Elmer slouched behind the counter, his eyes drooped from the countless nights he stayed awake, the fluorescent lights above him buzzing in the same exact way that started to annoy him after twelve hours on his feet.
The restaurant's floor was sticky with the residue of half-forgotten meals, the mop bucket in the corner a permanent fixture rather than a solution. He was always watching the same neon "Value Meal" signs flicker. He knew every regular who came in. He knew every order by the squeak of the register keys.
His head started to ache, he tugged at the sleeve of his uniform and lit another cigarette as he walked out of the establishment into the back alley.
Trash was piled up beside him into a large green garbage bin, the stench smelled of rotten food, but the smell of the smoke calmed him down, the smoke curled around his fingers before vanishing into the terrible, grease scented air. The smell of rotten fries and once grilled patties clung to everything, his hair, clothes and even the walls seemed slick with it.
"I'm so tired."
He couldn't care anymore, he couldn't bother himself. After three years of working tirelessly at fast food hell, nothing could surprise him. Not the screaming customers breaking into the kitchen, not the stupid influencers who would climb on top of tables and the bizarre things that his coworkers would do off the clock.
What did surprise him, though, was Grace.
She wasn't a witch.
Grace was the kind of coworker that made everyone smile without even having to try. She had that faint lilt in her voice, the kind that suggested that she was permanently halfway amused by everything, even the messiest drive through orders. Her hair was always a little messy, some strands falling over her glasses, and she had a nervous habit of tapping the countertop when the line got long. She was pretty, and she had the perfect personality, customers would just line up just to see her and chat. Elmer watched her, many times in fact, she carried herself with a kind of ease that made him jealous.
But today though, she was late.
Elmer exhaled, taking in the cigarette down to the filter, and stubbed it out beneath his feet next to the trash can. The smoke had barely left the air when the bell over the door jungled, he rushed towards the counter.
"I thought it was a customer, maybe some kind begging for a happy meal. But it's just her."
Grace walked in slowly, dragging her feet as if the floor was made of honey. He frowned, that wasn't like her. Usually she would dash towards him, full of energy. She smiled at him, but the smile wasn't right, it was unnerving.
"Hey."
Her eyes were wide, like she was seeing him for the first time.
"You're late, where did you go this time?" Elmer muttered, though there wasn't any bite in his voice.
[Something's wrong with her]
Grace tilted her head unnaturally, her tongue peeked from her teeth as she considered the registers.
His gut tightened, he wasn't the kind of person to get scared easily.
"I…. am here," she said. "To do what I usually do…..to do what humans do."
Elmer shrugged.
[What's wrong with her isn't my problem, having my coworkers act strange isn't very uncommon anyways, I've seen people screaming that the burgers were talking to him. Minimum wage isn't really worth it for the amount of shit I get put through]
He rolled a pack of cigarettes back into his pocket, flipping the register open.
"Right," he said. "Cash."
But it wasn't her.
Grace slid behind the counter, right beside him, her motions were far too smooth, too deliberate, too unnatural. Her hands hovered over the register buttons, tracing the edges as if she was learning a language from scratch. Her eyes, wide and almost didn't look human. Elmer leaned back on the counter and sighed.
"Jus-Just don't touch anything else," he said. "Just–cash."
"Cash," she repeated. The word was drawn out, melodic in a way he didn't recognize. "Money right?" Her fingers hovered over the buttons, then she slowly pressed one. She glanced at him, slightly tilting her head. "Why press?"
Elmer's eyes widened slightly. "You press it to…never mind that, just scan the food and you that little bell there?" He pointed at the small steel bell sitting on the counter. "And press it, and say the number out loud. You've got the rest of the day, I don't care how you do it."
She pressed the buttons anyways, slowly, deliberately, like she was tasting the concept of transaction for the first time. The sloth-like patience in her movements made Elmer sigh. He could feel the tension in his shoulders loosen.
"You sure you're fine?"
She turned towards him. "I think so," she said. Her voice had the same cadence but her voice was off. Thicker. Slower. Dreamlike. "It's interesting. Human interaction. So much friction between people."
[She definitely must be high, I wonder what kind of drug she's on. I definitely need to get my hands on some]
Grace smiled, but it wasn't quite the smile that she used to have. It was a stretch of her lips. Her eyes were scanning the registers, the ketchup packets, the customers' faces as if she was trying to map something. Her head turned towards him, staring into his eyes.
