and shot the women with their arrows. Boys cried for their mothers before being carried away by dark figures on horseback who rode winds like roads, dead leaves surrounding them like murders of crows.
-- ~ --
In Soho, a sulphur-scented stone tablet flew out of a hole in reality and landed upwards onto once-again-in-human-shape Crowley’s chin.
“Ouch!”
“Oh dear, did that hurt?” Aziraphale asked with genuine concern. He still hadn’t learned the thing called sarcasm. Crowley did not bother to point out how hypocritical that question would have sounded to anyone who didn’t know Aziraphale as well as he did. Instead, he settled with a single nod and closed his eyes as Aziraphale miracled the minor fracture away. The demon’s facial expression could be compared to that of a small parrot getting a good scratch behind the ears. The snake gods almost giggled out loud. They exchanged glances and, with their secret language of body patterns shifting like the inkblots on Rorschach’s mask, exchanged secret messages.
“I got a commendation from H- Downstairs.” Crowley explained after reading from the brick. Couldn’t they use paper airplanes instead?
-- ~ --
On the coast where the fishermen’s boat used to be, the blood of sea monsters had turned the water as red as the flowing hair of War at bedtime. A bomb created a crater just far enough from the water to remain dry and warm. Half of a boat was thrown onto the land. A trench dug by the swinging of a god’s sword was filled with blood, dead bodies, uniforms and their weapons lying around like broken branches. Two bases were set south of the battlefield. It was almost a portrait of War: the blood was her hair, the bomb and its crater her eye, the boat her nose, the trench her smiling lips, the bases, her breasts full of milk, full to the point of seeming to burst anytime. But that was still not a portrait of War, for no one could truly capture the face of war; only she could capture you. And you would be her pawn until you leave or die.
From the battlefield, the idea of war put on a coat of carmine. She was now War.
From the salted land and ruined sea, Famine rose, his hair and Armani suit a comatose black. He winked to War. The soldiers were suffering from malnutrition.
From the corpses, lead bullets scattered on the ground and in carcasses being eaten by crows, debris, unusable water and air that smelled like cars and planes exhaust, Pollution donned his coat of dirty white. He timidly waved to his friends. He stepped into the sea, where the foams licked his foot as if in adoration, and picked up a dead, radiation-laden fish that was washed ashore and offered it to Famine as if it was a wild flower. Famine shook his head. He offered it to War instead. She was pleased. Another thing to be fought over.
Death stood where he always was: everywhere. He did not think too much of the other three’s resurfacing, instead wondered whether Kitty or Poochie made a better name for this motorbike. His half-brother, who had the same kind of job in another world, had named his mount Binky, so he felt a bit guilty that his own mount did not have a name.
The four manifested their motorbike, but made no haste to move. Slowly, the concept of Anti-Christ in human mind started to gather and take shape. The four horsepersons all smiled at once. [9]
-- ~ --
“Ouch! Ouch! Aouuch!”
“Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.”
Commendations were arriving one after another from Downstairs. Aziraphale tried to shield Crowley from the flying stones of doom, but they came from haphazard angles. Zhu helpfully handed them a parasol. Quetzalcoatl wanted to miracle it bulletproof, but realised that he did not receive blood sacrifice for years and forgot that he could use miracles without them if reality was out for lunch.
“Thanksssss.” Crowley took the parasol and miracled it the way Batman would. [10]
“So, what are you getting the commendations for?” Quetzalcoatl asked.
“And you never told us what job you do. May we ask?” Zhu added.
Crowley picked up the biggest commendation tablet and read it aloud.
“Commendation for starting the Apocalypse! (We were quite mad that the last one didn’t go through, so don’t fuck it up this time.)”
-- ~ --
The concept of Anti-Christ, the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness had taken shape. He was vastly unlike Adam Young, the original Anti-Christ, the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness. For one, this Anti-Christ did not slouch. Secondly, he would burn an apple tree instead of stealing apples from it. Thirdly, this Anti-Christ did not have a sweet tooth, preferring instead despair-like bitterness. So far so good, for the horsepersons.
As for the humans, as if from nocturnal terrors, their body trembled as the idea of evil tore away from their mind to manifest into flesh.
-- ~ --
“Ok, looks like we have an End Of The World As We Know It to prevent.” Crowley sighed as he finished erasing the letters on the stone tablets. He’s not sure what to do with them, as he had enough paper weights and doorstoppers. Barbecue tablets perhaps?
“Sure thing, dear.” Aziraphale was getting used to this. He vaguely wondered why.
“Cool, can we join?” The two primordial serpents asked at once.
Thus four immortals set for the Mediterranean Sea. [11]
-- ~ --
Anathema panicked as she sensed the new Anti-Christ. Unlike the old Anti-Christ, the Anti-Christ from human mind did not have an aura that covered the whole world. She tried to pack some important things and rush to stop it, but realised that nothing she had could be used to fight. She looked hopefully at her husband. Newton mistook it as an approval for his project. With confidence, he switched it on. The whole block blacked out and all the cars within five miles radius had their batteries drained clean. At least they didn’t shortcut or outright burn like last time.
Thus Anathema and Newton did not participate in the opening ceremony of New Apocalypse.
-- ~ --
From the coast where War’s brightest smile bloomed, the bombers sung the last song of the makeshift world.
-- ~ --
“Ok,” Anathema said to Newton, “I want you to fix everything. I want you to do something that can fix every single mechanism in the world. Do that. Now.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“You can do it, please, I know you can. Just… making something that sends some sort of signal that readjusts everything, can you?”
