“Look, I’ll take my break now,” said Bonnie.
Bonnie grabbed the book from Carter. It immediately burst into flame. She dropped it and beat it out with a defective magazine.
Carter cleared her throat.
“I’ll take an early lunch now,” said Bonnie with a smile.
“She’s coming with me, and when I get back, I’ll come back alone. It’ll all be fine. I promise!” She grabbed Syph’s hand, ignoring the chill passing through her, and dragged the goddess toward the door.
There was a Burger Town just down the street. Bonnie ordered her lunch, then sat Syph down at a table.
“We need to have a talk,” said Bonnie. “I know you’re a goddess, and that by myself, I can’t get rid of you. But I think we both know that I have a slam-dunk case for a restraining order with Divine Affairs. So why don’t you save me the trouble of having to file with the court and-”
“It won’t save you. You don’t think you are the first to turn to Divine Affairs, do you?”
“But you have to follow the rulings of the court,” said Bonnie.
“You don’t get it, do you? Yes, if the court decreed it I would have to release you as my follower. But it takes time to bring a case to the court, time for a ruling to be handed down. Several months at least. And none of my followers have ever lasted that long.”
She sighed. A dove flew into the window beside them and broke its neck.
Bonnie stuffed a handful of fries into her mouth. Under Syph’s influence, they were cold and soggy. This was what Bonnie’s life was going to be like for the foreseeable future. A constant barrage of metaphorical soggy fries. Not a single drop of joy. Only unhappy endings. An endless depression that would eventually consume her soul.
“How many months do I have?” asked Bonnie.
“Four, perhaps five,” said Syph. “One lasted almost six before losing the will to live. His heart just stopped beating, and he turned to stone. Shame about that one. I rather liked him.”
Bonnie put her head on the table and almost cried. Almost.
“No!” She sat up and slammed her palms on the table. “I’m not giving in! I’m not going to sit here and let you kill me!”
Syph opened her eyes in startled surprise. It was the first time Bonnie had seen Syph appear anything other than depressingly resigned.
“There has to be a way to fix this,” said Bonnie. “Mortals have defied the gods successfully before.”
“Not in a very long time. The Age of Legends has long passed. A shame. They were brighter days.”
Syph smiled and sighed wistfully. Bonnie braced herself for another dead bird or icy wind or symbolic spontaneous combustion. Instead, the dark cloud hiding the sun moved to one side and allowed a few warm rays to shine down on Bonnie and her goddess. The moment didn’t last. The cloud jumped back into its solar-interception duties, and a roach crawled out from under Bonnie’s burger bun.
She flicked it away. “What just happened?”
“Hmmm?”
“I felt better all of a sudden.” Bonnie took a bite of a fry. It was still tasteless, but there was a little crispiness. “And so were you. Don’t deny it. I saw you smile.”
“Maybe I did. Aren’t I allowed a smile every so often? Must I always be dour?”
“I don’t know. Mustn’t you? You are a goddess of tragedy and hopelessness, aren’t you?”
“I wasn’t always.” Syph spoke in a low embarrassed tone. “A long time ago… well, I suppose that’s not important anymore.”
She slouched, and a crack split the window. “It’s not worth talking about.”
Bonnie wasn’t so sure about that.
“Gods can change their province?” she asked. “I didn’t think you could do that.”
Syph nodded.
“So why don’t you just change then? You obviously aren’t happy as the goddess of tragedy.”
“It doesn’t work like that. I can’t choose to change. It’s not something I control.”
“How?”
“It’s not important. I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Oh no. You don’t get off the hook that easy.”
Syph arched her eyebrows in surprise.
“It was such a long time ago, I hardly remember it, when I wasn’t what I now am.” A reluctant smile crossed Syph’s face. The cloud scooted over to allow half the sun to shine.
Bonnie bit into her burger, after checking for roaches, and discovered it wasn’t absolutely terrible. It wasn’t good, but she didn’t want to spit it out. She was grasping for any possible solution to her goddess problem. At the very least, it eased her suffering to get Syph to talk about it. That had to mean something.
“You dragged me into this,” said Bonnie. “You owe me.”
“I don’t see how it’s relevant.”
Bonnie smiled mirthlessly. “Indulge me.”
Syph thought about this a moment, and it must have brightened her day because the cloud vanished from the sky in a puff.
“It’s funny. No one has ever asked me about this before. No one ever cared.”
Bonnie didn’t care either. Not about the goddess anyway. But if it made Syph feel better about herself and made Bonnie’s life better in the process, she was perfectly willing to play along. She reached across the table and patted Syph’s hand. It was cold, but not as cold as before.
“You wouldn’t know it to look at me,” said Syph, “but I was once the goddess of love. I brought only joy and hope to all around me, made the world a more beautiful place. Everything I touched was brightened by my presence, and my favor was coveted by king and peasant alike.
“But my influence didn’t end with mortals. I was courted by all the best gods. The most powerful of deities sought my company. There wasn’t a god I couldn’t seduce with merely a demure smile and a coy glance.”
Bonnie studied the colorless, icy goddess sitting across from her. It was hard to imagine.
“And I dated them all,” said Syph. “From the most insignificant mortal to the most powerful of the divine. I gleefully spread my joy across the heavens and Earth without care, and should have done so until the end of time.”
“So what happened?”
Syph sighed. The cloud came back, bigger and blacker than ever.
“I fell in love.”
Bonnie waited for further explanation, but Syph just sat there. She bit her lower lip as a single bloodred tear ran down her cheek.
“I don’t understand,” said Bonnie. “Shouldn’t that have been a good thing?”
Syph chortled. Or tried to. But all that came out of her tight throat was a strangled grunt.
“Would it serve a goddess of death to die herself? Or a goddess of war to see the world of mortals consumed in nuclear holocaust? The needs and welfare of gods doesn’t rely solely on a singular motivation.”
“Hadn’t thought of it like that,” admitted Bonnie.
“Few mortals do. You think it’s easy to be a god. But we are as fallible and foolish as mortals. Perhaps even more so, since our immortality often leads to boredom, and boredom leads to recklessness. And it’s easy to be reckless when immortality usually keeps us from having to deal with the consequences of our actions.” She laughed again, bitterly. The cloud rumbled, growing to cover half the sky.
“At first, it was wonderful. I, the goddess of love, had discovered love. Genuine love. My powers increased, and for a while, I thought I might even be able to usher in a new golden age in Heaven and Earth.”
“What happened?”
Syph lowered her head and mumbled into her shoulder.
“What?” asked Bonnie.
Syph pulled her hand away and studied her fingernails. “He dumped me.”
A rolling storm materialized over the Burger Town. People ran for cover as tiny heart-shaped pieces of hail rained down. Each piece shattered exactly in half upon impact.