Accidental God 2.0 -- Section 04

[Luther and Atty are back. I think I may have lost my sense of Luther a little in all this, so he may need revisions, but I think their conversation is pretty enjoyable anyway.]

    Luther stepped to the side as a teenage boy pushed a shopping cart past, a teenage girl sitting in the cart and calling directions to her date. At least Luther assumed it was a date. It looked fun.
    "You should try that," said Atty, standing next to his friend by the cold cereal that filled the shelves.
    "Will you push me?" asked Luther.
    "No, silly. Dating. You should try dating."
    "Yeah. I knew what you meant."
    "Hang on. Was that a joke? Did Luther the lugubrious just make a joke?"
    "That's quite a vocabulary word. You sure you know what it means?"
    "Yes, I know what it means," said Atty, stretching his arms up over his head in a tall, athletic yawn. Atty did everything in a tall and athletic manner. It didn't really bother Luther--he'd long since become reconciled to his five-and-a-half feet--but even so, Atty looked the way Luther had always imagined angels should look. Sure, the guy was wearing jeans and a sweat shirt, but he made that sweat shirt look majestic. Give the man wings and a sword, and he was the perfect avenging angel. Not that Atty would ever pick up a sword. "Lugubrious," continued Luther's friend. "Adjective. Looking or sounding sad or dismal. See also ‘glum.’"
    "Expanding your vocabulary?" asked Luther, turning back to the selection of breakfast cereals. Which to choose? None of them appealed.
    Atty grabbed a box of something corn-flavored and tossed it into Luther's cart. "Try that stuff. It's good. And yes, I'm expanding my vocabulary. It's a way of expanding my horizons, which I think a person ought to do whenever possible."
    "I never buy this cereal," said Luther.
    "Expand your horizons."
    "I don't feel like dating."
    "Please refer to my previous comment."
    "I'm tired."
    "You can't be tired," said Atty, smiling at the young couple and their baby that politely stepped by the two friends. "It's your birthday. Can't be tired on your birthday."
    "It's not really my birthday. It was ten days ago, and you forgot it."
    Atty looked exasperated. "Are you still going on about the whole Julian-Gregorian calendar thing? Please, Luther. Just because you were born before the change is no reason to make things strange and confusing for the rest of us. If George Washington was willing to adjust, you should do the same."
    "Washington changed his birthday?"
    Atty shrugged. "I think so. Read it someplace. Anyway, how old are you now?"
    "Old."
    "Come on. Really. How old?"
    "One-thousand-two-hundred-seventeen."
    "Wow. That is old."
    "And ten days," added Luther.
    Atty looked at him closely. "Another joke. Dude, that's two in two minutes. You're on a role. See? You're expanding your horizons. This whole job change is good for you--don't put that back."
    Luther hesitated, the box of cereal in his hand. "But I don't want it."
    "Try it."
    "It looks like it would get soggy. I don't like soggy cereal."
    "Try it and like it."
    "What if I don't like it?"
    "Then I'll eat it." Atty took the box out of Luther's hand and put it back in the cart. "We're moving on now."
    Luther sighed and started pushing the cart. Moving on. What a concept. He was certainly having a hard time moving on. A month since he'd been fired and what had he accomplished in that time? He was tempted to think that he'd caught up on his TV watching, but from what he'd seen, that was impossible. There was always more, and with the very rare exception, each show was blander than the last. It wasn't that they were bad, since most of them weren't. They were just like flavorless Jell-O: kept you busy for a minute or two, but in the end there really wasn't much to say about the experience.
    "Uh oh," said Atty.
    "What's that?"
    "You're thinking again."
    "Something wrong with that?" Luther looked around to find out what row he was on--he'd lost track--and turned down the width of the store, looking for the pasta section. Pasta was easy to cook, and that mattered to him recently.
    "There's a problem when you're thinking lugubriously."
    "Ugh. Sounds like I'm coughing up something green and phlegmy."
