The Cosmic Off Switch.

[Part 1/3, very much not proofread]


Mr. Bob Spleenworth-Stumpf opened the door and stepped inside the cathedral wondering what he was doing there, anyway, and whether there was any way to avoid doing it.

Bob looked very ordinary. He was in his mid-forties, with a receeding hairline and an expanding beer belly. He wore a cheap suit and a pair of hideous eyeglasses he had, in fact, worn consistently from the '70s.

He didn't frequent churches. He didn't frequent any place, really. The sight of altars and frescoes and gargoyles and flying buttresses and motivational Latin phrases like "DEVS REALI VVLTS A LOT" he found engraved here and there filled him with a vague, unspecific superstitious concern.

He didn't recall ever believing in God, because he had never really thought about it, but was pretty sure breaking into churches was something you just didn't do, period.

'Are you sure I should...? he began.

'Sure. It's alright, I promise. Go on in,' the hobo said.

Bob wanted to say no. He wanted to turn to his mystery guest and say: Look, mystery guest, your theory is insane and bogus and I don't want any part with it... but Bob Spleenworth didn't have it in him. Thinking for himself, despite his considerable intellect, wasn't something he was particularly good at. Even if it had been, he wasn't the kind of man not to take orders from complete strangers. He unconsciously considered it a point of moral pride, actually, as it denoted good upbringing.

So instead he said something like "Wow, what a big church," and then glanced furtively at the man behind him, as if unsure about what he was supposed to do, yet fearful that he'd somehow get caught doing it, whatever the heck it was.

The scruffy man behind him gently gestured him in.

Spleenworth was a piece of cake for the hobo to gently boss around. It was in his makeup, in his history.

Mr. Bob Spleenworth-Stumpf was a man who had failed in everything he had ever really wanted to do in life. It wasn't because he was in any way unintelligent or unskilled or unwilling to learn. A smart and driven lad, Bob had once wanted to be this great researcher, a doctor who'd cure the uncurable and destroy diseases and save small third world countries. He had wanted to stride the western world like a colossus, except with less collapsing buildings involved. He had wanted to be rich, famous, admired and adored by all. Most importantly he had wanted to be a renowned healer. That's why he had went to medical school, anyway.

He wasn't dumb. Most people thought he was, but he wasn't. The hobo knew that much.

As far as he was concerned, Bob's major malfunction was simple. It had probably never occurred to Bob that doing all that stuff he wanted to do required an actual effort, and waiting for the world to present him with his big chance to become a big-shot doctor was, tactically, about as smart as the Charge of the Light Brigade. He remembered having laughed at the Charge for years.

The scruffy old man considered Bob for a while and then lit a cigarette. Churches didn't impress him much. He had seen all kinds of churches in his two thousand years. Two thousand damn bloody pointless years. As far as he was concerned, this pretentious building was just like any other pretentious building anywhere in the world, and Bob was just like any other loser he had ever had the considerable displeasure to know and loathe.

The hobo was a bearded, long-haired man of undeterminable ethnic extract, with very dark skin and vaguely eastern features. He was dressed in stolen black cargo pants, a dark coat that probably predated most modern inventions and a long green scarf, under which a khaki green T-shirt could be vaguely seen. It read "Da Modern Immortal: Scouring Around The World In Despair Heavy Metal Tour 2001-2002." He wore a permanent look of soul-wrenching misanthropy and boredom, which went well with his constant smoking.

One day, this old man had appeared into Bob's life and told him he had failed. He had also told him why and how he had failed. It had taken very little to make Bob realise that his life had went absolutely nowhere since the day he became a geneticist's assistant, a post which Bob had dutifully fulfilled for the past thirty years despite the poor wage, his supervisor's arrogance and the fact that his life now consisted entirely of meaningless work-related busywork.

It had been very convincing. Ahasverus, you see, knew a thing or two about failure.

Ahasverus also knew that if you offer someone a smoking gun and simply tell them to hold it, nine times out of ten they will do so completely without thinking. Ahasverus considered this the core revelation of his two thousand years of human psychological observation, and like most things, it just made him more fed up with people.

As Bob was showing no signs of independent action, Ahasverus decided to take the initiative. You always had to take initiative with this bunch of trained apes called "humanity". It was the only way you could get them to do anything worthwhile.

