Mercury Falls (29 page)

In a dingy gray pub on a dingy gray Tuesday afternoon in Cork, Ireland, a demon called Eddie sat, forgotten by the Universe, nursing a pint of Guinness. It had been nearly a year since he had last talked to Gamaliel, and he could only assume that his supposed savior had gotten too busy with his scheming to make the call to the higher-ups at the MOC.

"Figures," he muttered to no one in particular.

The worst part was, he had actually begun to enjoy the visits from Gamaliel. And now, not only had Gamaliel disappeared, he had lost contact with Harry Giddings as well. Eddie was more desperately lonely and bored than he had ever been before. Gamaliel's presence had given him some hope that there was some reason for him being here; now he was once again faced with the prospect that his exile on the Mundane Plane was just a cosmic accident. It was almost too much to bear.

The pub door swung open to let in a blast of cold, damp air, and along with it a pudgy, bespectacled man who appeared to be in his mid-forties. The man carried against his chest a large, brown, accordion-style folder wrapped in a rubber band. He let the folder hit the bar with a thud.

"Bloody paperwork," said the man. He signaled the bartender for a drink.

Eddie grunted his assent. One thing Eddie did not miss about working for the MOC was the interminable paperwork.

The man accepted a pint of beer from the bartender and, after taking a few sips, sighed heavily and removed the rubber band from the folder. Out of the folder slid a massive stack of papers, perhaps seven or eight hundred pages thick.

"Bloody paperwork indeed," said Eddie, with renewed sympathy. "What on earth is all that?"

"Report," said the man, who was now thumbing through the pages, evidently in search of something.

"Did you write it?"

"Did I. . .goodness, no. It's bad enough I have to read the damned thing."

"And have you?"

"Have I what?"

"Read it."

"Oh. Well, you know, it's not something that you
read
, start to finish. A lot of it is reference, you know, and footnotes. A ghastly number of footnotes. And appendices. Something like thirty-seven appendices. It's not something one, you know,
reads
."

"Why was it written if nobody is going to read it?"

"Well, as I say, it's a sort of reference with, you know, an annotated chronology, cross-referenced glossary, and several hundred pages of recommendations."

"Recommendations for what?"

The man sighed. "The organization I work with has become aware of certain
irregularities
. Violations of protocol, that sort of thing."

"I see," said Eddie, who didn't.

"Yes," said the man. "Rather serious violations. Things not being done by the book. Not entirely on the up and up, as it were."

"Right," said Eddie. "Irregularities, you might say."

"Precisely," said the man. "Irregularities."

"And these irregularities," Eddie went on, "they're a serious problem."

"Well," said the man. "Well. You've got to have, you know,
procedures
. Things have to be done in a certain way."

"Of course," said Eddie. "Because if they're not. . ."

"Yes, exactly," said the man. "If they're not. . ."

"Things wouldn't be entirely aboveboard."

"Absolutely," said the man. "Not aboveboard."

"So this is a report on how the appropriate procedures were not followed?"

"Correct."

"With recommendations for additional procedures?"

"Yes, exactly. And footnotes."

"I see. And you think the footnotes will make all the difference this time around?"

The spectacled man's eye moved slowly back and forth between the mountain of papers and the pint of beer several times before eventually settling on the beer. He drank deeply.

"Here's the problem as I see it," said Eddie. "People don't want to read some dry, long-winded report with thousands of footnotes. People hate footnotes."

"What's wrong with footnotes?"

"They're satanic."

"No!"

"Yes. Footnotes were invented by Lucifer in 1598 to prevent anyone from reading the fine print in the Edict of Nantes."
¹¹

"Really?"

"Really."

"So what do you suggest?"

"What you need is a narrative."

"A narrative?"

"You know, a story. Are you familiar with the Warren Commission?"

"Should I be?"

"They're the group that investigated the Kennedy assassination."

"Oh, I saw that movie with Kevin Costner. That was the one with the magic bullet that changes course in midair."

"Exactly. You remember the movie because it was a story. Even if it was a contrived and fantastically inaccurate story that completely glosses over Nixon's apprenticeship with the demon Moloch."

"Er. . ."

"The point is, if you want people to pay attention, you need to give them a compelling story with likable characters and a satisfying resolution."

"So. . .no recommendations?"

"No. At least nothing explicit. Everything has to arise organically from the story."

"Can I tack a moral on the end at least?"

"Absolutely not. I mean, you can try to wrap things up a bit in the final chapter, and maybe hint at some overarching themes, but no moral."

"But how am I supposed to boil everything in this report down to a single story? There are hundreds of individuals involved. Each one of them has a story of his or her own."

Eddie reached over to the pile of papers, jamming his thumb into the stack about halfway down. He divided the stack in two and slapped the top stack upside down on the counter. Then he ran his finger down the exposed page until he hit a name.

