God Plays Poker

Nina looked down at her cards and smiled. Aces over eights. . . her kind of hand. Even on her days off, she couldn’t escape the reality of her job. Like it or not, she was the Angel of Death, the Reaper of Souls, the Eternal Footman and all the other bullshit titles that were given to her office over the course of eternity. Garbage man was more like it. At least she had been able to keep her sense of irony. Death clung to her like an old wool sweater. It had been comfortable, but now it had really begun to itch.

“You mind turning on the air? It’s hotter than hell down here,” she said smoothing over her flowing red curls.

Trenton merely grumbled. “That’s because it is hell, smart ass,” he thought, as he jabbed his cigar back into his mouth. After two millennia of working in the abode of the damned, he already knew that it was hot. He didn’t need Little Miss Sunshine over there to remind him every week. As if the eternal case of heat rash wasn’t enough? Worse yet, he was losing a very important hand.

He looked at his cards and frowned, “Who dealt this crap anyway?”

“I’m afraid you did, hon,” Nina said, tossing a chip onto the pile. “I raise you one.”

“Damn, fine. Show me what you got.”

And sure enough, the Spice Girls were going to live for yet another week.

“Goddamn!” Trenton chewed fiercely on his cigar, “Why the hell do you keep those freaks alive? Geeze, even your boss wants them dead.”

Nina just smiled and took off her halo. “I know, I hate them too, but the look on your face when I win is just priceless.”

“Get thee behind me, Satan.”

Nina sighed and raked the chips across the large felt table. The dimly lit room swirled with the thick blue-black smoke from Trenton’s blasted cigars, causing her eyes to sting and water. She handled the chips in a crisp manner, clicking them down in neat stacks of tens, fives, and twenties. When all was said and done, another one hundred and fifty souls would pass through the gates of heaven. Not that it really mattered, though. Just yesterday she ushered over a thousand to the eternal flames. The bastards that she won back didn’t deserve salvation to begin with. They were just pawns. Souls gambled on for the entertainment of a glorified go-fer and a desk jockey. It was all a pointless game, and frankly, she was tired of it.

Every day it was the same old thing. Nina woke up at 5am sharp in order to beat the morning rush from heaven to earth. Ever since the Renaissance, road construction had become a real bitch. Lack of faith in the world had led to numerous bridge closings along the interdimensional highways recently, often reducing traffic down to one lane. If the commute wasn’t killer enough, she was responsible for gathering all the poor, departed souls of the world and taking them where they needed to be. Heaven or Hell, it made no difference to her. It was not an easy job to do in an overworked garbage truck.

Trenton rose and headed over to the fridge. “Well, there goes my Christmas bonus,” he said, popping the tab off his Nat Light before handing one to Nina. “I hope you’re happy.”

“To be honest, Trent, I’m not,” she said before pouring the rank liquid down her throat.

Trenton’s brow furrowed in mild concern, “What do you mean? I thought you always liked kicking my ass at poker?”

Nina didn’t respond. She just sat, blank faced and sipped her beer.

“Hell to Nina. Are you okay, Red?” Trenton said waving a large hand in front of her face.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Nina snapped back to attention began to shuffle the cards.

Trenton watched as the cards bent and snapped expertly between Nina’s fingers. She had been coming down to his place for over a century now and he found it surprising that he still enjoyed her company. After all, she was an angel. He was a demon. They were supposed to hate each other. That was the natural order of things. The war had been going on since long before he could remember and it showed no signs of stopping. But why the hell did he care? While all his buddies got to travel the globe combating the forces of good, he spent eternal nights locked in a small, stuffy office, staring at a damn computer screen crunching numbers. No vacation. No overtime. No hope of advancement. He was stuck. He’d kill himself, but that was impossible considering that he was already dead. The only thing that kept him sane were these weekly card games. Every Friday, Nina would come down after she got off work. They’d sit, drink beer, chat, and play cards. At least for one evening he could forget about the reports and his mundane existence and just concentrate on enjoying himself--a very rare occurrence in hell.

Nina finished shuffling and dealt the cards. “You won’t believe the kinda crap that’s going down in the next coming century. I mean it’s going to blow your mind. Those humans sure have a self-destruction complex.”

Trenton didn’t even flinch. “So what, it can’t get much worse than this. My paperwork has already gotten me backed up until Tuesday. Jesus, it’s a wonder that I’m listening to you prattle on here instead of being back at the office.”

“Since when did you develop a sense of duty?”

“Since we stopped playing cards. Are you going to ante up or what?”

Nina tossed another chip on the pile. “You think you’re busy now? Just wait till this shit hits the fan. Imagine this, orbital satellites that can burn a laser through the head of a dime, bio-engineered diseases that could make the ebola virus look like a skin rash, or how about legions of remote control killers that can vaporize an country with a wave of a hand.”

Trenton paused and looked up from his cards. “What kind of casualties are we looking at here?”

“Who knows? If the humans are crazy enough to use all this stuff on each other, then we could be looking at numbers that could rival all the wars to date-combined.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.” Trenton took a long draw from his beer.

“But in a single day?”

Trenton’s eyes grew wide as a fine spray of beer erupted from his lips. Searing pain dominated his senses as he could feel the carbonated yeast and hops make its way through his nasal cavity. “My fucking God!” he coughed as he reached for a napkin. “You got to be shitting me.”

Nina wiped the spit and suds from her eyes and shook her head, “I wish I were, my friend, but it’s all true. I managed to glance at the projections before I came over.”

“There goes my century.” Trenton slammed his cards down causing the piles of chips to dance helter skelter all over the table. “What the hell kind of outfit do you run up there?”

“Hey, don’t blame me. I hate it as much as you do, but I don’t call the shots.”