“I can try.” He said it with a grin. It was his dream, to make something of this calibre.
“And do it fast.”
-- ~ --
The atomic bombs were loaded. War licked her lips and smiled like a bullet. Armies of angels and demons were being pulled out of human minds. Soon they could have a real End of the World…
“Um, War?” Pollution suddenly spoke.
A really cool Bentley knocked War over. Everyone stopped fighting. The airplanes stopped moving mid-air, because reality was absent so that was allowed. Two figures came out from the car. Two more came out few seconds later because they were not sure how car doors worked.
“What the heck?” A random soldier asked. That was a good question.
“Howdy. We are here to stop you.” Crowley waved.
“Yep, yep.” Quetzalcoatl wondered briefly if he should go to the other side instead, as he had more experience destroying worlds than saving them. Then again, Zhu is on this side, right?
Zhu was half-asleep. It was pretty cold here, and torch snakes were not warm-blooded. Quetzalcoatl quickly went beside his friend and covered him with his feathers.
“Thanks, Kukul.”[12] Zhu whispered.
Quetzalcoatl was tempted to upgrade their relationship. They had been sleeping on the same bed for years, after all…
“And with what will you stop us, fluffy reptiles and gay angel?” War raised an eyebrow.
Crowley waved a steering wheel lock. It’s the closest thing he could get that resembles a weapon.
“Really, dear.” Aziraphale reacted before War did.
“Let’s see you do better, angel.”
Aziraphale frowned. He went to the car trunk and came back with a crowbar. And set it on fire.
“What about you two?” Famine chuckled and asked the two serpents.
Zhu whipped out a mechanical pencil.
“…what?”
“The pen is mightier than the sword. A mechanical pencil is a reloadable and erasable version of a pen. Therefore it is the most powerful.”
“Good lord.”
“What about you? Feathered guy?”
A club.
“Really?”
“It was handy enough to destroy the first Sun.” [13]
A pause.
“Alright, boys! Let’s kill those clowns and start our party!”
Thousands of guns and cannons pointed at Crowley’s group at once.
“Buggre.”
Napalms, bombs and nuclear bombs were being dropped over their head.
-- ~ --
“Done!”
Newton’s invention was completed. As it was plugged and turned on, a shockwave of electromagnetic energy washed over the planet, disabling any inorganic mechanism it touched. Including nuclear bombs. And cannons. And guns. Especially guns.
-- ~ --
“So…?” Crowley asked when he noticed how all firearms seemed to be unable to fire. Air planes fell like shooting stars behind them.
War frowned. All of the soldiers picked up cold weapons instead.
-- ~ --
In the apple orchard, Adam Young was pondering whether apple-pear or pear-apple would taste better. Or, for that effect, apple-grape, grape-apple, pineapple-apple, apple-pineapple, apple-orange…
-- ~ --
At the Armageddon, all hell broke loose.
“Any plan for how to win this?” The Feathered Snake asked.
“Er…” The ones of angel stock were not sure.
“The Anti-Christ. Destroy it and Apocalypse cannot go on,” the torch serpent said.
“Are you sure?” The feathered one asked, unfamiliar with old world religions.
“It’s always like that in videogames and old fantasy stories,” Zhu said.
“Oh great.” Crowley almost hissed.
“And if the Anti-Christ isn’t necessary to star the End of World, they would have gone all-out against the world already, not waiting for it to form like they are doing now.” Zhu explained.
“Sounds like a better reason to me,” Aziraphale said.
“How to kill it?” Quetzalcoatl asked, making sure he wouldn’t power the enemy up by accident.
They stared at Crowley. Crowley looked at Aziraphale and the flaming crowbar.
“Ok, leave the mooks to us! You two go to the thing and kill it!”
In an instant, the two gods assumed their serpent shape and blacked out the stars and the moons. As Zhu’s black eye opened, all humans lost their sight.
Pollution faced Zhu. You are but a forgotten god, he said. But I, I am a pattern that will never end. Zhu did not reply with words. With his human shape, he picked up a can. It was a contaminated food can, bloated and deformed. He drew a can opener from a fallen soldier’s pocket and opened the can. He burnt the contents with his eye of light. He poured it carefully onto a rock. He perforated the can’s bottom and put in earth and the sprout of a wild flower. The can lid was placed underneath to catch the surplus of water. The burnt content was put back as fertiliser for the plant. You are no pollution if you have value, he said.
Pollution was forgotten. Humans started to scavenge.
Famine faced Quetzalcoatl. The anthropomorphic personification was going to speak, but the snake god caught him by the throat. Oh no, the serpent said to him, don’t you dare start your lecture. Don’t you dare tell me that I am yours. If we want to eat, we can eat anything and you will not exist.
Famine was rejected when humans decided to eat whatever they could survive on.
War wanted to face Crowley. She couldn’t. A little girl sang a lullaby to her little brother and all men, blind and tired, sang with her.
War was postponed. For a very long time, no one would lift a weapon again.
Aziraphale was facing the Anti-Christ of human mind. He raised the crowbar.
-- ~ --
Adam Young remembered reality. He called it on the nearest payphone and asked for the most delicious fruit in the world.
Reality returned, apologised for taking so much time, took control of the world again and told the true Anti-Christ that deep inside, Adam knew his answer.
And Adam remembered his favourite fruit. And other things.
