(Open on Jaq's apartment living room, Ami plopping down on the couch and Jaq sitting in a chair)
A:(tiredly) I need a break. It's been too long since I just relaxed. I'm supposed to be an ever-present, evermoving unstoppable force, but that is never sustainable. Never has, never will. It's about time I slowed down and enjoyed life. Like chocolate milk. I always put it off and then put it off again, then the milk spoils and no one eats chocolate cheese. Why don't people eat chocolate cheese? You have chocolate ice cream, and chocolate milk, but not chocolate cheese? Or yogurt? Why?
J:(incredulous) I don't know. But more importantly, you haven't had chocolate milk yet?!
A: I haven't had time, Jaq.
J: Ami. You. Can. Pause. Time. YOU HAVE INFINITE TIME!
A: I can't pause time. I can slow time down to a fraction of a fraction of a percent speed.
J: Same difference.
A: Well I can't rewind time either, so I can't go back and have chocolate milk earlier.
J: You never thought to, did you?
A:(defeatedly) No, I didn't.
J: Well, luckily, I happen to have some this time. (Gets up to get some from the fridge)
A: So you won't jump off the roof for the foreseeable future?
J: You are nigh-omnipotent, so foreseeable is very far for you.
A: No I'm not.
J:(surprised) You're not?
A: No. Did you think I would have thought of pausing time if I was?
J: Fair point. (hands Ami a choccy milk and sits down with their own)
A: (Starts drinking) Holy shit this is good! How did I miss this?
J: I still don't know. It's been around for over 5 centuries.
A: Really? Wow. (Continues chugging)
J: You know there isn't an infinite amount of that, so you can't drink it like there is.
A:(snaps and finger guns the fridge) Now there is.
J:(In disbelief) Did you really just-?
A:(extremely smug)) Yes, I did.
J: How?
A:(Utterly bamboozled and very sarcastically) How did I, what most people would call god, do something minorly miraculous?
J: Now that you point it out it sounds dumb, but I acctually have no idea what the limits of your power are.
A: And you never will.
J: Why?
A: I'm mysterious like that.
J:(after a long pause of suspicious looking) You don't know either?
A: Nope.
J: How? You haven't tried enough dumb shit to figure out your limits?
A: I don't have to try something to know I can't do it, I just have to think about it and I'll know, but, as you've seen, I don't think that out of the box that often.
J: Is that why you started talking to me? For ideas?
A:(almost offended) No! You looked interesting and I was bored.
J: Do you mean hot?
A: That too, but everyone always looks hot.
J: Tis one of the best problems to plague society since the greek contraceptive flower,
A: Oh yeah! That was a good time. I missed a bit of it due to some "Dumb shite" on the british isles.
J: What were you doing there?
A: Stonehenge.
J: What was it?
A: A pissing contest with a local warrior. I won, obviously.
J: Over what?
A: His wives.
J: Why?
A: To give them to a goat breeder I had a bet with.
J: What bet was paid with how many wives?
A: We had a literal pissing contest and 4 wives.
J: Why did you pay with 4 wives?
A: Interest, the bet was almost a century before.
J: They were still alive?
A: They were one of the people who opted out of immortality after a while.
J: People did that?
A: Yeah, they got bored or sad or became a danger to other people. The goat breeder specifically was the inspiration for Highlander, and did much more murders.
J: Jesus christ.
A: We've already been over him.
J: How many people have opted out after having immortality and how many still have it?
A: Including you, 14 people are currently immortal. A total of 36 have had it granted.
So 22 decided life wasn't worth it after all.
J: Who's been alive the longest?
A: I granted someone immortality before farming was widespread and she lasted all the way to the 1940s.
J: That's reasonable, I guess as much as a suicide can be. What about still living?
A: Her wife. Chickened out of the suicide pact they had.
J: How old is she?
A: She was born in Hellenic Greece.
J: Damn. (after a moment of thinking) Ami?
A: (scared and concerned)Yes?
J: What were you doing in the 1930s and 40s, specifically in the middle european area?
A: Ah, shit. No, I wasn't a Nazi, if that's what you were asking. But I didn't really do that much against them either.
J: So you just watched the holocaust happen?
A: I regret it, but I didn't want to expose my existence to the entire world by accidentally doing something too obvious. (remorseful) I already made that mistake.
J: When did you do that?
A: The earth used to be pretty technologically advanced. Not as far as now, but they had developed stuff that y'all still don't have, although you now have little need of. And as with every civilization, they fought. I was much less experienced and much dumber. I got involved with a particularly big war that was leaving a lot of destruction in its wake, so I tried to play disaster relief. Wound up getting too cocky and trying to save people from out of trenches as battles were happening. Got spotted by both sides, multiple times, and they almost immediately called a ceasefire to try and capture me for science (Ami lifts up their shirt to show an autopsy-esque scar). They didn't find anything and accused each other of hiding discoveries and went right back to their war. I was so angry and petty, so I decided to still intervene, just (Ami starts getting choked up)... the other direction to what I had done before.
J: (concerned)Ami, what did you do?
A: Entire world now calls for peace until I'm "under control". I only got more and more bold as they tried everything they could. I was the price of world peace. Until I got cocky again, only this time they weren't looking to research me for new technology.
J: (a little more frantic)Ami, what did you do?
A: After I was captured, fighting continued. A guard took pity on me after a while. I convinced him to let me go in exchange for immortality. I omitted what fate lay ahead for the rest of the world.
J: Ami! What did you do!?
A: I- I- I-(Ami just starts crying) I-
(Jaq hugs Ami and gives her another chocolate milk. Neither speak for the rest of the day, beyond comforting words to Ami and gratitude to Jaq)
YOU ARE READING
Chocolate Milk
Short StoryAmi was sitting on a ledge, but is visited by someone they don't yet know. However, something strange makes them realize they are very may not be talking to who they first thought they were. Ami decides to make the most of the situation.
