Seven -Prodigal

"Look, I thought we agreed we were just going to have a nice lunch. That's all!" sloth pounds the table with his empty coffee cup. The other five look slightly embarassed. Gluttony puts his arm around Sloth's shoulder.

"I mean, it's nothing personal, but you did start it."

"Start nothing! That guy fell asleep! That's all! He was tired, he fell asleep. Now we're the only people in this fucking diner, and why? Because every other person is outside fighting for no reason!"

he was right. They were alone in the diner, seated around two pulled together tables.it was a not unpleasant place, although deserted. Greed sips his complimentary water nervously, and Gluttony absentmindedly chews on a plate.

Pride swallows a hearty mouthful of apple pie and gestures at Sloth with a stray "freedom fry".

"Look, we're still getting used to this, ok? It's been a while since we've all been together like this. Have a little more coffee, you'll feel better."

"Fine." Sloth sighs, "Waitress?"

he looks around.

"Where the hell did she go?"

Greed clears his throat nervously.

"I believe she may be... Um... Outside, fighting with a customer over a tip. Sorry."

"Just fucking great." Sloth leaves the table, heading towards the pot of coffee behind the counter.

He stops, staring out the glass door.

"You."

the door opens.

Lust is everything everyone wants. She can be a man, a woman, or anything in between. The "in between" is Lust's native form, beautiful but sexless, a kind of active transitive. Don't think about it too hard, or you'll begin to find things you like in that murky beauty, and Lust will already have become what you want, the gender of your choosing.

Lust is picky, however. She is not satisfied with "He" or "She." That's why Lust tracked down a man trying to create a universal language a few years ago, and persuaded him to create a new set of pronouns. Spelled, they seem strange, foreign, Ze and Zir, the rogue z's slashing heavily across the page, but spoken, correctly, with a little growl and a little hiss they are as seductive as anything that ever passed zir lips.

Ze enters. All eyes swiver to greet her. Ze's used to that. Ze's just generally used to less... Hostile gazes, excepting of course when a rapist finds himself stalking more dangerous prey than he could ever imagine.

"Im back." Ze smiles, revealing a mouthful of perfect white teeth, daintily pointed and scrupulously maintained. "Happy to see me?"

Sloth takes a huge gulp of coffee, straight from the pot, and, after glancing back at the table, wraps Lust in a hug.

"Hope you weren't expecting a fatted calf from them or anything." he whispers in zir ear.

"I can handle them, don't worry."

"Are you kidding? That's why I'm worried."

they separate, and Sloth takes his seat. Lust takes zirs, smiling at Wrath.

"You saved me a seat? Thanks."

"Old habits.... Die harrrrrrd....." it growls.

Gluttony pauses, halfway through a fork. "So, um... Hungry? I didn't eat this." he offers zir an untouched cheeseburger.

"No, I had a.. Meal on the way."

Envy sighs, inspecting her nails after removing the thick gloves she's been forced to wear. "Ill bet you did. So, now that we're all here, maybe Pride can tell us what he's been cooking up in that thick head of his."

"Comments about my head aside, we've got some problems, folks. Up the creek. In deep shit. Trouble out the proverbial wazoo."

Nods.

"This, as far as our superiors go, is the end of the line. For whatever reason, this," he slaps a book down on the table, a bible. It's open to the book of Revalations. "begins now."

"We all know that. But how long has it been since any of us were down below? Contracts, hell, we were sent here as punishment. We finally make it good, I mean Greeds got all the money in the world, Sloth's got his little time wasting video game, Gluttony owns fast food- we're finally living the good life, and we're expected to fight to end it?" Envy is seething now, white heat burning away stolen retinas.

"Respectfully, I'm gonna ask you to chill." Pride gets up. "It may look bad, everyone, and maybe if this was going on in heaven, or hell, we'd be screwed, but it's going on here, our Earth. We've got home field advantage, we're entrenched, we got resources."

Greed smiles. "That we have. So what's the first step?"

"We fuck with heaven's PR."

-Locke and Peter