"Drugs? I'm rather curious on their effects, I heard that some humans are quite carried away by them."
Elmer blinked once.
Then twice.
[Did she really just read my mind?]
"Your human mind is not that hard of a barrier to break through."
Elmer paused.
"Who really are you?"
"I'm Belphegor, or as you humans worship me, Bleu...If you're wondering about your little friend, she's gone, I took over her soul."
"You mean.. The person of worship of the largest religion in the world? That one? The Primordial Witch of Sloth?"
"Largest religion? I didn't know I had that many believers. I was far too lazy to check." She looked at herself, her smile, a curve in the wrong place, the wrong muscle moving at the wrong angle. It was a smile that didn't belong to a human. "How curious, humans always exaggerate don't they? They build temples out of cardboard and call it devotion, they hand off gifts to measly gifts to statues of me expecting something in return."
Elmer stared at her flatly, rubbing his temples.
"So Grace is gone?" he asked, the words escaping without much emotion. "Like gone gone?"
Grace tilted her head again, the strange bird-like motion that didn't suit a human neck.
"Her soul has dissolved," she said. "Or melting. Or sinking. Or evaporating. I suppose that metaphors fail here. I'm more or less wearing her memories like a pair of clothes that you left on the floor. The thing is that I am still unable to fasten the buttons yet."
"Oh." He tapped the cigarette pack in his pocket. His fingers twitched with the familiar itch, but the store had a strict no-smoking-inside policy after that fryer incident last year. "I liked Grace," he muttered quietly.
She pressed another button on the register. The drawer sprang open with a cheerful ding, startling her. She leaned down and stared into it like it was an altar. "Money," she breathed. "A human concept. Is that why you do the dull task of remaining in one spot, patiently awaiting the coming of others to purchase sustenance?"
"I guess you're right on that end," Elmer replied.
The bell above the door jingled. A customer shuffled in, her eyes glued to their phone, headphones half-dangling, more zombie than anything else.
Grace perked up like a cat.
"A transaction is about to occur," she whispered.
The customer didn't notice the reverence in her voice. She tapped the counter.
"Yeah dude, lemme get a number 4, extra pickles and nun of that mayo," he said, scrolling on his phone.
"Pickles are just wet cucumbers are they not?" She turned to Elmer, delighted. "Humans personalize their rations, how poetic."
"Can you stop talkin, I just want my food."
Elmer sighed. "Just ring him up."
Grace did. Painfully slowly. She stabbed each button like she was chiseling a tablet. The customer waited, clearly regretting his decision to remain alive today.
Finally, she pressed the bell.
"Ten ninety-nine," she said cheerfully. "Hand over the cash, human."
The guy paid and shuffled toward the pickup counter, still scrolling.
Grace watched him go. "Eating while distracted," she murmured. "No ritual. No gratitude. Just consumption."
Elmer leaned on the counter. "That girl must be living quite comfortably, or probably unemployed."
"You humans seem to like to pry into each other's affairs for no reason. Do you not have anything else to do?"
"Yep."
Earlier that morning, before any of this, Grace had been humming to herself, balancing the deep fryer basket like a violinist cradling an instrument. She had smiled at a child who spilled ketchup on the floor, crouched down to help, her laughter light and airy.
"Do you need help?" he asked, worried about how slow she was serving the customers.
"I… do not know… need," she said. She looked at the word, as if tasting it. "But… help is… efficient?"
"Yeah," Elmer muttered. "If you want." He flicked ashes again, leaning against the counter like a man who'd given up on the world entirely.
She considered this. She considered everything. Her fingers hovered over the register buttons again, then pressed the same button three times, slowly. Elmer didn't correct her.
Over the next hour, he noticed small things. She didn't fidget. She didn't complain. She didn't hurry, but she didn't slow to a halt, either. She was present, fully, but her presence felt alien. It felt like watching a child learn how to write for the first time, or a bird attempting to walk upright on two legs.
Customers were bewildered but unafraid. They took her slow efficiency as eccentricity.
"Why are you even doing this?" he asked.
"Doing what… human?" she asked. Her voice stretched across the syllables like she was savoring them.
"Working here."
"I…work is…?" She tilted her head, her hair falling like a curtain. "Necessary."
"Or at least this body thinks so."
"Why are you even coming down to our mortal plane?"
"Boredom."
