Concerning Angels and Coffee

seven

The first thing Dmitri had done, naturally, was put me in his place on coffee duty.

"It'll be a good thing for you to learn," he sighed.

Now, about three weeks later, some of his hearty warmth had returned, although it seemed a little forced and I could detect dislike glittering in his gaze whenever we made direct eye contact. He didn't trust me, and that rankled - as angry as I was with him and the rest of this screwy office of winged coffee addicts, I was determined to prove him wrong as to the fact that I was a witch. I'd be just as good as all the other employees - no, I'd be better than the other employees. I'd excel, and rise to the top and dethrone that idiot Dakota.

It had been a month since I'd died, and I found it odd that I hardly thought about my parents or my life in the Light City at all. No matter the way I was treated, I was beginning to feel at home here - getting coffee with the others, completing files on different people with Dmitri, practicing with the Difficult Dead Soul simulator to improve my customer service skills (I wasn't exactly doing too hot in that department, to tell you the truth). And every night, I went to barracks with the other angels, and listened to them tell stories of the Light City before my time, and the amazing things they'd witnessed in their years down here.

Turned out, angels did need to sleep, unlike regular dead, but also had an uncomfortably tight schedule - six hours a night, not a minute more and not a minute less. The punishments for oversleeping were harsh - coffee duty for the next day and a half, all shifts, and extra work doing whatever task you most hated - if it was coffee duty, then you'd get coffee for the next two days and a half. If it was customer service, then you'd get an extra day checking in dead souls. Hated filing? You'd get to spend a day sorting out files on the dead souls and their lives.

So far, I'd overslept twice, and both times had to spend an extra day in the Difficult Dead Soul simulator. As it turned out, embarrassingly enough, I had an amazing knack for organization with filing, as disorganized as I had been in life, and I did just fine on coffee duty, barely ever spilling - but I was absolutely abysmal when it came to dealing with people. Dmitri had told me so many things: I was too forward, I was too loud, I was too blunt, I was too argumentative, I was too easily agitated, et cetera, et cetera - and it drove me mad, but there didn't seem to be a way for me to fix it. I just couldn't work with people.

Now, after an exhausting hour dealing with a simulated dead soul who had shown up dead with a purse and actually tried to spray perfume in my eyes when we got in an argument over whether or not she was alive, I was lying on the couch in Dmitri's office, ready for a nap.

Then I heard the door open, and let out a loud groan.

"No sleeping on the couch, Cody. You've got to remember that one, at least. You have a practically photographic memory for everything else I tell you," he chided.

I gave him a long eye roll, which he returned, and then sat up.

"Coffee time."

"Oh no, again? I thought you did it once a month!"

"Unfortunately, we have to cover your shifts as well as mine. Three weeks ago, you did my coffee duty shift. This one is actually yours."

I sighed deeply, and then looked around the room. It was the opposite of the way I'd first seen it - not a trace of coffee to be seen other than the seven empty mugs lining his desk. A bookshelf in the corner, the L-shaped desk with chair, a couch, a filing cabinet - absolutely nothing coffee-related other than the remnants of his own consumption.

"How are we supposed to...get to that room?" I asked.

"What room?"

"The room where you made the coffee. Y'know...the room that you were first in, before your office was an office."