    "Yeah, that's a pretty good description of your life," agreed Atty.
    "My life is not phlegm."
    "Looks like it from where I'm standing."
    "You could always stand somewhere else."
    "No can do." Atty grabbed some sports drinks and tossed them into the cart. "Don’t worry, those are for me, and no, I absolutely cannot go stand somewhere else. I had to pry you out of your apartment like I was an octopus working on a clam."
    "You saying I'm a pearl?"
    "I'm saying your life looks all gray and phlegmy inside. What happened to you? You were the powerhouse behind Heartbreak Hal's entire divine operation. You were his archangel. You don't become an archangel by being a TV watching lump."
    "I'm not a lump. Just having a down spell. A break. An hiatus."
    "'An hiatus?' Now who's being snooty about vocabulary. And grammar."
    "It's not snooty if it comes naturally."
    "Then you're naturally snooty."
    "I'm trying to buy pasta here," said Luther, looking at the rows of bags and boxes. Did any of the twists, curls, tubes or bow ties actually taste different from any of the sticks or elbows or diagonally cut tubes? He knew how to cook the stuff, but he realized that the finer points of pasta were lost on him.
    "No," said Atty. "You're shopping for food with me in a pathetic and futile attempt to convince me that you're okay so that I will leave you alone and you can go back to your room and your TV that is sucking the life out of you."
    "I don't just watch TV. I read books, too." Luther didn't bother to mention that TV really was about all he'd done for the first three weeks. It was only during the last few days that he'd become so disgusted with his own inactivity that he'd pulled out some old non-fiction he'd been meaning to get to for a long time. The history of cotton was surprisingly compelling.
    "Okay, so you read books. Try the manicotti."
    "Which is that?"
    "The big tubes."
    "The box says it's cannelloni."
    "Who cares? Everyone calls it manicotti, and you should try it."
    "How do I eat it?"
    "You stuff things in it. Italian pasta-like things. Then you use a fork. Also, reading books doesn't quite count. When was the last time you talked with a person? An angel? Human? Heck, I'd take a demon."
    "Right now," said Luther, sighing inwardly and grabbing a box of cannelloni. Maybe it would be good, but figuring out how to stuff it sounded complicated.
    "When was the time before that?"
    "Rae called after I got fired."
    "That's nice of her. How long did you talk?"
    "Ten minutes?"
    "Are you asking me or telling me?"
    "It was ten minutes. Not much more, if any."
    "And that was when?"
    "I told you. After I got fired."
    "And who have you talked to since then?"
    "Mr. and Mrs. Farkas."
    "Who are they?"
    "My neighbors."
    "Those people? Dude, that's not a conversation. That's listening to Mr. Farkas tell you what's wrong with the government and Mrs. Farkas telling him to shut up. As I suspected, you have done nothing involving human interaction in the last four weeks."
    "I'm not like you," said Luther, pushing his cart down the aisle again and looking for more food. He didn't know what he wanted--ah, had to grab spaghetti sauce--but he knew he needed more food. Eating out all the time was starting to get to his digestion. "I don't feel a need to be with people all the time. I don't mind being alone."
    "But this isn't being alone," protested Atty. "This is depression. This is hiding yourself in the hole of your apartment and hoping time and television will bury you there." Atty grabbed Luther by the shoulder and stopped him, looking in his face. "I know I'm not the most sensitive or thoughtful angel around--Divine Chuck sure doesn't expect me to help people out with counseling duties--but even I know this is bad for you. You look bad. You look sunken and wan."
    "Wan?"
    "Another vocabulary word."
    "Oh, I got it. I just don't know that I look wan."
    "And sunken. When was the last time you looked in a mirror?"
    "This morning."
    "Really?"
