“There.”
Mr. Osbourne dug the tip of Gungnir into the earth before the gods.
“I slew a demon, something no mere mortal could do. I even forged its broken spirit into a spear as a trophy. Evidence.”
The gods muttered to each other. No, they hadn’t considered stipulating that several hundred other mere mortals might help the one mere mortal in question. The God of Accounting made a note to fire whichever one was in charge of stipulations. He thought that was Apollo.
Mr. Osbourne stared at the gods.
The gods stared back at him.
“Well? Pay up.”
The gods grumbled. Then they checked their pockets. Each kicked in a twenty. Eventually the plate rounded over to Rufus, who smoothed out the bills, put them in his money clip and stowed them in his jacket.
“Pleasure betting with you, pantheon. But I didn’t go through all that for money. I remember something about Helios’s chariot?”
The gods looked at each other. Sleep toed the sand, chewing on his bottom lip. Death shied away from him.
"Dude. Helios is going to be so mad at us."
Mr. Osbourne raised his voice. "Didn't we have a bet? Or should I take it up with Zeus?"
Sleep muttered, “It's parked next to Mercury. You have it for the weekend. But please don't ding it up!”
The mortal thought for a moment.
"What'll you give me if I don't?"
I really like these. They're very clever, and it's fun to get different bits of the story from all these different angles.
ReplyDelete