"Is that the only reason?"
"You humans spend your fleeting time here as inefficiently as you could, yet you put meaning on your pitiful lives, it was a curiosity that led me here."
"Yea I guess you divine beings have nothing better to do." Elmer said.
After the lunch rush trickled off, Grace leaned against the soda machine like she was observing an ancient well.
"You humans drink sugar water," she said.
"Yeah," Elmer said. "We do that."
"Why? Rather unhealthy compared to just normal water."
"Because it's cheap and it tastes good."
"Tastes… good?" She picked up a cup, filled it halfway with orange soda, then took a sip. The fizz startled her. She flinched and stared into the cup as if lightning lived inside it.
"You cage bubbles," she whispered.
"It's carbonation," Elmer said.
"It feels like insects trying to escape my mouth."
"Most people like it."
Belphegor took another sip. She paused. "It's interesting to say the least."
She took a very long drink, eyes closed, savoring the buzzing sensation in a way no sane person would.
Elmer checked the clock. Five hours to go.
His lungs were screaming for nicotine. He gestured toward the back alley.
"I'm taking a smoke break," he said.
She followed.
"I didn't invite—"
But she was already trailing behind him.
The alley was a cathedral of garbage. Dumpsters overflowing, grease streaks hardened like old scars, plastic cups flattened into confetti. A cat darted under a crate.
Elmer lit his cigarette. The first inhale hit his lungs like battery acid. Relief. Warm, stinging relief.
Grace watched the smoke climb into the sky.
"You poison yourself on purpose," she observed. "Such smoke will cause your little home to start boiling up."
"It's not poison," Elmer lied.
"It is," she said gently. "Your lungs are collapsing in slow motion."
"That's one way of putting it."
He handed her the cigarette on a whim. Not to share, she'd never asked, but to see what would happen.
Grace took it between her fingers, examining it like an artifact. She sniffed the burning end.
"Fire," she breathed, fascinated. "Very small fire. Personal fire. Controlled flame for self-harm. I've always wondered how you humans invent so much in such a tiny lifespan."
"Are you gonna hit it or—"
She put it to her lips and inhaled as if trying to drink the smoke entirely.
She gagged.
Then coughed violently, doubling over. The cigarette fell into a puddle.
"Disgusting," she wheezed, the air around her got heavier, the sky started to gray.
He stared up at the sky.
"I guess you really are a God."
Elmer snorted. "Yeah. But you get used to it."
Grace wiped her eyes. "Humans get used to suffering very quickly."
"Yep."
They stood there in the grime, the god and the cashier, sharing silence because they had nothing else in common.
Except tiredness.
She eventually spoke.
"You said I'm worshiped," she said. "Sloth. Laziness. Indolence. Humans call me many things. They ask me for love, strength and kindness, but they refuse to change themselves first and foremost, they believe that a single prayer will solve all of their problems."
"That's accurate," Elmer said.
"Your world moves too fast," she said, watching the alley lights flicker. "Even the air tastes rushed."
He took out another cigarette. "Tell me about it."
The shift dragged, as shifts tend to.
Lady Bleu was surprisingly competent at the register, slow, yes, but observant. Customers encountered her strange cadence and alien politeness, and most of them chalked it up to customer service burnout. Some even found her charming.
At one point, a woman with a stroller leaned in and said, "It's refreshing to see you without all of the fake glamor."
Belphegor smiled serenely. "I care deeply about the exchange of energy and the rituals of human nourishment."
The woman nodded as if that was completely normal.
Elmer didn't bother clarifying.
Hours passed. The sky outside blackened. The dinner rush arrived with its chaos — blue-collar exhaustion, kids screaming about fries, teenagers daring each other to order the spiciest wings. Belphegor drank it in like air.
"This is worship," she murmured during a lull.
"Huh?"
"You humans queue for food made rapidly. You trade in pieces of thin paper for calories. And then you sit in glowing rooms to consume it while watching moving pictures on glass rectangles. Ritual. Communal lethargy. It is sloth disguised as productivity."
Elmer raised an eyebrow. "You're kind of judgy for a deity of laziness."
"I never said laziness was a sin," Belphegor said evenly. "Only you humans did, we gods have no sense of right and wrong."
He paused. "Really? You gods have no morals?"
"You humans make up rules on what benefits you." She blinked unnaturally, one eye closing at a time.