The Apocalypse of the makeshift world stopped at once.
-- ~ --
“Well.” Aziraphale mumbled to himself. He was back in his bookshop, which was once again intact. All the books were in the same disorder as before. He lifted an arm to brush his hair and noticed that he was still holding the crowbar. Good thing it was no longer on fire.
A knock at the door. Crowley arrived sooner than expected. He was holding two bottles of 18th century red wine.[14]
-- ~ --
Newton was torn between buying the material for his project or the ingredients for Anathema’s cake. He settled for his wife’s cake ingredients. His project could wait. He returned home, gave the package to his other half, ate and went to bed.
Few minutes before midnight, Anathema woke him up. He was lead blindfolded to the kitchen. When the blindfold came off, he grasped in delight: on the middle of the kitchen was an enormous, crooked but still standing anniversary cake to celebrate their marriage.
-- ~ --
The Young rented their basement to a couple of ecology students doing a project on Lower Tadfield climate. One was a boy with white skin and red hair. Another was a Chinese-born girl who occasionally sleepwalked. The two became fast friends, helped by the fact that they both had a snake as pet. They played with The Them when they were bored of their project, and together they made a silly theatre play called Super Gods Brawl.
When autumn came, they went to the apple orchard and bought as many apples they could carry. They feasted on apples for a whole month until everyone grew sick at mention of the word alone. Funny euphemisms for the troublesome fruit were invented, and everybody had a lot of fun. Gradually they were no longer sick of apples and swore not do the same again.
However, when the next autumn arrived, they repeated the same mistake of binge eating apples on the first days, with the same passion as first year. Then they grew sick of them, knowing fully that next year they would love them again. It was just like Halloween and its candies. You know you would have done it every time, as long as you remembered to celebrate it.
And, Adam thought as he crunched into a piece of hot apple pie topped with ice cream, because it is one fruit that I’ll never get tired of, after all.
- Fin -
for
nimmenstjerby
pseudo_geekRating: G
Pairings: implied Anathema/Newton, hints of Crowley/Aziraphale and Quetzalcoatl/ZhuJinYin and very subtle hints of Pollution/Famine and Pollution/War. None of the pairings are focused on.
Word count: 4,986 words
Disclaimer: Good Omens belongs to Pterry and GNeil and so do the characters from Good Omens. Quetzalcoatl belongs to the Aztecs. ZhuJiuYin belongs to the Chinese. The reality belongs to the Creator God. The prompts are from nimmenstjer. The inspirations belong to the Muses. The work of putting them into sentences and typing the words down belong to me. And thanks to REDACTED and REDACTED for beta, plus the staff for suggesting REDACTED to me as beta and organising this event. And Happy Holidays!
One late summer Sunday morning, reality decided to take a break and went out to lunch. It did the metaphysical equivalent of pulling the tablecloth away without making whatever was on the table fall. Then it chilled alone somewhere, recreational drugs may or may not have been involved. As consequence, Upstairs, Earth and Downstairs were no longer available to their former residents.
Fortunately, people never realised such a thing. People were good at this. They just believed that their reality was still there, so it was, in a way.
The sky over Adam's house had jelly beans instead of stars. He lay on grass wet from morning dew, alone with Dog, who was either silent or loudly chewing on a bone full of meat. Once in a while he opened his mouth and a jelly bean would fall into his mouth, sometimes turning into something that tastes better before contact. Like lemon sorbet. Or Turkish ice cream. Or a piece of fresh fruit dipped in honey.
Newton and Anathema's cottage was surrounded by gadgets, tools, cogs and screws. They grew in place of vegetation. Clockwork pocket watches hung from tomato plants. Turnips turned into drills. Blueberry bushes yielded pretty cogs. Dandelions became various types of batteries. The lawn was now a mess of wires. Although Anathema had never expressed it verbally, she was supportive of her husband's interest in technologies.
A Greek and a Chinese chatted while catching fish from a large body of water. They couldn't agree upon calling it a sea or a lake, as the Greek has only fished up marine creatures and the Chinese, only river ones, but it didn't matter. The catches were excellent. They haven't seen anything like this since all the pollution and overexploitation of marine resources. There were even some white silhouettes swimming past their boat. Dolphins. The Greek, having never seen a white dolphin, thought they were belugas or white whales. The Chinese corrected him: they were goddesses of water.
The two fishermen drove their overloaded boats into an empty port, unloaded the prizes and watched the sea birds circling above them. The cries of seagulls sounded like women crying. They said their thanks and goodbyes to the water, put more than enough fish for supper into a bag, threw it over their shoulders and walked to where other fishermen were gathering.
Smells of cooked food. Smells of various beverages to drink over a meal. The bonfire was small and the smoke was thin. It did not hide the face of those sitting on the other side of it. Perfect for conversations. So they shared their stories, real or transformed. They were men of the sea, so they talked about the sea, about her treasures, her monsters and how Pollution tore away her azure dress and put her in rags, how the treasures were stolen and sometimes spilt over her like poison. They were men, so they talked about War, about her teeth of perfect bullets, her breast of napalm and missiles, her hair of fire and toxic smokes, her arms of swords, bayonets, guns and rifles, her legs of canons and tanks, and anti-personal mines, and her shoes of ashes. And they talked of Famine and Death, who prospered where the white man and the red women had ravished.
