Darling, you have never seen a mess quite like this one. Imagine the most boring man in the world. Now, give him a polyester suit that smells like wet dog and a job looking at tax forms. That was Victor. He was so sad that even his shadow looked like it wanted to leave him. He lived in a tiny apartment with one fork and a plant that had been dead since the late nineties. His only goal in life was to find a mistake in a spreadsheet. It was tragic: truly, deeply tragic.
Then there was Troy. Troy was a demon, but not the scary kind with fire and pitchforks. He worked for the Bureau of Minor Inconveniences. His entire career consisted of making people drop their keys down storm drains or making sure their socks always had one hole in the toe. He was a disaster. He once tried to haunt a kitchen and accidentally baked a very lovely lemon cake. The bosses in Hell were not happy. They gave him one last chance: act as a guardian angel for Victor. If Victor died, Troy would be turned into a pile of sentient office dust.
The stakes were high, and Troy was sweating like a rotisserie chicken. He hovered over Victor’s shoulder in the middle of a busy street. Victor was staring at a pile of papers, walking straight toward an open manhole cover.
“Look up, you beige little man!” Troy screamed, but Victor couldn’t hear him.
Troy didn’t have “angel powers.” He only knew how to be annoying. He reached out and tied Victor’s shoelaces together. It was a classic move. Victor tripped. He hit the pavement with a sound like a wet sack of flour. His papers flew into the air like confused pigeons. He missed the manhole by an inch.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Victor groaned. He scrambled to grab his papers. He looked like a panicked pufferfish. He didn’t notice the piano falling from the third floor window.
Troy panicked. He saw the piano. He saw Victor. He had to act fast. He couldn’t make a shield of light, so he did the only thing he knew how to do: he made Victor’s nose itch. It wasn’t just a tickle. It was a violent, deep, soul-shaking itch. Victor let out a sneeze that sounded like a gunshot. The force of the sneeze kicked him backward.
*Crash!*
The piano hit the sidewalk. It exploded into a million wooden teeth and wire guts. Victor sat there, covered in dust, staring at the spot where his head had been a second ago.
“Well,” Victor whispered. “That was quite a breeze.”
Troy was hyperventilating. This was supposed to be easy. But Victor was a magnet for doom. The man walked back to his office, and Troy had to follow. The office was a gray cube of misery. Victor’s boss, a man named Marcus who had the personality of a brick, walked over.
“Victor,” Marcus barked. “I need those audits. And why are you covered in piano parts?”
Victor opened his mouth to speak, but Troy saw a heavy filing cabinet leaning dangerously behind Marcus. If it fell, it would take them both out. Troy leaped into action. He didn’t have much juice left. He looked around the room. He saw a coffee mug on the edge of a desk.
He flicked the mug. It didn’t just fall: it zoomed. The coffee hit Marcus right in the crotch.
“Gah!” Marcus screamed. He jumped back, his face turning a delightful shade of purple. He bumped the filing cabinet, but instead of falling on Victor, it tilted the other way and slammed into the water cooler.
The water cooler burst. A tidal wave of lukewarm water flooded the carpet. People started screaming. Someone slipped on a donut. The office turned into a giant, wet slip-and-slide.
Victor stood in the middle of the chaos. He looked at Marcus, who was dripping wet and holding a soggy tax form. He looked at the water rushing over his sensible shoes. For the first time in ten years, something in Victor’s brain clicked. He didn’t look sad anymore. He looked confused.
“Is this… a party?” Victor asked.
Troy was hiding behind a copy machine, his tiny red horns glowing with stress. “No, you idiot! I’m trying to save your life!”
But Victor couldn’t hear him. Victor saw a floating stapler (Troy had dropped it in a panic) and started to chuckle. It was a small, rusty sound at first. Then it grew. He started to laugh. He laughed until his face turned red. He laughed so hard he folded like a card table.
“It’s all nonsense!” Victor shouted. “The taxes! The piano! The coffee! It’s all a big, stupid joke!”
He walked out of the office. He didn’t even take his briefcase. He walked right past Marcus, who was trying to dry his pants with a stapler. Victor felt light. He felt like he was floating.
Troy followed him, exhausted. He was supposed to keep Victor safe, but the man was now skipping down the street. Skipping! It was a scandal. Victor went to a park. He sat on a bench and watched a squirrel fight a pigeon over a crust of pizza.
“Life is beautiful,” Victor said to the squirrel.
A large, heavy branch cracked above him. It was thick and jagged. It was aimed right for Victor’s head. Troy groaned. He was out of ideas. He didn’t have any more “minor” tricks left.
“Fine,” Troy hissed. “Let’s go big.”
He didn’t tie shoelaces this time. He didn’t make noses itch. He reached out and pinched the reality of the park itself. He made every single person in the park suddenly feel like they had a rock in their shoe.
Everyone stopped. Fifty people simultaneously bent over to shake out their shoes. The movement was so sudden and so synchronized that the branch fell, hit a woman’s umbrella, bounced off a trash can, and landed perfectly in the grass three feet away from Victor.
Victor didn’t even blink. He just watched the umbrella-bounce with wide, happy eyes.
“Magic,” Victor whispered.
Troy slumped against a tree. He was finished. His tail was limp. His little suit was ruined. But he looked at Victor. The man wasn’t staring at spreadsheets anymore. He was looking at the sky. He looked like he actually wanted to be alive.
The Bureau would probably fire Troy anyway. They didn’t like “happy” endings. But as Troy watched Victor buy an ice cream cone and accidentally drop it on his own shoe (a final, tiny gift from Troy), he realized something. Being a guardian angel was just like being a demon, but with better lighting.
Victor licked the top of the ice cream that hadn’t hit his shoe. He smiled. He looked like a man who had just won the lottery, even though he was covered in sprinkles and park dust.
Troy sighed and adjusted his tie. He had a human to watch over. It was going to be a long, loud, and very messy life. And honestly, darling? It was the best show in town.