it's a piece of chalk, actually

[unblinkered]

Parking on the street at Brenda's is full. It's what he gets for showing up for the 7:30 rush, instead of his usual 6AM. He takes the Volvo around to the back parking lot- the one that's not connected to the road, where you have to drive over the curb. It's... probably a parking lot. It's paved, after all. It's on the coffee shop's property. There's no "employee only" signs, anyway. There is, within reason, room to park a car. Maxwell Wax is sure the management will understand, if they even leave their room long enough to notice.

Hm? Who's this? Some kid in a hoodie, smoking a cigarette behind the building. He's standing right in the way of... what looks more or less like a parking spot, off to the side of some graffiti on the ground. He honks at the kid, who panics and drops his cigarette. Wasn't even lit. Did him a favor, in Max's opinion. He knows firsthand how bad those things can mess you up. He watches the kid round a corner, and pulls into the probably-parking-space. 

He hears a snapping sound as he pulls in. Must've run over the cigarette... do cigarettes go "snap"?

In his rearview mirror, he sees nobody standing on top of the graffiti, and then abruptly sees somebody standing on top of the graffiti. There is no transition between these two states.

Comments

[from_scratch]

"There are demons but no sign of a Lucifer, angels but nowhere to leave a message for God, and fairies but no evidence of a Titania - well, that's not technically true, fairies form political units and some of those probably have queens and I can't guarantee you that Titania wasn't named after one, but anyway."

[unblinkered]

"Sure, not as such, but... demons? Fairies? Angels? All with their own special magic powers, in their own special worlds, without... without any plausible evolutionary mechanism to account for them? It's all so... storybook. And all I've got to explain storybooks, for now, is storytellers. If there are demon natural historians with other explanations, I'd love to meet them."

[from_scratch]

"The ones I've heard of don't take summons. And they tend to come off more like philosophers than anything, and they're damn shaky on mortal science in most cases... I remind you that there is significantly a sense in which demons are just what we are called."

[unblinkered]

"You are immortal people with bat wings and magic powers that you summon with magic circles. You mentioned angels literally live on fluffy clouds. I'm going to call that close enough to raise suspicion."

[from_scratch]

"They live in the fluffy clouds. In sort of caves in the clouds. Since the fluff goes on forever in all directions. Are you familiar with how long humans have had written language? And the ability to draw circles? It's been longer than the lifespan of any religions with which you are familiar."

[unblinkered]

"Oh, no, did you think- I didn't mean... lord, not at all, I didn't mean God, that'd be- that'd be- I'm not- I meant, it seems likely that these things exist as a product of... some sort of deliberate engineering or manipulation by someone, at some point in history, not... did it sound like I was implying that the whole time?"

[from_scratch]

"No, I get that you're leaning Creationist, I just think you have the causality backwards, I don't think anybody invented angels because they thought having angels around would be peachy keen, I think someone met an angel and that concept leaked."

[unblinkered]

"And the concept leaked... to bats? To people in general? If the visual similarities... well, I suppose that'd be a history thing, you could ask a daeva if they looked like humans before humans existed."

Max spaces out for a moment.

"And, and, and the book-making thing, there's definitely an intelligence there, if not a creator intelligence- there's..."

He looks up.

"...I don't suppose you give a damn?"

[from_scratch]

"How many ways to have wings do you think there are? Also, just to totally confound you forever, demons and possibly really patient angels can make animals. They come out really stupid if they're more complicated than, like, snails, but we can still do it. I'd be fascinated if I thought there was a non-negligible chance that the creator you're postulating could be prevailed upon to do anything useful or was going to mess up my life in some way, but... no sign of such inclinations."

[unblinkered]

"Oh, come ON! They can make- you can make- that's not! That's completely going to mess up...! That's not fair! How is that allowed? Goddamn... bats are probably..."

Max sits down on the trunk of his car and buries his face in his hands.

[from_scratch]

Cam appears a butterfly on Max's knee. It opens and closes its wings.

"Are we done here?" Cam wonders.

[unblinkered]

"...Yeah. Yeah, we're... I guess, could I get some gold, or something? And then... you go... change the world, or whatever."

Max flips through his notepad again, skimming the instructions. They look real enough, demon's probably not lying. Demon's probably not lying. But they're just called demons, right? But... that's what a demon would say, if it wanted you to trust it.

...egh. If it's a trap, he's hardly going to ignore it and walk away.

[from_scratch]

"Sure, just make sure you sell it before the market collapses. How much you want and shaped how?"

[unblinkered]

"It would do that, yeah. Uh... want to pay rent for a while, probably... a couple gallons of wedding bands would probably be easy enough to hock. Just, uh... drop 'em in the backseat there, maybe?"

This almost feels like an irresponsible use of demon-summoning. Max isn't sure what a responsible use of demon-summoning would be, but it isn't that.

[from_scratch]

"Sure. Plain, not engraved Lisa heart Trevor or stamped with designs or anything?"

[unblinkered]

"Uh, plain, thanks."

Max stares incredulously.

"...it's like ordering a burger. This is a drive-thru demon summoning. Would I like fries with that, yes, thank you very much. Will that be cash or credit or your immortal soul?"

[from_scratch]

"I can't actually take your soul. But consider not spreading that fact around. The only time it would be relevant would be if I were dickish enough to get a kick out of demanding it and my summoner were desperate enough to take a deal like that."

Two gallons of wedding bands are now in the backseat of Max's car. And Cam presents him with a small order of piping hot French fries as a flourish.

[unblinkered]

Max takes the french fries and stares at them for a moment. He waits for the situation to sink in, feeling that there ought to be something significant about this moment in his life. And all that sinks in is 'boy, these smell delicious'.

He takes a bite. It is very tasty. He sighs in disbelief.

"I'm lovin' it."

And then- "Wait- when did you die, again? You might not- the joke is- McDonalds got a slogan a while ago, it's..."

[from_scratch]

"I died five years ago, but I can conjure up newspapers. Those are not, however, McDonald's fries."

[unblinkered]

"Clearly. They don't taste anything like shoelaces."

There's a brief silence. He looks around.

"So... what now?" he asks the demon, and also himself, and the universe in general.

[from_scratch]

"If you're done quizzing me, I fly to Florida. And hope that whoever drew most of this circle isn't going to try again and get somebody less friendly next time."

[unblinkered]

"...Disneyworld rides less fun in comparison to the flying thing, d'you think? And... yeah, I'm going to want to wait around for that whoever-they-were, stop them from... summoning someone who can... I assume demons are more dangerous than the other kinds because... you can make nukes, or antimatter, or something?"

[from_scratch]

"There's nothing like really, properly flying. We can't do antimatter straight up, although we can make all the equipment you'd use to generate the stuff the long way around. Nuke's easy. An angel could do a nuke too, but they'd have to actually know how they're put together."

[unblinkered]

"Mm."

He gets up and opens the car door. Bunch of gold rings, check.

"So I guess... you can do your thing, and I'll... try to summon some fairy scientists, I guess. Thanks for..."

He gestures at his notebook and the gold rings, then taps his head.

"...for all the... stuff."

[from_scratch]

"Sure, you're welcome."

Cam unfurls his wings.

And takes off, gaining altitude until he's plausibly a bat who's drunk too much coffee.