Then one of them mentioned volcanoes. Fire, pillar of smoke, panic... It was like the love child of War and Pollution. The Chinese man, like many other men here, had never seen a volcano, not even on TV. He did remember a tale his nephew had told him...
The mountain nearby disappeared. It was there again when someone remembered it, but something had escaped. If one had the hammer of titans and hit the mountain right on the top, one would know that it was emptier than an ice cream cone without ice cream [1].
-- ~ --
In older corners of cities, barber shops for eyes were opened. "Slit your eye open for only $5 and up! Vertical, horizontal, diagonal or even pictures! Get the image of your beloved carved into your eye! Dig the sight of that ugly day out of your retina! Get an opening to read dreams from hornless golden beast skulls!" Sounded creepy, but children who hadn’t learned the basics of biology begged their parents for money so they could have cool pupils like their cartoon heroes. In the matter of a day, the difference between eyes could no longer be described by colours alone.
-- ~ --
In his bookshop in Soho, Aziraphale was rearranging books into the most chaotic order he could imagine. Crowley should arrive in a few minutes and they’ll have a drink together, as usual.
Knock.
It was not the noise of someone knocking the door. More like something huge and blind sauntered down a lane while blissfully drunk and bumped into something immobile. Like a closed door.
That’s funny, Aziraphale thought, Crowley usually doesn’t knock on my door drunk.
“Dear, you can come in!” Aziraphale yelled, unwilling to leave his books. Crowley could take care of himself. Books couldn’t. Hence more love should go to the books. The door didn’t open. There was no reply either. There was, instead, a noise like scales rubbed against wood.
“Crowley?” Aziraphale risked. No reply. He put the books down.
It was calm as midnight.
Crowley, a dozen miles away from Soho, was relaxing in his Bentley. He was holding a cigar in between his fingers, but he was not smoking. Instead, the cigar, tip lit and flame well hidden like rabbits in the hole, was held outside the car to avoid getting ash inside the car[2] while the smoke danced over Crowley and the Bentley’s head, replaying the memories of its master. Chats in the Garden of Eden. Drinks in bars and cafés. Discussions in the bookshop. The Arrangement. Teaming up together… to do what?
It was fifty minutes past six on the Bentley’s clock. The clocks around him, like on top of the nearest bank, on the advertisement boards, in the cars nearby… all indicated different times. Most pointed ten past eight. Other displayed five o’clock, fifteen before four, nine thirty or even two o’ clock. One particularly rebellious one showed ANY TIME [3]. Crowley was meant to meet Aziraphale in the bookshop at seven. The road was still blocked. There was an elephant eating salmons on the motorway and wouldn’t move until it was full.
In Soho, the time was three minutes before seven. Aziraphale was walking cautiously toward the door. As he was too focused on the door, he bumped into the desk and knocked over the cookie jar. He cursed. The thing outside the door hissed.
Bless it, Crowley thought, and lifted his Bentley and himself into the sky. Seeing an old friend was, after all, worth more than the troubles a miracle could bring.[4]
The thing outside Aziraphale’s bookshop hissed once more and knocked the door open. Red scales gleamed like enchanted mirrors. A serpent. As the reptile shoved its head into the shop to reach for the cookies, Aziraphale noticed that, where serpents shouldn’t have eyes, there were two closed eyes.
This didn’t make sense. Serpents didn’t have eyelids.
One of the eyes opened. The shop became as dark as before Creation.
It was two minutes before seven. Crowley had just arrived at the border of the City of Westminster. The area of Soho was blinking. Crowley wondered if someone imagined that Soho should blink like a Christmas Tree. Either way, his and Aziraphale’s reality shouldn’t be affected much. They had more experience with reality bending than regular mortals. Much more.
When Crowley drove close enough to see the bookshop, he knew he was wrong. A gigantesque snake curled inside the bookshop, blinking happily while munching on the cookies. One of its eyes was as bright as the sun at its zenith and the other eye, as dark as Azrael’s wings.
“Aziraphale?” Crowley called from outside.
Thank goodness, Aziraphale thought, this abomination isn’t Crowley after all.
“Just a minute!” He whispered harder than a scream. “There is a serpent in my shop, I don’t know what to do with it and it’s blocking the door!”
“I can see that.” Crowley was almost hissing.
“I think it’s after the food. Do you think it’ll go away once it’s full?” The angel said as he fed more snacks to the enormous reptile.
“I really don’t think so. I’m positive that snakes would rather curl up and fall asleep if they are full.”
“How can you know if you- Oh, nevermind, speaking from experience aren’t you… Dear, what should I do?”
“I believe it’s your freedom to get a pet snake for when I’m gone, but since I’m here, why don’t you shove it into the basement? ”
The snake stopped for a moment when it heard Crowley’s suggestion. Its dark eye blinked a few times before shutting close. It then opened its other eye.
Crowley hissed a blessing.
The shop became as bright as noon.
“Azzzirassffale, getssss out from szzzzere.”
The eye glowed. The surrounding make-shift reality started to burn.
Crowley let out an incomprehensible blessing and dragged Aziraphale out by the collar.
-- ~ --
At the fishermen’s gathering, an Aztec asked the Chinese if his serpent had feathers. The answer was negative. The Aztec was disappointed that the serpent was not Quetzalcoatl, but cheered up when the Chinese suggested that they might be friends. The Torch Serpent and Feathered Serpent as drinking buddies sounded like a probable reality. They’d talk about their demiurgic activities over cups and bowls of chocolate rum and rice rum, light up mountains like candles and put birds on trees. The extrapolation went on and on until the men realised their hypothesis had become some kind of crossover religious slash fiction. After a minute of silent embarrassment, one of them decided that it would be a good idea to write it down. The other one agreed: it’s the kind of things his daughters would love to read.
