I know she gave her human body as a reason of her airheaded-ness, but the fact that the person in charge of the universe says “pasghetti” still worries me.

“So,” God says, popping my thoughts like a balloon.“Do you finally agree?”

“What?” I ask, as we walk side-by-side towards the mall’s food court.

“To be my bodyguard, of course.” She perks up when she sees the Panda Express kiosk. “Oh! I love pandas!”

“Listen God, earth sucks. The best thing for you would be to go back to heaven…you do live in heaven, right?”

“No, I live in hell.” She says this with a completely straight face.

“Uh…”

“Ha! That was sarcasm! Pretty good, right?”

“Sure. Anyways, maybe it’s time to go home, don’t you think?”

“Silly child, I made plans to stay for a year, remember? I want to learn all the joys of being human!”

“Driving, and sex. There. Now go home.”

“But I’ve been spectating for eons! I wish to experience all the joys first-hand, but those naughty demons are going try and kill me!” She grizzles.

“How is that my problem though? You’re the one who sent them to hell. And what’s the point of becoming human if you’re gonna give yourself special blood-

“Teni!” God swiftly turns to face me and grabs both of my shoulders, her golden eyes tunneling into the cavities of my soul. “Don’t look now, but there is some kind of creature watching us, he’s directly behind me. I’m not positive, but I’m almost certain it’s a demon.” She “whispers”, even though I’m positive all of Georgia heard her.

I look behind her, only to be met with the view of a man wearing a Ron McDonald costume unceremoniously buying waffle fries from a Chic Fil A kiosk.

“Yeah, that’s literally just some guy in make-up.”

“Really?” She turns back to look at the clown, and when he realizes two random teenage girls are staring at him, he awkwardly waves. “Wow! See? This is why I became human, your kind have so much culture!”

“Yeah, well, I already brought you to the mall. That’s like the pinnacle of culture. Can I go home, now?”

“My chiiillddd!” She whines, shaking me back and forth. “Don’t leave meeeee!”

“Please stop shaking me.”

She stops shaking me. “Look, my child,-”

“-My name is Teni-”

“-Heaven is great, but I’ve lived in that city since the dawn of time. I want to experience earth. Despite the fact that there are creatures after my life, I want to go birthday parties, ride roller coasters, visit those places with the beautiful women and pole wrestling.”

“Pole wrestling…you mean a strip club?”

“You get to strip?!” She yells, and I have to hurriedly place my hand over her mouth. Though that does nothing to ease the looks we get. Next to us, a mother wheels away her baby, shaking her head at the promiscuity of teens these days.

“Not so loud! Also, not us, the ‘beautiful women’.”

“But they’re wearing clothes.”

“Hardly.”

“…I’m confused.”

“Forget all that!” I urge, “Now, why do you need me for all this? You’ve been following me around like a damn duckling for days, and not a single ‘creature’ has attacked you yet. Can’t you just get on a bus and go explore by yourself?”

“I’ve tried purchasing journeys on a bus through the exhange of hugs, but the results have proved…inconsistent.” She says, not at all answering my question.

“Inconsistent? Hold up. You mean it’s actually worked?”

“Why yes. Although I was under the impression that when humans hug, their arms stop at the waist. And I had no idea so much squeezing was involved.”

“Uh…squeezing?”

She furrows her eyebrows and tilts her head. “Interestingly, he didn’t seem quite as jubilant when I squeezed him back. I wonder why.”

I sigh. “Maybe you really do need a bodyguard. But listen, why does it have to be me, though? I assure you, I’m ill-equipped.”

She smiles and rubs my shoulder, “No, child. Samson’s spirit has merged with yours, you have his strength, speed, combat experience. Your resistance to pain has increased, your senses, durability, you’re essentially a new breed of human. That’s the power of divinity! And you can harness that power even further with discipleship. You can go from being a Seargent America-”

“-Captain America-”

“-To a Superman! My dear child, even without Samson, you have more strength than you know.”

“That’s great. Truly, I’m moved beyond words. Except, wouldn’t it have been wiser for you to have given Samson to a soldier or something? How about choosing someone who’s actually read the bible in the last five years, for instance? I don’t think you understand how unsuited I am for this job.”

“I do. Jesus told me explicitly.”

“And you didn’t follow his advice because…?”

“…I cannot remember.”

I groan and roll my eyes. What sort horrible crime did I do to deserve this?

Okay maybe that’s a stupid question, but still.

“Look. Do you trust me, child?” God asks, once more gazing into my soul.

I respond immediately. “Absolutely not.”

“Thank you, so if you trust me, then that means you have to believe in me, and my logic.”