He stepped forward and checked around for people.

'Bob, you'll be carrying the wine,' he said like it was the most natural thing in the world.

'Uhh. Okay,' said Bob.

Ahasverus sighed.

Dr. John Grey was standing in his kitchen, making an omelette and listening to the radio. He felt like some coffee, too, but there wasn't any and he was too lazy to go get some. He had used the coffee machine to make some tea for himself. Coffee would've been better, but he couldn't abandon his breakfast.

Sometimes Grey was more concerned about getting his omelettes right than he was about, for instance, the unspeakable... things living in his basement.

There was an art to omelettes. It required subtlety, cunning and wisdom. One had to know when to strike. The balance of milk and eggs had to be just right. The other ingredients, whatever those were, needed to be fresh and plentiful, and they needed to be applied with meticulous precision. The temperature had to be spot-on. One couldn't turn an omelette around before the time was exactly right, or it would become a white, fungus-like mass or burn into cinders. Grey liked his omelettes thin like parchment and golden yellow.

It was a nice day outside, but it wouldn't stay that way. He'd went to pick up the newspaper and noticed dark clouds in the distance. There'd be wind and rain, eventually. Autumn weather. He didn't like rain very much. No matter. He wasn't going anywhere anyway. He had no classes to teach, no people to meet, nothing. He could sit at home and watch a nature documenary on the TV. Then he could work on some research, and maybe fiddle with the magical framework of the universe in the afternoon.

There was a ringing noise.

Grey sighed, put down a spatula he'd been wielding against the stubborn omelette, and went to answer the door. The doorbell was usually bad news. It could only be someone he personally knew. Real people would've used the telephone.

Outside stood a tallish, long-haired man of indeterminable age, dressed in a scruffy coat and a long grey scarf. His ancient sunglasses seemed like relics from some long-gone, funkier decade. He vaguely smelled like marihuana and catnip, and was smiling meekly, almost apologetically.

'Hello, John. Coffee?' the man asked and offered Grey a packet of instant coffee.

'Archangel Jophiel?' Grey asked.

'Yup. Patron of Artists, Guardian of the Garden of Eden, yadda yadda yadda. You can ditch the formalities. I'm not really here, you see.'

Grey attempted to think that through, decided it was a bad idea after all, and let the man in.

'Nice of you to drop by. Do come in. I was just making breakfast.'

'Thanks. How are the unspeakable things living in your basement?'

'Feisty and unspeakable, thank you. The wards are holding nicely. Coffee? Tea?'

'Sure, either would be nice. Thanks.'

'I see you're itching to get to the point. From the look on your face I know this isn't just a social visit, right?' asked Grey and opened the packet of coffee and poured his vanilla tea into a thermos.

'Well... there might be a problem. Just a little one. And I just might need a helping hand.'

'Jopiel...' Grey began, in his best lecturing voice, as he turned on the coffee maker again. 'I don't want to sound rude, but every time there's an old lady who needs to be walked across the road, or a corrupt monk selling indulgences who needs to be exposed, or a Chosen Tribe that needs to be led out of the slavery of Egypt, you people come to a mortal for help. That's fine. I'm not saying you shouldn't. Now, I'm all for doing good deeds, but lately that mortal's been mainly me, and I'd appreciate it if Heaven could handle some things in its creation without me being in mortal peril all the time. Just, you know, because it could make me die horribly.'

'Okay, I owe you from last time and the time before... but please, five minutes,' the Archangel quickly said. 'Ten, tops. I swear that's it. No getting almost tricked into eternal damnation by Satan, no stealing sodas from space aliens through time-travel, no accidentally invoking ancestral demons who try to possess your house. Just talk.'

'Talk?' Grey asked, surprised.

'Yes. Just talk.'

'No mortal peril?'

'No mortal peril.'

'I don't know if I follow you. No mortal peril is... err, highly unorthodox. What's happening? Where is this problem?' Grey said, and then thought about it a bit. 'Does it have fangs? Is it unspeakable, too? If it is, then I'm afraid you might want the Archangel Michael this time.'

'Nope. No fangs,' said the archangel. 'It's very speakable, too. It's just a... an attitude thing. We need you to go talk some sense into someone. It's Ahasverus, you see. He's having a bad day.'

Grey sighed. 'Figures,' he said ruefully.