Somewhere, a feathered serpent as big as a road roller dropped from sky. It saw a warm light flashing on and off in the distance, and headed its way.
-- ~ --
Spare the books, Aziraphale prayed, then realised that the connection to Upstairs was probably also out to lunch. He dashed back into the bookshop. Crowley blessed again, this time shorter and more comprehensible. In a flash, the whole shop exploded into sparks of gold and red like a firework that bloomed on the ground. Debris fell around Crowley as if in slow motion. One of them hit his Bentley. It was Aziraphale, charcoal black.
-- ~--
“Strange.” Anathema whispered almost to herself.
There was a disturbance in the aura. It was as if two suns had shifted in shapes and moved towards each other. Much like Adam’s aura, theirs were as big as world itself and full of something best described as love. There was also something else in one of them. She had a vague impression of how it felt, but could not remember what it was or when and where she had felt it before. She vaguely remembered that Newton might have been involved.
-- ~ --
From the inferno, the great serpent’s head shifted clumsily to the roasted angel. It tilted its head slightly to the side as it approached the target. Crowley knew that gesture: it was what a curious animal sometimes did before taking a bite of something possibly edible [5]. No way that he was going to let that happen. Before the mutant snake could open its mouth, however, a serpent twice its side blocked its way. Its golden eyes shone brighter than the three moons of the sky [6]. Its body was of a matte green and brown. Its mouth, a curve that spoke the first temptation on Earth. The Serpent of Eden was back on Earth. Not for temptation, but for l- fr- did a nightingale just sing in the square?
It was not a nightingale, but the sound of a large mass freefalling from the sky. It landed square on the first snake’s back.
-- ~ --
“Dear, what is… um… How do you call the feeling of having a headache, nausea, inability to think or walk straight, thirst, fatigue and on?” Anathema asked Newton.
“I don’t know… are you hinting that you’re going to have the, er, woman week soon?”
“Not exactly, no. It’s this weird feeling.” She started to remember where she had seen this kind of feeling before.
A bar [7].
-- ~ --
The imitation shooting star held down the sun-and-darkness serpent with its own serpentine body. Instead of scales, it had green and red feathers. With a miracle, its upper half took a humanoid shape.
“Wake up, Zhu!”[8]
The serpent that the feathered snake had addressed as Zhu stopped struggling at once. The feathered one started to caress Zhu’s body. Like flowing ink, the serpent took full human shape alongside its friend. It emitted a weak groan as its captor pushed its head down to apologise to Crowley and Aziraphale.
“Sorry for the trouble he caused, I somehow managed to walk out of the metaphorical apartment while sleepwalking after getting terribly drunk. Again.”
“But you killed Aziraphale!” Crowley screamed.
“Not yet. You better help him up though. I don’t think he can stand up like this.” The feathered one informed him.
Crowley was suspicious. He poked the angel with his tail. It was sticky. Crowley frowned as well a snake could frown. Was that mud? He quickly wiped it off from Aziraphale. It was thick, black mud mixed with unrefined petroleum.
-- ~ --
Near the coast, the idea of war and blood sacrifice walked slowly up to the two men writing the novel on Snake Gods of East and West, and sat by them. There was no third chair at the table, but the idea needed no chair. Only minds. She sat there, naked, spoke no words beside the occasional purrs. The novel became a war record. The carmine figure, invisible to mortal eyes, smiled like a knife.
The men started to argue before breaking into a fight. The men outside came to stop the fight, but after hearing their dispute over the power of their gods, argued with them, finally turning the place into a battlefield. Sea serpents, krakens and other sea monsters fought in the sea and made sea water fall on the lands, salting the fields. Then the sky cracked open. Warriors descended upon the land and shot the women with their arrows. Boys cried for their mothers before being carried away by dark figures on horseback who rode winds like roads, dead leaves surrounding them like murders of crows.
-- ~ --
In Soho, a sulphur-scented stone tablet flew out of a hole in reality and landed upwards onto once-again-in-human-shape Crowley’s chin.
“Ouch!”
“Oh dear, did that hurt?” Aziraphale asked with genuine concern. He still hadn’t learned the thing called sarcasm. Crowley did not bother to point out how hypocritical that question would have sounded to anyone who didn’t know Aziraphale as well as he did. Instead, he settled with a single nod and closed his eyes as Aziraphale miracled the minor fracture away. The demon’s facial expression could be compared to that of a small parrot getting a good scratch behind the ears. The snake gods almost giggled out loud. They exchanged glances and, with their secret language of body patterns shifting like the inkblots on Rorschach’s mask, exchanged secret messages.
“I got a commendation from H- Downstairs.” Crowley explained after reading from the brick. Couldn’t they use paper airplanes instead?
-- ~ --
On the coast where the fishermen’s boat used to be, the blood of sea monsters had turned the water as red as the flowing hair of War at bedtime. A bomb created a crater just far enough from the water to remain dry and warm. Half of a boat was thrown onto the land. A trench dug by the swinging of a god’s sword was filled with blood, dead bodies, uniforms and their weapons lying around like broken branches. Two bases were set south of the battlefield. It was almost a portrait of War: the blood was her hair, the bomb and its crater her eye, the boat her nose, the trench her smiling lips, the bases, her breasts full of milk, full to the point of seeming to burst anytime. But that was still not a portrait of War, for no one could truly capture the face of war; only she could capture you. And you would be her pawn until you leave or die.
