The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 146: Love Thy Neighbor. Won't You be Mine?

Chapter 146: Love Thy Neighbor. Won't You be Mine?

At the end of the 1960's, at time when the culture twisted from its growing pains, there was a hearing in the States. Nixon wanted to slash public television funding by half and people paraded before a very stern, abrasive senator to plead the case not to do so. Each found themselves pontificating to a brick wall, briskly dismissed by someone who had better things to do with his time.

But then came a gentle man with a gentle voice, who normally wore a sweater. The senator almost rolled his eyes. "Let's get this over with."

His attitude quickly changed.

The gentle man spoke of a ten-minute speech he'd prepared, and clearly he needn't read it. He was very polite, but to the point. He spoke of children, and the power of words. Of teaching children the skills of self-worth, self-awareness, self-help, self-control. And you could watch the senator's scowl drop. "You have your 20 million," he said.

And as the cheers went up and the crowds eventually receded, an angel and a demon met in the lobby. As they walked they spoke.

"So, you came to thwart me, did you?"

"Those were my instructions."

"Why did you wait until the last minute like that?"

"I didn't do anything....did you?"

"No. Humans are amazing, aren't they? Needed no help from me."

"I was certain you had it in hand, at first. But you kept making the nastiest faces at that senator. Like he was stealing your thunder."

"Or showing just how thick he was."

"And then you looked at me, as if you were expecting something, and I thought, well, if the humans are doing this thing maybe they can get themselves out of it."

"You have more faith than me. If you didn't act soon—"

"—I was hoping I wouldn't, but, well, if I had to—"

"—if you didn't pull something out of your angelic ass soon, I was going to go against type and do it for you."

"Truly, Crowley, where is your faith?"

"Meh. Faith. Was nearly out of it for a while. Until someone threw me a rope, recently." The angel blushed and looked away. "So, I kept waiting. And that man with the gentle voice...woh."

"Convincing orator, is he not?"

The demon shivered. "He made me feel something I haven't felt in a good long while. Anywho, nippish?"

"After that, certainly." The angel smiled to himself. He didn't tell the demon he felt a wave of love coming from the place. He was riding a high.

But, he wondered about Crowley, and what he felt. As they walked out the building, the demon hummed the ditty the gentle man had recited. And as Aziraphale mused on it, listening to Crowley vaguely put words to the tune, he wondered where the demon would have picked up the notes of the song, when the gentle man had not sung them:

It's great to be able to stop
When you've planned a thing that's wrong,
And be able to do something else instead
And think this song:

I can stop when I want to
Can stop when I wish
I can stop, stop, stop any time.
And what a good feeling to feel like this
And know that the feeling is really mine.
Know that there's something deep inside
That helps us become what we can.
For an angel can someday be his own person
And a demon can someday fall again.