“Sure, but your boss sure does an awful job calling them. Why the hell doesn’t he put a stop to all this?”

Nina bit her lip nervously, “He can’t.”

“Whadda you mean he can’t?” Trenton stood up and stalked to the fridge. “You want another one?”

“Sure, Trent.” Nina took her beer and swallowed it slowly. “I’m telling you, he just can’t.”

“We’re talking about the same guy here, right? The same guy who created the heavens and the earth.”

Nina rolled her eyes. “Trent. . .”

“The same guy who created order from chaos, light and dark, land and water?”

“All right, Trent. . .”

“Were talking about the same fucking guy who let the Cubs win the World Series and you’re telling me that he can’t do anything to fix this?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

Trenton eyed Nina suspiciously, “What kind of god do you work for?”

Nina met his gaze and swallowed hard. There was no turning back now. “The kind that made a really big mistake.”

Trenton looked at his friend in horror, “‘Scuse me? Don’t you guys get killed, er, cast down for saying stuff like that?”

“Why do you think I’m telling you and not the big guy,” Nina snapped.

Why indeed. Trenton slowly massaged his forehead. He could feel the dull ache of confusion begin to rise behind his eyeballs. What does this mean? What was she trying to say? The last time someone talked like this, the angel Gabriel personally kicked her red ass out of heaven along with her buddies. Whatever it was, it would make great conversation around the water cooler.

Trenton leaned back and kicked his feet onto the table. From his shirt pocket he produced two cigars and gave Nina one before lighting his own. Taking a long draw, he exhaled a large plume of smoke and watched it mushroom over his head. He smiled, “So how exactly did the old boy screw up?”

“It’s pretty simple actually,” Nina sighed rolling the cigar between her fingers, “The whole mess wouldn’t have started if he hadn’t given them free will?”

“Free will?”

“Yeah, you know the ability to think for oneself, to be able to choose freely. Did you skip class that day to anally rape a goat or something?” Nina spat.

Though it pained him to do it, Trenton decided to let that last insult slide. He had better things to do than trade insults with a disgruntled angel of the lord. What she had to say was juicy stuff and he didn’t want to lose his opportunity to hear it. Choking back his pride, he said, “Of course, I know what free will is. But I don’t know how it fits into this whole mess!”

“God created all things perfect. No death, no disorder, no nothing. Everything was happy and harmonious. But he couldn’t keep control. He let a random element into the system.” Nina paused to light her cigar.

“That being free will.”

Nina nodded.

“Right,” she breathed, “He figured that they would toe the line seeing that he created everything for them--food, shelter, sex partners--the works. He assumed that they’d be so grateful that they wouldn’t mind worshipping him until the end of time.”

“Obviously it didn’t turn out that way,” Trenton interjected.

“No kidding. As soon as he turns them loose, they turn around and screw the whole thing up. Fuck god, they say, we’ll do whatever the heck we want, and look where it got them. Now the earth is going to hell in a handcart and guess who gets to clean up after this shitstorm.”

It didn’t take too long for the answer to dawn on him. “We do.”

“Correct again,” Nina sneered. “ He created us first. We didn’t have anything to do except drink good beer and watch football. That life was sweet until the bitch with the apple fetish came along. Now with the humans making happy little mischief with each other, we bust our tails at jobs we absolutely loathe because he didn’t have the foresight to prevent this fiasco.”

“By getting rid of the whole free will thing, right?”

“Exactly. No thinking, no questioning of authority. No problems”

Trenton sighed, and sipped his beer, “But now I’m confused. Why’d he give the humans free will in the first place?”

“The same reason he gave you guys free will. He did it out of love.”

Trenton rolled his eyes, “What kind of liberal bleeding heart, Hallmark drivel is that? Love my happy ass. You expect me to believe. . .”’

“You have to understand that love is his thing. Love has to be given freely. You can’t force anybody to love you. It goes against the entire principle. That’s why god gave us and the humans free will, so we could choose to be with him.”

“Only it blew up in his face,” Trenton chuckled, “What a dumb ass.”

Nina joined in, “Yeah, twice even.”

“C’mon, all Luci did was show a little bit of ambition. It’s not like she wanted to take his place. I really think he overreacted.”

“I know. Scott’s always been a little paranoid that way.”

An uncomfortable silence passed. Nina chewed on her fingernail nervously when Trenton’s curiosity got the better of him.

“So why are you telling me all this now?”

“I want to quit.” Nina said flatly

Trent’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You can’t quit. People can’t up and not die. You’re the Angel of Death, for Christ’s sake.”

“But I never asked to be.” Nina fiercely met her friend’s gaze.. “Why couldn’t I be the Angel of the Morning, or the Angel of Song? Instead I get stuck with a thankless job that keeps me up twenty four seven while I get to deal with every backward ass fuck on the planet. As far as I’m concerned, they can all go rot on earth..”

Trenton threw a wing around his friend. “It could have been worse.” You could have wound up like my cousin.”

“Why? What does your cousin do?”

“He’s the Demon of Stale Bong Water.”

Nina paused. “Ouch. I guess your right.”

Trenton crushed out his cigar and looked at the clock. It was getting late and their superiors would be checking in on them soon, “Got time for one more hand?”

“Sure. What are the stakes?”

“You know, the Olsen twins are due to start shooting their first action flick.” Trenton’s mischievous grin went from ear to ear. “Lots of opportunities for things to go wrong.”

Nina giggled. “Deal me in. I can’t wait till I plop those annoying little bastards onto the Almighty’s lap.”

Trenton grinned as he dealt out the cards, “What I’m saying is that we all got to do something. My job sucks too. At least we could suffer together.”

Nina smiled back, “As if we had a choice.”