From the battlefield, the idea of war put on a coat of carmine. She was now War.
From the salted land and ruined sea, Famine rose, his hair and Armani suit a comatose black. He winked to War. The soldiers were suffering from malnutrition.
From the corpses, lead bullets scattered on the ground and in carcasses being eaten by crows, debris, unusable water and air that smelled like cars and planes exhaust, Pollution donned his coat of dirty white. He timidly waved to his friends. He stepped into the sea, where the foams licked his foot as if in adoration, and picked up a dead, radiation-laden fish that was washed ashore and offered it to Famine as if it was a wild flower. Famine shook his head. He offered it to War instead. She was pleased. Another thing to be fought over.
Death stood where he always was: everywhere. He did not think too much of the other three’s resurfacing, instead wondered whether Kitty or Poochie made a better name for this motorbike. His half-brother, who had the same kind of job in another world, had named his mount Binky, so he felt a bit guilty that his own mount did not have a name.
The four manifested their motorbike, but made no haste to move. Slowly, the concept of Anti-Christ in human mind started to gather and take shape. The four horsepersons all smiled at once. [9]
-- ~ --
“Ouch! Ouch! Aouuch!”
“Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.”
Commendations were arriving one after another from Downstairs. Aziraphale tried to shield Crowley from the flying stones of doom, but they came from haphazard angles. Zhu helpfully handed them a parasol. Quetzalcoatl wanted to miracle it bulletproof, but realised that he did not receive blood sacrifice for years and forgot that he could use miracles without them if reality was out for lunch.
“Thanksssss.” Crowley took the parasol and miracled it the way Batman would. [10]
“So, what are you getting the commendations for?” Quetzalcoatl asked.
“And you never told us what job you do. May we ask?” Zhu added.
Crowley picked up the biggest commendation tablet and read it aloud.
“Commendation for starting the Apocalypse! (We were quite mad that the last one didn’t go through, so don’t fuck it up this time.)”
-- ~ --
The concept of Anti-Christ, the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness had taken shape. He was vastly unlike Adam Young, the original Anti-Christ, the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness. For one, this Anti-Christ did not slouch. Secondly, he would burn an apple tree instead of stealing apples from it. Thirdly, this Anti-Christ did not have a sweet tooth, preferring instead despair-like bitterness. So far so good, for the horsepersons.
As for the humans, as if from nocturnal terrors, their body trembled as the idea of evil tore away from their mind to manifest into flesh.
-- ~ --
“Ok, looks like we have an End Of The World As We Know It to prevent.” Crowley sighed as he finished erasing the letters on the stone tablets. He’s not sure what to do with them, as he had enough paper weights and doorstoppers. Barbecue tablets perhaps?
“Sure thing, dear.” Aziraphale was getting used to this. He vaguely wondered why.
“Cool, can we join?” The two primordial serpents asked at once.
Thus four immortals set for the Mediterranean Sea. [11]
-- ~ --
Anathema panicked as she sensed the new Anti-Christ. Unlike the old Anti-Christ, the Anti-Christ from human mind did not have an aura that covered the whole world. She tried to pack some important things and rush to stop it, but realised that nothing she had could be used to fight. She looked hopefully at her husband. Newton mistook it as an approval for his project. With confidence, he switched it on. The whole block blacked out and all the cars within five miles radius had their batteries drained clean. At least they didn’t shortcut or outright burn like last time.
Thus Anathema and Newton did not participate in the opening ceremony of New Apocalypse.
-- ~ --
From the coast where War’s brightest smile bloomed, the bombers sung the last song of the makeshift world.
-- ~ --
“Ok,” Anathema said to Newton, “I want you to fix everything. I want you to do something that can fix every single mechanism in the world. Do that. Now.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“You can do it, please, I know you can. Just… making something that sends some sort of signal that readjusts everything, can you?”
“I can try.” He said it with a grin. It was his dream, to make something of this calibre.
“And do it fast.”
-- ~ --
The atomic bombs were loaded. War licked her lips and smiled like a bullet. Armies of angels and demons were being pulled out of human minds. Soon they could have a real End of the World…
“Um, War?” Pollution suddenly spoke.
A really cool Bentley knocked War over. Everyone stopped fighting. The airplanes stopped moving mid-air, because reality was absent so that was allowed. Two figures came out from the car. Two more came out few seconds later because they were not sure how car doors worked.
“What the heck?” A random soldier asked. That was a good question.
“Howdy. We are here to stop you.” Crowley waved.
“Yep, yep.” Quetzalcoatl wondered briefly if he should go to the other side instead, as he had more experience destroying worlds than saving them. Then again, Zhu is on this side, right?
Zhu was half-asleep. It was pretty cold here, and torch snakes were not warm-blooded. Quetzalcoatl quickly went beside his friend and covered him with his feathers.
“Thanks, Kukul.”[12] Zhu whispered.
Quetzalcoatl was tempted to upgrade their relationship. They had been sleeping on the same bed for years, after all…
“And with what will you stop us, fluffy reptiles and gay angel?” War raised an eyebrow.
Crowley waved a steering wheel lock. It’s the closest thing he could get that resembles a weapon.
“Really, dear.” Aziraphale reacted before War did.