"Here," he said. "This is your main character."

"Mercury?" said the man. "But he's just a minor player. He had almost nothing to do with. . ."

"Doesn't matter," said Eddie. "Wrap the story around him. He's your hero."

Eddie split the text again, finding another name.

"And this one. Christine. A woman, right? Perfect. Maybe start off with her and introduce her and the reader to Mercury about eight chapters in."

"Wow," said the man. "You're really good at this. Are you a writer?"

"Something like that," said Eddie. "I'm in something of a lull right now, but I've done a fair bit on the Ottoman Empire."

"Ah, so you're familiar with this sort of bureaucracy, then. What with the diwans and viziers and all."

"Oh, well, you know," said Eddie, a bit sheepishly. "My work was mostly conjecture."

"Tell me," the man said, "considering, as you say, that you find yourself in a bit of a lull, would you be interested in helping me out with this report?"

"Er, I'm afraid I'm actually on a sort of retainer. . .My employers have a very strict policy. . ."

"Your employers have you assigned to an important lull, do they?"

"The thing is, I'm actually expecting. . ."

"Expecting what?"

"Well, I've been waiting. . ."

"For what?"

"Nothing, I suppose. I've actually been let go. I keep thinking that someday they will call, but I suppose I should accept that it's never going to happen."

"So you're free then?"

"I'm free."

"Wonderful. I'll go get the rest of the report from the car."

"The
rest
of the report?"

"Oh yes. This is only the introduction."

Speechless, Eddie turned over the stack to look at the cover page. It read:

"Hold on," said Eddie, his mind reeling. "Are you with the MOC?"

"I'm a little higher up in the bureaucracy."

"The Senate?"

"Higher."

"The archangels?"

"Look, Eddie. I am who I am. Are you going to help me out or not?"

"So this organization. . .it's. . ."

"The angelic bureaucracy itself. Heaven. Hell. All of it."

"Does this have something to do with Gamaliel's schemes? The bit about the Apocalypse?"

"That's part of it. I need someone to tell the higher-ups the truth of what happened over the past few days. I need, as you say, a compelling account."

"Why me?"

"You're vaguely familiar with the events, but you're not directly involved. Besides, I like to work with unknowns. It's sort of my thing."

"But I don't really know anything. I've been stuck here in Cork."

"No worries," the man said, patting the ream of paper. "Everything you need to know is right here. And in six boxes in my trunk."

"I see. And if I want to do some investigating of my own, you'll make sure I have access to everybody I need to talk to within the bureaucracy?"

"You're welcome to talk to anyone you like. I'll even make sure you're able to communicate via Angel Band. But I'm afraid I can't vouch for you. My involvement has to be off the record."

"And to whom am I presenting this report, exactly?"

"You should address it to the High Council of the Seraphim, but you can give it to anyone who wants to read it."

"I'm afraid I'm a bit rusty in High Seraphic."

"English should be fine."

"I suppose they will want it in anapestic tetrameter?"

"Whatever you feel comfortable with."

"No footnotes, though. I won't do footnotes."

"Actually," said the man, "I'm rather fond of footnotes. Maybe just a few?"

"How many?"

"I was thinking forty."

"No way," said Eddie. "I'll give you ten."

"How about twelve? I've always liked the number twelve."

"Fine. Twelve footnotes.
¹²
How will they know I'm telling the truth?"

"They won't. That's why your account has to be compelling."

"Do I have any guarantee that anyone will read it?"

"None."

"This has got to be the worst assignment I've ever heard of."

"Worse than whiling away eternity in a pub in Cork, waiting to hear from a bureaucracy that's forgotten all about you?"

Eddie sighed. "All right," he said. "I'll do it."

"I thought you might," said the man. "Oh, and be sure to use your real name. None of this 'Eddie' business."

"Right."

Eddie pulled a weathered notebook and a pen from his jacket and began to write:

"Perfect," said the spectacled man. "I'll go get the rest from the car."

Photo by Julia Kroese, 2006

Robert Kroese's sense of irony was honed growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan—home of the Amway Corporation and the Gerald R. Ford Museum, and the first city in the United States to fluoridate its water supply. In second grade, he wrote his first novel, the saga of Captain Bill and his spaceship
Thee Eagle
. This turned out to be the high point of his academic career. After barely graduating from Calvin College in 1992 with a philosophy degree, he was fired from a variety of jobs before moving to California, where he stumbled into soft ware development. As this job required neither punctuality nor a sense of direction, he excelled at it. He continued to write in his spare time, and in 2006 he started his blog,
www.mattresspolice.com
, as an outlet for his absurdist wit. Around the same time, he was appointed to be a deacon in his church, and this juxtaposition of roles prompted him to create the character of Mercury—an acerbic, antiestablishment angel who is well-meaning but not particularly well-behaved. Kroese lives in Ripon, California, with his wife and two children.