God leaned back in the chair, surprised again that it didn't roll with Him when He shifted His weight. The view from this side of the desk was quite different and He wondered how long it had been since He had taken a moment to appreciate His office from this perspective. He also noticed a crude etching. How long had that been there, he wondered. It must have been some time; it was in cuneiform.

Somehow, God couldn't bring Himself to look the accountant in the eye. The old man's delicate, wiry frame looked downright comical in God's majestic office chair. Fidgeting, God considered catching up on some sort of work that wouldn't require sitting in his His His usual seat. There was some mail He could catch up on. But the desktop was already cluttered with thousands of pieces of paper, and God didn't feel like contributing to the chaos. So God fidgeted.

"Where were the aught-three receipts again?" the accountant squeaked.

God gestured to a plaid-print shoebox. "Though I think there might be some aught-four in there, too."

The accountant picked up the forms on top of the shoe box and suspended them in the air, searching for a safe place to put them. God extended a hand and the accountant coldly passed them over. God examined the papers only briefly, quickly determining that even if He knew what purpose they served, He couldn't possibly have cared.

"There's some nineteen-aught-three mixed in here," the accountant grimaced. "That would've been nice to know last week."

God gave a tight-lipped nod. "Well, I do work in mysterious ways, you know."

A bit of levity. The accountant smiled and began sorting.

Labels: short stories