“Let’s see you do better, angel.”
Aziraphale frowned. He went to the car trunk and came back with a crowbar. And set it on fire.
“What about you two?” Famine chuckled and asked the two serpents.
Zhu whipped out a mechanical pencil.
“…what?”
“The pen is mightier than the sword. A mechanical pencil is a reloadable and erasable version of a pen. Therefore it is the most powerful.”
“Good lord.”
“What about you? Feathered guy?”
A club.
“Really?”
“It was handy enough to destroy the first Sun.” [13]
A pause.
“Alright, boys! Let’s kill those clowns and start our party!”
Thousands of guns and cannons pointed at Crowley’s group at once.
“Buggre.”
Napalms, bombs and nuclear bombs were being dropped over their head.
-- ~ --
“Done!”
Newton’s invention was completed. As it was plugged and turned on, a shockwave of electromagnetic energy washed over the planet, disabling any inorganic mechanism it touched. Including nuclear bombs. And cannons. And guns. Especially guns.
-- ~ --
“So…?” Crowley asked when he noticed how all firearms seemed to be unable to fire. Air planes fell like shooting stars behind them.
War frowned. All of the soldiers picked up cold weapons instead.
-- ~ --
In the apple orchard, Adam Young was pondering whether apple-pear or pear-apple would taste better. Or, for that effect, apple-grape, grape-apple, pineapple-apple, apple-pineapple, apple-orange…
-- ~ --
At the Armageddon, all hell broke loose.
“Any plan for how to win this?” The Feathered Snake asked.
“Er…” The ones of angel stock were not sure.
“The Anti-Christ. Destroy it and Apocalypse cannot go on,” the torch serpent said.
“Are you sure?” The feathered one asked, unfamiliar with old world religions.
“It’s always like that in videogames and old fantasy stories,” Zhu said.
“Oh great.” Crowley almost hissed.
“And if the Anti-Christ isn’t necessary to star the End of World, they would have gone all-out against the world already, not waiting for it to form like they are doing now.” Zhu explained.
“Sounds like a better reason to me,” Aziraphale said.
“How to kill it?” Quetzalcoatl asked, making sure he wouldn’t power the enemy up by accident.
They stared at Crowley. Crowley looked at Aziraphale and the flaming crowbar.
“Ok, leave the mooks to us! You two go to the thing and kill it!”
In an instant, the two gods assumed their serpent shape and blacked out the stars and the moons. As Zhu’s black eye opened, all humans lost their sight.
Pollution faced Zhu. You are but a forgotten god, he said. But I, I am a pattern that will never end. Zhu did not reply with words. With his human shape, he picked up a can. It was a contaminated food can, bloated and deformed. He drew a can opener from a fallen soldier’s pocket and opened the can. He burnt the contents with his eye of light. He poured it carefully onto a rock. He perforated the can’s bottom and put in earth and the sprout of a wild flower. The can lid was placed underneath to catch the surplus of water. The burnt content was put back as fertiliser for the plant. You are no pollution if you have value, he said.
Pollution was forgotten. Humans started to scavenge.
Famine faced Quetzalcoatl. The anthropomorphic personification was going to speak, but the snake god caught him by the throat. Oh no, the serpent said to him, don’t you dare start your lecture. Don’t you dare tell me that I am yours. If we want to eat, we can eat anything and you will not exist.
Famine was rejected when humans decided to eat whatever they could survive on.
War wanted to face Crowley. She couldn’t. A little girl sang a lullaby to her little brother and all men, blind and tired, sang with her.
War was postponed. For a very long time, no one would lift a weapon again.
Aziraphale was facing the Anti-Christ of human mind. He raised the crowbar.
-- ~ --
Adam Young remembered reality. He called it on the nearest payphone and asked for the most delicious fruit in the world.
Reality returned, apologised for taking so much time, took control of the world again and told the true Anti-Christ that deep inside, Adam knew his answer.
And Adam remembered his favourite fruit. And other things.
The Apocalypse of the makeshift world stopped at once.
-- ~ --
“Well.” Aziraphale mumbled to himself. He was back in his bookshop, which was once again intact. All the books were in the same disorder as before. He lifted an arm to brush his hair and noticed that he was still holding the crowbar. Good thing it was no longer on fire.
A knock at the door. Crowley arrived sooner than expected. He was holding two bottles of 18th century red wine.[14]
-- ~ --
Newton was torn between buying the material for his project or the ingredients for Anathema’s cake. He settled for his wife’s cake ingredients. His project could wait. He returned home, gave the package to his other half, ate and went to bed.
Few minutes before midnight, Anathema woke him up. He was lead blindfolded to the kitchen. When the blindfold came off, he grasped in delight: on the middle of the kitchen was an enormous, crooked but still standing anniversary cake to celebrate their marriage.
-- ~ --
The Young rented their basement to a couple of ecology students doing a project on Lower Tadfield climate. One was a boy with white skin and red hair. Another was a Chinese-born girl who occasionally sleepwalked. The two became fast friends, helped by the fact that they both had a snake as pet. They played with The Them when they were bored of their project, and together they made a silly theatre play called Super Gods Brawl.
When autumn came, they went to the apple orchard and bought as many apples they could carry. They feasted on apples for a whole month until everyone grew sick at mention of the word alone. Funny euphemisms for the troublesome fruit were invented, and everybody had a lot of fun. Gradually they were no longer sick of apples and swore not do the same again.