I sigh for the umpteenth time this week. “…God, what is that called?” I ask, pointing to a bowl of pasta on the promotional screen of an Italian Cuisine kiosk a few meters away from us.

She gasps. “Ah! I love pasghetti!”

“Thank you.” I nod. “Have a nice day.”

I’m about to turn away and leave her there when a feel something long, scaly, and distinctly moist wrap around my waist at an alarming speed. I barely have time too look down at what’s touching me when I’m raised several meters high and flung away like a piece of paper.

My body tumbles through the air, the breeze wailing in my ear somehow drowned out by the pounding of my heart. After a few moments, my black slams into a pillar with so much force that multiple clods of saliva shoot through my lips. After falling face-first unto the ground, for feels like hours I don’t move, I just lay there. My bleeding nose pressed against the pavement as I try to figure out where all the oxygen on earth fucked off to.

Around me, I hear screams of all kinds, elderly women, kids, mothers, fathers, even an unfortunately familiar, smooth voice calls for her child, but I still don’t get up. Partly because I’m in a shit-ton of pain, but also because I’m wondering what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.

“MY CHILD!” A deep voice booms, resonating throughout the entire mall and sending precious air rushing back into my lungs. I for some reason know in my heart it comes from God, but it sounds nothing like her. Chalking it up to hitting my head too hard, I rise and am greeted with the sight of a naked, humanoid creature with crimson skin, wings, and a long wriggling tail. The beast has wet, scabrous skin, and in place of hands it has long, tusk-like extrusions poking out of it’s wrists.

The monster’s back faces me, but I can tell it’s looking down on God, who looks back without a lick of fear on her face. When she notices me staring at her, she smiles.

“Ah! Here’s your chance to practice your abilities!” She says, as the demon slowly turns to me. “Don’t worry, back in heaven, I talked with Spartacus and André the Giant, the last two people I gave Samson’s spirit to-”

Turning back to God, the beast uses his tail to pick her up by the neck.

Completely unphased, the deity keeps talking. “-And they said the key is…to…the key…is to…clench and ….and unclench!” She struggles to keep speaking as the monster squeezes her neck with his tail.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

My body is completely frozen. I was wholly under the assumption that I would get Samson’s bravery as well, for if or when something like this were to ever happen, but now my heart pounds even louder in my ears, and beads of sweat poke out of my neck like whack a moles. God looks at me expectantly, but she didn’t see the yellowed, jagged spikes adorning that thing’s mouth, the horns in place of eyes, the squealing writhing, leech-like protrusion where a nose should have been. Not the way I did.

“Wh…why can’t I move?” Breaths once again become scarce. “God, why can’t I fucking move?!”

God doesn’t talk, her eyes roll to the back of her head, as she too loses oxygen, albeit for more gruesome reasons. Her legs stop struggling, and while I stand there and watch like an idiot, her entire body’s just about to still when a man who’s either brave, stupid, or both, charges at the monster, tackling it to the ground.

“You damn, alien! Get off that woman!” He yells. In their tussle, the beast’s tail releases God , who falls to the ground in a gasping, pink-faced heap.

The man struggles with the monster for a moment, but it becomes clear who has the upper hand immediately when the beast pierces it’s tusk into the man’s face, the back of his head breaking open as the top, now bloody half of the tusk pokes out. Chunks of brain matter, blood, and flesh, squeeze out of the opening like play-doh through a cookie cutter.

My throat dries instantly. What was it God had said? Wrench and unwrench? Stench? Bench?

“My child!” God croaks, her voice is raspy, but this time it’s hers. I turn to see her standing up gradually, her golden eyes stabbing my brain. Right now, she doesn’t feel like an airhead. She feels like God.

“Samson, Spartacus, Andre?” She says, “They all tremored, too.”

My lips quiver. “What did they do?”

She smiles, and at once, a small ember of hope lights up in me. “They clenched, and unclenched, Teni.”

The monster charges at God, this time pushing her to the ground. It raises it’s tusk and brings it down, but God shifts her head to the right, nearly avoiding the same fate as that man.

Fate that I could have prevented.

Before I know what I’m doing, I tighten the muscles in my legs and release. Like a bullet, I pelt forwards, and my knee slams into the side of the monsters face. Upon impact, it screeches as it’s launched forward by about ten meters, before crashing into a Chick Fil A kiosk. Ron McDonald yelps and rightfully runs back to the McDonald’s booth.

“Uh…y-you okay?” I ask, pulling God to her feet. “What the hell is that thing? Don’t tell me it’s a-”

“Yep. That was a demon. Fairly low-class, you should have no trouble killing it-ah!” She leans down and steals a french fry from the ground. “I’ve always wanted to try this!”

