There had long been the thought that the earth and all its inhabitants were pretty much a lost cause. The Heavenly Head Office had over the millennia seriously questioned the Maker’s intention in giving the humans free will. All it did was make the humans lurch from one disaster to another, never learning from their mistakes. In a last ditch effort to salvage something from the creation of the earth the Heavenly Head Office had sent the Angel Gregory to Earth to see if anything could be saved, after all the Second in Command had tried way back and though he did have some success you couldn’t say that a history of war waged along religious grounds was any sign of significant success.

So Greg as he was known to his friends and neighbours found himself on the Earth surrounded by the worst lot of creatures he ever had to encounter.

The Angel Gregory wasn’t known in Heaven as a go getting sort of Angel preferring to hang out at the Saint Joan of Arc, French style café where the only thing served that generated any appreciation was the ham sandwich on rye.

On the other side of the coin the Downstairs Hellish Quarter celebrated the Earth as a never-ending supply of labour and lost souls. They had sent their best demon, The Demon Wayne, to earth to organise, prioritise and direct the souls as they came to usually an unhealthy demise. Wayne was good at his job. He sold Hell and all its virtues very well and Greg soon learned that if anything was to be saved he had to meet Wayne and do something about his selling technique. After all the attractions of Hell were many. It was the home of Hell’s Café and Sushi Bar known as the only place you could get decent sushi. Whatever lure you could use Wayne used for after all the beauty of being a demon and from Hell was you could tell people anything to get them where you wanted them, none of which had to be true.

Greg on the other hand had a hard time of it as Heaven demanded truth and honesty and the appeal of endless hymn singing, ill fitting halos and perpetual adoration wore a bit thin up against the attractions of Hell and Hell’s Café.

Greg and Wayne did meet to discuss their particular predicaments. They found they actually like each other.

It wasn’t long before they began to meet regularly and share stories and swap ideas. Greg made sure to bring a ham sandwich as Wayne had shown a particular liking for them and Wayne reciprocated with an order of sushi as Greg had made it clear you couldn’t get a decent sushi anywhere in heaven.

It was clear to both deities that they were on missions akin to a hiding to nothing. Both believed in their roles and both sought to do the right thing day in and day out but they both agreed it was a fruitless pursuit for who ever they took up or down turned out to be a huge disappointment to the management.

The one flaw in the creation of humanity was to not to give them free will but to tell them what greed was. The problem was it was ingrained in them that they took the concept with them no matter which direction their souls went in. So the Heavenly Head Office had to deal with a bunch of righteous souls insisting on being able to introduce their happy clappy religious hymns and the Hellish Head Quarters found the greedy lot coveted everything they saw, stole the matches to Hells fires and were on the whole the most disagreeable lot anyone ever imagined. In fact it was discussed endlessly of creating a third place in eternity to cater for the humans thought to be too terrible for Hell itself. It was a sad state of affairs all round.

Greg and Wayne pondered all this over coffee, ham sandwiches and sushi as they commiserated with each other on being the unlucky ones to have the assignments they had. Each week they had the same miserable conversation, which went on until the bells inside their divine heads went of to signal them to another job. They would reluctantly get up from their seats, wish each other well and head off to see there was anything to save or salvage from the latest soul to depart its human form.

“Same old, same old.” One would say to the other the feeling of dejection apparent.

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2016/11/03/tale-weaver-92-free-form-free-flow-nov-3-2016/