"You say that the value of life is immeasurable yet you treat other animals of your own kingdom and other organisms as if they were beneath you all."
"They don't have the kind of thinking that we do."
"That's coming from a species that is barely smarter than the rest, it's not the universe talking, it's your pride talking. In my point of view, you all are the same, no life has more value than the other." She stared at him, the smoke rising into the sky.
"That's because you're a god."
"I guess humans will do anything to make themselves feel important."
It was close to closing when the last customer stumbled out. The place was finally quiet, save for the hum of the refrigerators and the buzzing fluorescent lights that seemed brighter when no one else was talking.
Lady Bleu stood in front of the register, fingers drumming lightly. The motion was familiar, Grace used to do that. Elmer watched without commenting.
"You're absorbing her memories," he said.
She nodded. "Slowly. They drift up like bubbles in a swamp. Childhood, dreams, embarrassing moments, people she liked, her films, her sadness, her plans."
"What plans?"
Bleu tilted her head, searching for language. "She wanted to make art about ordinary human suffering. She thought it was beautiful. She thought no one else understood."
Elmer blinked. Grace had never told him that part.
She continued, "She was talented. But such talents are wasted due to this human system you call the government. She had barely enough to sustain her own life."
Elmer leaned against the fry counter. "No wonder she was happy all the time, she must've been hiding all that using a facade."
She sighed. It was an oddly human sound. "She was nice," she said. "I do not often occupy nice hosts."
After closing, they cleaned.
Or rather, Elmer cleaned while Bleu made a very lazy attempt at mopping. She dragged the mop across the floor like she was slowly painting sadness onto tile.
"This is pointless," she declared.
"Yep," Elmer said, scrubbing ketchup off the soda machine.
"Why clean when you humans will soil it again?"
"Because the health inspector fined us last time."
Bleu nodded solemnly, absorbing this new human god. "The Inspector. A punitive spirit."
"Basically."
When they finished, Elmer shut off the lights and locked the door.
He expected Grace to disappear into some cosmic void or dissolve into mist or whatever gods did after business hours.
Instead, she stood there with her hands in Grace's pockets.
"Where do we go now?" she asked.
"We?"
She blinked. "I am in this body. She lived somewhere. I presume I am expected to go there."
"You don't have a place to go?"
"Gods do not have apartments," she said patiently. "Our place is an empty void, and this human body cannot access such a place."
"Well Grace had a studio apartment two blocks down."
Belphegor nodded. "Show me."
They walked through the city at night.
Neon signs flickered. Cars hissed by on wet pavement. A group of kids shouted near a bus stop. A drunk leaned against a lamppost and sang off-key. It was all so profoundly mundane that she slowed to stare more than once.
"Humans remain awake," she observed.
"Some of us."
"Why?"
"Rent. Addiction. Loneliness. Video games."
Bleu considered. "I like your world. It feels… exhausted."
"That's one way to put it."
They arrived at Grace's building, a three-story brick relic with peeling paint and a broken intercom. Elmer punched in the door code Grace had told everyone at work during that Christmas party two years ago.
The apartment was a mess. Not chaotic, just lived-in. Notebooks stacked on the floor, vintage movie posters tacked crookedly to the wall, camera batteries on the coffee table, and clothes draped over the futon like wilted bodies.
She calmly walked into the room as if it were her own home.
"These are her things," she murmured.
"Yep."
She moved toward the desk. A screenplay draft was open, handwritten and smudged.
SHE TAKES THE SHOT ANYWAY.
BECAUSE IF SHE DOESN'T, WHO WILL?
Her fingers traced the line.
Elmer lit another cigarette.
"I thought she was broke," he said. "But this place is even better than mine, I guess art school must be really expensive."
Bleu sat on the futon and sank into it dramatically. "This is comfortable," she declared. "I may want to stay here for quite some time."
"You're really just gonna keep the body?"
"For a little while," she said. "Perhaps forever. I like this world. It is tired. It suits me."
Elmer took a long drag.
"Fine by me," he said. "As long as you clock in by three tomorrow."
Belphegor smiled, still crooked.
He paused. "What do you even mean by a while? Don't you Gods live like…infinitely?"
"Maybe a couple hundred years, not very long."
He chuckled. "Humans don't live that long." Elmer stood by the window, smoke curling around him, and stared out at the city lights. In a world that had stopped surprising him years ago, this was somehow the least shocking thing to happen.