The Brummie Connection

In which things became a little less clear

Israfil and Lilith sat in the police car eating doughnuts and drinking soda. There was something very peculiar going on and it required the highest amount of discretion and cunning in order to figure it out. Two fat policeman sitting in a Ford Taurus eating doughnuts was certainly discreet. Unfortunately, it lacked in any serious amount of cunning.
“I can’t understand it. 12,000 years it’s been. 12,000 years….” said Israfil like a bemused child. He kept sliding down his seat and having to push himself up again as if gravity was something that happened to other people.
“I know exactly what you mean Phil” said Lilith equally bemused. “Something has changed. I can feel it. A shift in the spacio-temporal lattice whats-it.” She flicked her hair back like a L’oreal model fresh out of the shower. Contrary to what she thought, it was not an attractive site. Phil looked at Lily with a pained expression.
“Please don’t do that again Lily. No wonder humans think you eat children.” said Phil only half-jokingly. ‘Anyway, where was I? Yes, 12,000 years my alarm has done exactly what it was supposed to and let me wake up when I want, keeping silent as all good alarm clocks do. And this morning, shock and horror, the damned thing goes off. I mean seriously. You would think it was the end of the world or something.”
“I know right. I haven’t had the urge to visit Earth since they started counting their years forwards.” She said scientifically. “And yet today I had a compulsion to come up here. And that also to England of all places. Could you think of a more depressing place than Birmingham in winter? I know I can’t. What sane thinking demon would spend Christmas in Brummieland?
“OK calm down Lily dear” said Phil, and then under his breath, “I can’t believe I used to fancy you.” “I heard that you fat oaf” replied Lily coolly. “So what I have put on a few pounds. You are no model yourself sunshine.”
“I need to be able to get enough air in my lungs to blow my trumpet,” said Phil defensively. “You try killing the entire human race with one blow of a trumpet. Not to mention bring them all back to life again. Some people just do not appreciate….”
“Shush. He’s on the move” said Lily interrupting Israfil. An inebriated man in his mid-forties staggered out of the C**k and Bull almost hitting the lamp post outside the pub. He missed it by a whisker, grabbed the post with both hands and swung around like a bad Fred Astaire impressionist. All that was lacking was the rain, an umbrella and someone who could dance.
“You called me down here to watch a drunk Englishman stagger home. You must have been really desperate to see me” said Israfil cheekily.
“I am telling you the hyper-spatial temporal probability lines are all centred on this guy right here” replied Lilith hearing the lack of conviction in her own voice. “Is he…talking… to that lamp post?” The two beings watched the man have and lose a one sided argument with the post, shake his fist and then continue on his way.
“He is getting away, follow him” said Phil. Lily looked over at him and rolled her eyes.

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John Paul was drunk. This in itself was not a problem. In fact, it was the opposite of a problem. It was a solution. The only solution. The final solution. And this is exactly what he was telling the lamp post outside the pub at this moment in time.
“You know. Yesh. You do. I see the way you look at me accusitory…accusingately every day when I leave the C**k. You think I am a loser.” The lamp post looked at John Paul accusingly. Its light flickered. It was the closest thing it could do to show agreement. “But today I finally won the jackpot on the fruit machine…three times. So screw you lamp posht”.
As John Paul staggered down the street, he got the feeling he was being watched. He tried to surreptitiously look around him and ended up sprawled in a heap on the pavement. He put his head in his hands and saw the face of his child. His beautiful angelic dead child. And he wept.

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“Should we go and talk to him?” asked Phil. He felt pretty silly asking this question to a demon. Why would Lilith, eater of children, console a grown crying man? Predictably he got no response. He looked around and felt suddenly very nervous.
‘Hey, is it just me or are we being watched?” said Phil more to break the uneasy silence than to get an answer. In fact, an answer was the last thing he wanted.
“No you idiot. It is our brethren watching him” she replied indicating the male slumped on the pavement ahead.
“Who is that tall ominous looking figure over there in the darkness?” Israfil pointed further down the empty road at a dark silhouette waiting just inside a dark alley. He got the impression it would remain a dark silhouette even in broad daylight and in this he was right.
“That is Kali, otherwise known as Death,” said Lilith, her tonguing snaking out of her mouth in a kind of lisp as she said the final word. “This is getting more and more intriguing”.
“Death?” said Phil. “We have angels to deal with that sort of thing”.
“You are so behind current events Phil. It used to be the relevant side would collect the soul of the good or the damned on passing but it was such a waste of resources. So around 4,000 years ago we outsourced Death to Kali, the Indian Goddess. It was a move well ahead of its time. Humans have only just caught up.”
“So why are your side, my side and Death Herself watching this human? Seems like overkill if you ask me.”
“I have no idea to be honest. Like I said…”
‘If you mention the hyper spatial lattice network thing again I will leave. It’s a load of nonsense you know. Our kind has never needed it before and now here you are with your…science” he said. If words could be spat, this one would be an ant swimming pool on the floor.
“Whatever you say, Israfil. Anyway the human is getting up.” Had John had his wits about him he would have been quite disturbed to see a police car that looked like it belonged in a 1970’s cop show following him at a distance of 50 metres and going at the same straight line speed as himself, which was very slow indeed. But in his present state he could muster about as much wit as a 3 million year old amoeba before it had worked out how to split and replicate. John entered his house and slept. The angel and demon sitting in the Ford Mustang also slept. Well first they had sex, then smoked a cigarillo, then they slept.

Author's Note

Is this going in a good direction? All feedback welcome