C. C. Thorough

"Onnyeux, being that you are basically just a really shiny naked man I think we can actually work you into society with the rest of us normal folk. But also because you’re a shiny naked man we're not really aiming for suburbia high class. If anything we would place you in the sixties in a place called Castro street, then if you can get a ride over to New York for the seventies, eighties head over to Hollywood boulevard and in the nineties I want you to find somebody named Ru Paul. Follow her around for a decade and then lets meet back her, same time same place does that sound good.

"Excicentorum!!"

"Fantastic. As for a place of work, have you ever considered yourself artsy, maybe?"

" Hashaan pe'lecro de' artieste wyne abrov, Infernus me darpov ian unuum."

"Ok, I see how you might conceive that as artistic but that type of mentality is what we need to work on getting away from before going out into the world. You don't have the type of power where that can just fly anymore, sorry to say that, but you don't. And killing people who oppose you is no longer ""cool""...... ok?"

" Mmmmmm, Esti venum et' pargon astrono."

" Onny, if that's what you want to do, journey through space drunk, then do it buddy. You're retired, and you're certainly not dying soon. You have forever ahead of you. Should you choose to visit another time or crash into a moon on the other side of the universe, here at C. C. Thorough we say go for it."

"Optimi!!"

"I like that enthusiasm. So...... alright before you go on your way I need you to be completely on track with us as far as the rules of retirement. We find and help beings like you because we sympathize with your situation. We understand how hard it can be to loose literally everything that brought meaning to your life. Spending an eternity waddling around on the land you once ruled, a god with no religion. I don't know what happened to your followers but I sympathize with the fact that you lost them. But Onny, I need to be very clear on this one point..... no matter where, no matter when you end up...... you can never..... ever be a god again. Your religion has come and passed and that is that. We will send you out into the world free and clear but if we ever find out your recruiting, encouraging idolization, forcing idolization, building a shrine to yourself , bulding a church for yourself, we will send you back to where you came from. In that dark, dank temple in Venezuela. And we can do it. Not every ancient god retired, we have several in our service and it is a point of pride for us to utilize such powerful beings for our cause. Not a threat, but..... we've had our share of troubles before."

I go on for another few minutes and the decommissioned deity sits there patiently listening to all the rules. His shoulders slumped, eyes averted down. He's been alone for so long and now a tiny jewish lady in a Waffle house in New Jersey is fussing at him. Before his years sitting alone in the dark he held rule over million of Weiiani tribesmen. Proud savages with a God who paved their way though a fruitful forest that he created. Now he could hardly grow cactus. He came out of that cave much thinner, skin draped on bone and long dead muscle hanging from long gangly limbs. And from the golden statue of Onny my company seized as payment, he's lost a lot of hair too.

He hasn't touched any of his food, three blueberry waffles with a side of hashbrown and fried eggs all covered in hot butter covered in syrup, and neither has any other client I've met here. Something about the setting make them loose there appetites. I've never eaten here, I order coffee but I never drink it.

After I make the rules clear, and after he accepts them, we go over every question he has. My shift is almost over so I try to answer them simple as possible. Never oversteps any lines, extremely well mannered, a perfect gentleman. I doubt he was like this a millennium ago.

"Optimi?" I ask. He pauses and fights away the depression from his voice as he answers.

"optimi."

He gives me a hug and smiles. Drunk in space for as long as space exists. Getting tanned by each sun he passes laughing as hard as possible. He's only sad while he's in this galaxy anyways. As soon as he exits the door he's gone. By the time the door closes he's straddling an asteroid orbiting over mars.

"Next" I call.

An object in a trench coat and Yankee hat makes its way toward me. The junkies at the counter don't actually believe he's there and the waitresses are used to it. It drags a chair from the counter, because it won't fit in a booth and sits there staring down from it, down at me. Common choice of seating amongst the smug and once omnipotent crowd. It's here to vent, about it's long gone children, about the fake young roster of the beyond, and I, a broker of eternity, I am here only to listen and blaze a path into it's universe for it to follow. But first.

"Marry, can we please get a plate of blueberry waffles over here for this nice man?"