However, when the next autumn arrived, they repeated the same mistake of binge eating apples on the first days, with the same passion as first year. Then they grew sick of them, knowing fully that next year they would love them again. It was just like Halloween and its candies. You know you would have done it every time, as long as you remembered to celebrate it.
And, Adam thought as he crunched into a piece of hot apple pie topped with ice cream, because it is one fruit that I’ll never get tired of, after all.
- Fin -
[1] By the way, someone had remembered that the mountain top ice would be good for shaved ice, so it was covered in that now. Ice cream naturally followed. In the morning the neighbors were scoping off icy goodness off the giant reverse Baked Alaska covered in ice cream and shaved ice.
[2] Yes, he could’ve willed the ash into flying out of the car instead, but he was doing it for the principle of things.
[3] Yes, the liquid crystal screen was rearranged into eight letters’ room instead of four and two dots.
[4] No, it was not. After seeing him do so, the mortals around him tried to the same and succeeded thanks to reality being out to lunch. It resulted in car accidents in mid-air. With some cars in much different shapes than before taking off. Like in the shape of seagulls. Or dragons. Or platypuses. With lasers. Or with Warp Engines. Upstairs and Downstairs had to open a new folder for this new way of dying, got a lot of stress and ended up making the law on miracle use on Earth harsher.
[5] Crowley was mistaken: this snake had eyes on the top of its head instead of on the sides, so it was its only way to see Aziraphale. The snake had smelled something organic and fleshy burnt nearby with its tongue, but wasn’t sure what it was, so it tilted the head to look. He had to get closer because like most snakes, it had myopia. The above clarification does not, however, state that it won’t decide to eat the angel after taking a look.
[6] One was total darkness, one red on the face and blue in the back and one white. They might be eaten once the star fishers were done harvesting the stars, which tasted like candies.
[7] Not that she frequented any bar, but the few times she had walked past them she had caught glimpse of this. It’s a smoky colour, like an unwashed curtain that was dipped in ash. Since her family was against drinking in general, she had never experienced the feeling.
[8] Chinese for “Torch”, specially lit torch, or “to illuminate”. Possibly referring to ZhuJiuYin (lit. “Illuminate Nine Darkness”). Also known as the Torch Dragon (ZhuLong) or Light the Dark (ZhuYin). Hypothesis to what it was include solar deity, demiurge, primordial being, another name for the Fire Emperor (Chinese equivalent of Prometheus) or metaphor for volcano or aurora borealis.
[9] Though Death’s reason for smiling was because he has finally decided on a name for his bike.
[10] What do you mean, Batman doesn’t use miracles? How do you think any of his gadgets work?
[11] In fact, after reality had gone out to lunch there was now only one sea in the world, which was the Sea. There was also only one land, the Land. It didn’t happen outright, but progressively as people’s notion of geography blurred as oneiric elements sprouted and bloomed around them.
[12] Kukul means “feathered”, from “Kukulkan”, Quetzalcoatl’s Mayan equivalent. Rumours were that Quetzalcoatl might assume the identity of Kukulkan and have fun with the Mayans.
[13] The Jaguar Sun, remember? Of course not, as all mortals present were eaten by jaguars.
[14] They don’t like wine made from Americanised grapes or Chile wines. No thanks to you, Great French Wine Blight.
Happy Holidays, nimmenstjer, from your Secret Writer!
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So I looked up the fic-art exchange today to see what was posted, and... my responses in the timespan I read this story were about like this:
1. Uh... It's for me? Well, that was slightly earlier than expected, I guess. Oooh, what isitIwannaknowwhatissit?
2. *read* Probably not that C takes over hell, eh? Hmm. Which one then? Probably the second.*click*
3. *read, read* Hey, this is a nice style. Dreamish calm-weird-nice.
4. Crazyawesome. I like it.
5. Aah! CrapI'malmostlateforclass
6. Oooh, nonononononoIforgotaboutmypresentationandI'mgoingdownlikeashipmadeofsaladingredientsinastorm! I hate mondays!
7. Oh, story. Maybe today isn't so bad after all.
8. Aww, snakes and fluffy friendship <3. Or fluffy romance, either way.
9. Whaitaminute, you put in request 3 too!
10. Oh dear, disaster seems to build up... The four and a darker anti-christ...
11. Hehee, Zhu is a bit like a saner Basis (hyperactive cloudcuckoolander original character of a friend of mine).
12. Whoa, that's actually a pretty good way to beat Pollution.
13. Aaand... anti-climax. Of course. Suitable for Good Omens. Wait, is reality a character or a methaphor or...? Hmm. Well, due to writing well enough that you put me back in a happy mood, I don't care overly much. *unsoundeffect of fridge brilliance* Oh. Of course. It's both.
14. Aw, Anathema and Newt being even cuter together. (They were cute the whole fic trough.)
15. Aw, Zhu and Kukul ending up together despite not existing before.
16. Hot apple pie with ice cream *droolishious*
^_^
So in short, thanks for putting me in a better mood.
I especially like the dream-like state of the first half and the surreal story elements and oddities mixing in with reality.
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And I mean that in the best possible way. This was surreal in a coordinated way that many try for and few achieve; a Dali painting, when in other hands it could have come out like a bunch of random clipart piled together in MSPaint. I've never seen anything like it in any fandom, and I'm not expecting to see its like again any time soon.
My hat is off to you, mystery writer :D
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Cause it is now. You join the ranks of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, hats off to you.