She throws it into her mouth, and moans at the taste. “Hmmm, humans really are their own God’s. Ah! I don’t have to pay for this, do I? Surely this isn’t the time for hugs!”

Ah, so she’s an airhead again.

Loud screeching startles both of us as I turn to see the demon flying towards me at terrifying speeds. I don’t have time to react before it’s eye-horns dig into my shoulder as it carries me with it’s momentum. It takes a moment, but the horns eventually manage to break through my skin, spewing blood, before both of us crash through a pillar and hit the ground with a concerningly loud thud.

We roll on the floor for a while, but once we stop, the demon removes it’s horns from my shoulders, and turns to God, completely disregarding me.

In that pocket of a moment, I’m enraged. I’m tired of being too scared, tired of freezing at the wrong time or running away. I’m tired not being enough.

So for God, for Jireh, and for myself, I grit my teeth and hastily rush to my feet as the demon shrieks and flaps it’s wings. It begins to fly towards God, when I clench the muscles in my arm. Ignoring the screaming of my shoulder, I grab the demons tail before it can get out my reach. Then I spin, taking the monster with me. It’s face smacks against pillars, walls, and shatters glass, before I finish the 360 degrees of my turn and let go of it’s tail at the same time that I release the tension in my arms.

The demon is flung forward at a velocity I didn’t know was possible, crashing through several pillars and tumbling through various tables and chairs before battering into a Subway.

God bounces on her toes and yips. “Well done! I’m so proud of you, would you like for me to pay you in hugs?”

Despite how genuine and warm her excitement is, I tell her the truth.-

“Fuck no.”

Yes, it’s true that not a single part of me wants to spend another waking minute with this demon-magnet, but I also know I can’t relax just yet.

The beast confirms my suspicions when it rises slowly, but steadily. It shakes its head, presumably to clear the fog, before it’s eye-horns zero in on God.

“My child, “ She reaches into her blazer and pulls out the still-as-beautiful-as-ever sword she showed me a week ago and gestures for me to come and take it. For a minute, I’m about to applaud her for her resourcefulness when I realize that my life would have been a lot easier if she had whipped it out five minutes ago, or say, I don’t know, used it herself, considering she seemed to be more familiar with it.

Regardless, the demon is faster than me, and as it dashes towards God, it flicks the sword away with its tail and swings his tusk at the deity.

The sword flies upwards and lodges itself in the roof multiple floors high at the same time that God rears backwards, just a hair-breadth from having two separate face-halves.

Almost as if it knows I’ll come to God’s aid, the monster’s tail flicks towards me and slams on my midriff, sending me spiraling injured-shoulder-first into another goddamn pillar.

The demon then descends on God, and the two fall backwards. Before it can bring down both tusks, however, God wraps her arms around its shoulders, temporarily immobilizing the demon. The two of them scramble to either regain or maintain control of the situation, and I’m impressed at God strength, especially coming from her dainty figure, but I know she has but a few moments before she becomes a holy-kobab.

Growling through clenched teeth, I increase the tension in my leg muscles and take a round trip around some of the pillars, running faster than I’ve ever moved in my entire life, in a car or otherwise, making my way around tables and chairs, all in an attempt to gain momentum.

By now, the demon had wrestled free of God’s embrace, and it watches me as I run. Realizing what I’m doing, it’s tail periodically wraps around tables, trash cans, and chairs alike, throwing them all at me like large, fatal baseballs. I maneuver around most of the projectiles, but then I see a particularly large table zooming towards me.

The veins in my legs bulge as I leap unto the airborne table. Then I disharge the stored energy and shoot upwards like a blackass rocket. A boom resonates through the food court, and as my feet fly off the airborne table, it shatters into a cloud of planks and splinters.

Tearing through the air, my body flies several floors high, and or the first time in a long while, I whisper a prayer of thanks to God. I thank him, or I guess her, for having the food court be the only part of the mall with no direct ceiling over it, such that I don’t have to smash through pavement to get to the damn sword.

By the time I do get close to the ceiling, I’ve just about lost my momentum, so with another growl, I outstretch my hand as far as it can go, and thankfully, my fingers wrap around the leathered hilt of the blade. As soon as that happens, the sword is dislodged with a yank and envelopes itself in a warm, radiant, glowing flame. One so mesmerizing and majestic that I feel unworthy just by being near it. The flame almost seems to absorb the light around it, making the mall darker while at the same time acting as a light source.

Gravity does it’s job, thankfully, and both me and the flaming weapon fall to the ground at fearsome speeds. I look down to see the demon flying up towards me, spike-teeth and nose-leech bared.

