New(er) Gods

Kamil heard how the humans talked about God. In a reverent, quiet-or-Dad-will-hear-us sort of way. Deference, respect. Like He knows all—and, of course, He does. They speak of Faith—capital F. Faith, a thing they need to hold onto—a thing that is sometimes hard to hold onto, like an eel in the ocean.

She never understood. She could never understand, of course, because where she came from, you could dial a phone or wait two minutes in stupid elevator music, and see God putting Her falsies on in the morning.

Where she came from, they sort of were Gods.

“Washington State trembles before its new overlord,” intoned Flitch in a mock-severe tone, spoken with all the gravity of a king ordering an execution. “Us little folk scramble to get out of her almighty way as she stumbles drunkenly towards the refrigerator at three AM in the morning.”

“Shut up,” Kamil said, though it lacked force. She knew, deep down, that Flitch would never shut up. Not until someone put him six feet under, and that wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon as most people were duly afraid of six-foot-four well-muscled giants with the demeanor of geriatric, vaguely condescending trees. “Who invited you, anyway?”

He shot her a scandalized look, one hand pressed over his mouth. “How rude, your highness!”

A glance at her severely unamused face made him roll his eyes and drop the act.

“Milo, of course. He said you were plotting world domination and he was worried you wouldn’t pay due attention to the gays down in WeHo.”

“I’m not plotting anything.” That wasn’t true, though. She was plotting a shower and a nice breakfast of as many cups of coffee as could fit in two French presses. “And Milo needs to mind his own business.” Leveraging herself from the couch, Kamil only just managed to not fall right back over again. The pounding behind her eyes wasn’t likely to go away anytime that century.

Flitch’s initial theory of her stumbling drunkenly around wasn’t as far off as Kamil would’ve liked to believe.

Rubbing a hand down her groggy face, she turned briefly to peer at him. With how he was standing in front of the window, he blocked out most of the light. “Who even let you in?”

His face, if possible, got even more judgemental. “Bianca number 74 let me in, thank you very much.”

She looked away again, shame and defensiveness kicking simultaneously to life inside of her. “Well why’d you come in the first place?”

He hummed. “World domination, your highness. Milo was worried.”

More likely Milo was worried she’d drowned on her own vomit and was lying dead in her apartment with at least 74 Biancas. “Milo’s a moron.”

“Hey, now.” Flitch deftly stopped her from running into a wall and directed her instead into the bathroom.

A Bianca was already inside, sitting on the closed toilet and humming as she combed her hair. The stark number 36 stood out on the olive skin of her hand.

Kamil thought about shooing her out, but eventually just sighed and shut the door. She turned on the shower head and got a face-full of frigid water for her trouble.

She was so busy spluttering she nearly missed Flitch’s next words, “Milo’s not the only one worried, you know.”

Bianca 36 gave her a meaningful look, but Kamil very deliberately turned away from her.

She found herself instead looking into the mirror. Just herself. Meeting her own blank eyes and her own flat mouth, she thought again about God.

Here was their God: dreams.

Kamil only had one dream.

She looked at Bianca. Bianca looked at her.