    Luther opened his mouth, thought, and closed it. Had he looked at himself? He couldn't remember if he had. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he'd looked at himself. After more than a millennium, he knew how he liked his hair--simple and ignorable--and he had no illusions about what his face looked like. A little old, a little gray on top, and what else was there to see? Wrinkles, maybe--even angels get a few after a while--but what need was there to keep track of every little change? And who would he be trying to look good for? Not his former boss, certainly. Heartbreak Hal had stopped paying attention to much of anything over a hundred years before. It had been up to Luther, then, to step in, to take care of people. Hal kept giving out the divine power for miracles, so Luther kept performing them. But you didn't need to look good to hand out miracles. No need to be dashing or fashionable to make someone's feet feel better, ease their back pain, make their hips ache less.
    "I guess I don't know the last time I looked at myself."
    "It's because you don't know who you are."
    Luther wrinkled his forehead. "But if I didn't know who I am, wouldn't I look in the mirror more often?"
    "You do know I'm talking metaphorically," said Atty.
    "So was I. Feeling comfortable with who I am would mean I would need to keep checking on myself less, not more."
    "Oh, you knew who you WERE, but you don't know who you ARE. Not now. You were the guy who took care of people and who had no life of his own.”
    "I had a life."
    "What?"
    "I did stuff."
    "Such as?"
    "Fifteen years ago. I took a break and got another degree."
    "The degree was in what?"
    "Why does it matter?"
    "Tell me, or I start singing Abba."
    "I'm not a fan of Abba."
    "Dancing Queen--"
    "Okay. It was in Theological Philosophy."
    "So work related."
    "Anything wrong with that?"
    "Not at all. Luther, I'm not trying to say that who you were was bad. Just the opposite. I thought you were awesome. That's why I wanted to be your friend in the first place. And why I didn't let you drive me away."
    Luther was about to argue that he hadn't tried to drive Atty away, but that would have been a lie. "I'm not very good at making new friends."
    "I could tell. Which is why I made friends with you. Don't kid yourself. It was like trying to hug a cactapus."
    "A what?"
    "A cactapus."
    "There is no such thing."
    "Isn't there? I could have sworn there was some demonic creature out there called a cactapus."
    "No."
    "Fine. Doesn't change the point of my story. Your work has been your life for at least the one-hundred years I've known you, and I was okay with that. Totally supportive, in fact, because you were good at it, dedicated, helping people, and I admired that. Plenty of time for a life outside of work later, I figured. Well, now you're definitely outside of work. Where's the life?"
    Luther started pushing the cart again. "I'll find it."
    "Where?"
    "I'll take up cooking." He grabbed something and tossed it into his cart. "I'll learn how to cook that."
    "Scouring pads?"
    "Is that what I put in?"
    "Yes. Cleaning aisle."
    "Darn it. No, don't put those back. I need to clean my bathroom. Also, I think I'm starting to see your point."
    "Which is?"
    "I have no life."
    Atty sighed. "That wasn't my point at all. My point was that you had a wonderful life, all due apologies to Frank Capra, but it was all defined around one thing. Now you get to redefine yourself. It's like the universe has conspired to offer you a midlife crisis, free of charge."
    Luther wrinkled his nose. "Do I have to buy a motorcycle?"
    "Only if you want to."
    "Do I want to?"
    "See what I mean? Here," said Atty, dropping a box of snack cakes into the cart.
    "Do I like those?"
    "Stop it."
    "But you said I don't know who I am, so I'm not sure if I like Twinkies."
    Atty was laughing. "Knock it off."
    "I would, if I knew whether I wanted to knock it off or not. I'm so confused."
    "Fine," said his friend, holding up his hands in surrender. "I get it. You're done talking with me about this. I can take a hint."
    "Can you?"
    "When you smash it into my face like a cream pie, yes. Can I ask one more thing, though?"
    "Have I ever been able to stop you?"
    "No. So I'm asking. Will you talk with someone about this?"
    Luther looked into his cart. Twinkies, corn cereal he didn't want, scouring pads, cannelloni, and one bottle of spaghetti sauce. And Atty's energy drinks. Did he really want any of this stuff? Distressingly, he didn't know.
    "Yeah. I'll talk with someone."