“MY CHIIILLDDDD!” God screams with her own, syrupy, divine vocals.

Both the flames of hope in me and the ones coating my sword begin to burn brighter, louder, with enough might to shake me to my very core, as my clothes dance to the tune of the air current.

I raise the blade as I fall and when the demon and I meet, I shove it into it’s stupid ugly face, and it screams and writhes in response.

The two of us hurtle towards the earth as a roar overtakes my lungs and pushes it’s way out of my mouth. My voice doesn’t belong to me, it’s deeper, heavier, though not to the level of the one God used before. This voice belongs to someone who has seen years of battle far more intense than this.

It’s then that I realize who it belongs to. I see it in God’s eyes, even from 10 meters up. This time, when she had shouted “my child”, she was talking about Samson, and for some reason, perhaps the thrill of being a part of something bigger than myself, it does nothing but stoke the flames in me.

When the demon and I slam into the ground, a golden explosion of blood and fire exhale from the point at which we clash with the floor. Pushing the tables, chairs, civilians, and a certain teenage girl-shaped deity back by several meters.

In the glory of the moment, when the emotions of victory swell in my heart, by brain rests.

----------------------------------------

When I awaken, my head is resting on God’s lap. We’re back at my apartment’s flyspeck living room and she’s smiling down at me like a proud mother.

“I never want to see you again.” I croak.

She combs her fingers through my weaves. “Silly child. You just killed a demon. Don’t you have bigger, more philosophical questions?”

I’m thinking that she might have gone back to smart-God-mode when the bitch sneezes on my face and giggles.

“Sneezing is so cute.” The bitch remarks, “I wish celestials could do it.”

I get up from her lap and stagger towards my equally massive kitchen to get some paper towels, my joints feeling like they’re layered with cement. But then I remember that that my right shoulder is supposed to be burning. Instantly, I turn to God.

“What the hell did you do to me?”

She tilts her head, quite angelically I must reluctantly admit. “What do you mean, my child?”

“My shoulder. There’s supposed to be a hole in my shoulder.”

“Oh, why I healed it of course.”

“You…you can do that?”

“Child, I’m God.”

“What’s your favorite pasta?”

“Pasghetti.”

“You’ll have to excuse me for not realizing you’d be useful to me in some way.”

God hangs her head backwards and laughs heartily for a few seconds. “Ah, of all my children you never cease to amaze me with your unmatched teasing abilities!” She wipes an actual tear from her eye.

Rolling both of mine, I walk over to the cupboard to pull out a box of pasghetti. “So what?” I ask, “You can just cure any injury I get?”

“Mostly, but I’m afraid it’s a bit limited. I can’t cure a severed limb, or bring you back to life, not in this human form. As a matter of fact, depending on the gravity of your affliction you might even get a permanent scar or indentation. Check, my daughter.”

“Daughter? That’s new.” I grumble as I pull the sleeve of my hoodie upwards to see a rumpled, taut, pink patch of skin where the demon had shish-kebabed me.

“Wow,” I say, “You actually healed me.” I move the arm around a bit, “Still kinda hurts though.”

“It shall fade. But if it will make you feel better, that make-up man that I thought was a demon was actually very kind. He even gave me some of his french fries after I hugged him. And he didn’t frown when I squeezed!”

“…Why would that make me feel better?”

She says this with a genuine smile, like she believes it with all her heart. “Because you love me.”

“Sure. Anyway, God? You’re great. Truly. But I’ve been thinking, ever since I woke up ten seconds ago, now that I’ve done it, I’ve got to be honest, fighting demons ain’t really on my-”

“Who’s Jireh?”

I freeze.

“…How do you know that name?” I slowly turn to her.

“Well, you said it a lot in your sleep. Is she your friend?”

I say nothing, because my brain is inundated with a playlist of Jireh-sounds. Her laughs, her jokes, her moans, her screams-

“I’ll do it.” I wipe my face with the towel.

“Pardon?”

“I’ll be your bodyguard.” My mouth says, going against my will and better judgement.

She looks confused for a moment, as if she has no idea what I’m talking about. But then I think she remembers that she’s God and public enemy number one for demons, because then her eyes widen and she jumps on me in an overzealous hug.

The two of us collapse unto the hardwood floor of my lousy kitchen, and the deity showers my face with kisses.

“Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouuuu!”

“Ugh! Get off me!”

One month later, I still consider that day to be when I first officially plunged into this shitty job, with the only form of payment being God’s useless hugs. Which I definitely don’t take.

She often tells me that saving God’s life is my reward, but I know good and hell well that the second convenience store clerks stop accepting her hugs in exchange for Doritos, I’m getting rid of her, stat.